New Town, Old Friends

I meet up with my primary school classmates about twice a year. It is a chance for me to catch up with old friends and for past misdemeanors to catch up with me (a friend still delights in reminding me of the milk incident) [Correction: friend would like to point out that the incident involved a Yeo's packet drink instead of milk, "think was sugarcane", as well as a smashed piece of "butter/ fruit cake". the details, amusing though they may be, escape me ;P]. What I like about the gatherings is that any baggage has long since been cast aside in the name of friendship. Everyone realizes what a blessing it is to be able to keep in contact with like-minded friends made at an altogether more innocent stage of our lives and petty feuds and squabbles in our old primary school courtyard are now remembered only for the sake of a few laughs over a few drinks.

If I'm not wrong, our old primary school network was revived about six years ago when the guys were still serving their National Service. Since we parted ways thirteen years ago, I have often wondered how friends from the class of '90 have been faring: people I squatted coolie-style next to while brushing our teeth in front of a drain every morning with aerobics music blaring in the background, wringing thoroughly wet socks together after being soaked in the tropical rain on our way to school (we just about resisted whipping one another with them), and being fascinated by all the animals on excursions to the zoo even though they probably smelled just as bad back then.

When I was inducted back into the old school connection while still in University, the sense of rootlessness that has unconsciously dogged me over the years was finally quelled. Since then I've made it a point to attend every gathering even though I'm usually left clueless when the band members (I think almost every other Singaporean has a friend who is a band member in their school days) start talking about their ECA (call it CCA if you must, but students --- who are the ones who really matter anyway --- are oblivious to the supposed insinuation of the former abbreviation). Still, though I wasn't a protagonist in the stories, I was happy just to soak in the atmosphere as others reminisced over their past adventures in the band room. I guess other friends who turned up exhausted after a long day at work and sat relatively quietly in a corner of the table laughing over old times probably felt the same way.

Occasionally our former form teacher would join us in our outings as well. Given my propensity to daydream during lessons, it is probably a blessing that I was largely a nondescript student (apart from the milk incident) in a class of forty-two (incidentally, about fifteen people on average turn up for each outing). It is not fun and games all the time either, as former school mates and teachers who have unfortunately since passed away are remembered.

While all of us have chosen different paths to walk down, everyone still treasures our shared past from a bygone era and the mood of our gatherings captures the flavor of our friendship charmingly. Each time we set off to meet, we know that the harsh realities of life can be discarded fleetingly, safe in the knowledge that nobody will compare salaries with you, everyone will be dressed sensibly and we can all just look forward to a night of good, clean fun. To someone who does not have much, it means a lot. To those who have a lot, such unconditional friendship must seem doubly priceless.

Bus Journey

"Life is but a walking shadow.
It is a tale told by an idiot,
Full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
----William Shakespeare, Macbeth

This blog is neither full of sound nor fury. The complete absence of sound is due to, in no small part, my inadequate grasp of the complexities of midi sound files and the fact that they take an eternity to upload. And by and large, the reflective theme of this webpage is narrated in a mild-mannered tone. Not much fury to speak of, then. So the only link this site has to the above quote by Macbeth is that it carries many tales told by the same idiot.

But can that be right? I'm not disputing about the part about the idiot; but is it right to say that life signifies nothing? Oh, certainly not, you say, before going on to eulogize on the fulfillment that love, honor and friendship brings. But even if life signifies something, does death wipe its meaning away? Does it count for nothing in the end?

Most of us see death as a black hole that takes everything away, and so are afraid of dying. Zen Buddhists who have given up their material possessions and mortal wants have nothing to lose, and are at peace with the notion of dying. While I'm far from being spiritually enlightened, I think that death does not necessarily have to take away, but rather it can give meaning to life.

During Chinese New Year, it is customary to visit immediate and extended family members; a grand family reunion, if you like. This festival has always been a joyous and boisterous occasion to renew kinship, where literally the young and old congregate. While the festival was an exciting opportunity to have fun with my cousins in the past; now that we're all in our early twenties', I'd taken more interest in the older folk in recent years.

It might be a morbid and inappropriate thought given the celebratory occasion, but yet beneath all the festivities, in my mind's eye I see them dying. Their hair thinning and graying with each passing year, their faces wrinkling with age, and their eyesight increasingly beginning to fail them. And as my mind played back to my grandfather's funeral seven years ago, I saw myself at my aging relatives' traditional Chinese funerals, head bowed and knelt in front of their coffins, looking up and wondering if my converted Christian cousins were in attendance.

Albert Schweitzer wrote: When the path of life leads us to some vantage point where the scene around us fades away and we contemplate the distant view right to the end, let us not close our eyes. Let us pause for a moment, look at the distant view, and then carry on. Thinking about death in this way produces love for life. When we are familiar with death, we accept each week, each day, as a gift. Only if we are able thus to accept life---bit by bit---does it become precious.

So, instead of being afraid and pretending that the sceptre of death didn't exist, it might be more comforting to acknowledge that our limited time on earth makes us treasure and appreciate the people around us more.

I don't know where my ideas about death came about, but my grandfather's passing when I was fourteen taught me a lot about acceptance. I was very close to my grandfather, him having been a strong influence in my formative years with both of my parents working at that time. The line about people being harsh on their children but doting on their grandchildren is definitely true.

Anyway during that difficult period I had lots of negative emotions bottled up inside me. I was angry that certain people could just turn on the taps and weep unabashedly in spite of how they'd treated my grandfather. I was extremely guilt-ridden---for it was me who had discovered my grandfather when he was struck down by his stroke and didn't have the faintest idea of what to do. I was angry with my cousin for crying anyway even though he was too young to understand what death was, I was angry with my father for not being there at that ill-fated moment even though he might have, and above all I was angry at my own sense of helplessness.

I only got over my torment when I saw my grandfather again, in my dreams. I was walking towards the bus-stop opposite my house on my way to school as usual. Then I noticed that it looked the way it did ere its renovation a few years ago. Had time turned back, implausible as it may seem? Curious, I continued walking, studying the old bus-stop intently. There was an elderly man in blue shirt, black pants and shoes sitting under the shelter---my grandfather. Rapturous, I ran towards him and sank into his embrace, feeling his warm, comforting figure wrapped around me once more. I told him how much I missed him and that I loved him, oblivious to the crowd at the bus-stop.

One by one, the commuters left the bus-stop to board their respective buses, whilst I sat there confiding in my grandfather all the while. Eventually the bus to take me to school came, and my grandfather beckoned me to board it. I shook my head, looking searchingly into his benevolent eyes. Go, he insisted. Your bus is here. Reluctantly, I boarded the bus, and waved goodbye to him one last time.

That morning, I woke up basked in a light from a higher power. My grandfather used to walk me to and from primary school, and he had returned to release me from my torment. His journey was complete, he could now sit down resting at the bus-stop; but my bus had come calling, and I had my own long, arduous journey to undergo. But whenever I suffered bouts of motion sickness, I could always take heart, safe in the knowledge that my grandfather would be waiting for me at the terminal station.

幸福

她问我，“我的幸福在哪里？”
十九岁的他，不管爱得鞭体磷伤，依然对爱情充满了憧憬。
“幸福”，是能与你的最爱白头偕老。
“幸福”，是把你最特别的她抱在怀里，一起看日出。
“幸福”，是当你们不在一起时，快乐的感觉未呈渐淡。
“幸福”，是她一个单纯的微笑都能让你觉得人生充满意义。
“幸福”，在我十九岁之后，早已变得很陌生。
幸福最好掌握在自己的手里；就算最终不能天长地久，它依然属于你百宝盒里最珍贵的回忆。

Weird

Nerves has been going around snapping candid photographs of our last semester in University ever since she bought a digital camera, video camcorder and mp3 player gadget all rolled into one. And she wonders why the batteries take eons to charge but run out all too quickly.

Owing to her mission to capture remnants of college life before time runs out, I have found myself an unwitting character in her home-made videos more often than once. A typical closing scene would have me looking into the lens and asking, "Are you using that stupid video cam again?" to which she would reply with a "yar?" trailing off at the end.

Observing yourself on film and listening to your own voice on a recorded message must rank as two of the weirdest activities though they seem deceptively innocuous. It doesn't seem like much, but often people find their voice "funny" when they hear it for the first time, though Celine Dion probably lacks that level of self-consciousness.

Once Nerves zoomed in on my writing hand as I was working on a sum, all five fingers nipping the tip of the pen. The camera panned around to her face. "Look at the way he writes." she whispered, her eyebrows raised in an arch. "Weird." And it was, too.

Heaven and Earth

I took to drinking "Heaven and Earth" Reunion tea during meals in school recently in the run-up to my exams. I guess this special edition drink is a marketing product primarily aimed at preying on consumers' health-consciousness and sense of tradition, since you can probably accuse the drink of being a green tea bandwagon jumper, and given the fact that it was launched around Lunar New Year this year canned in auspicious red.

I suppose I sub-consciously went for the unappreciated drink on the shelf initially given that it was no longer in fashion being three months past its prime. However the subtle honey taste that lingered on my tongue agreed with me so I saw no reason not to continue choosing it.

Out of curiosity, Nerves, who usually drank from her personal bottle of water, finally got a can for herself. "Hmm it’s nice." she said, impressed with what she had just tasted. After our meal her can was still half-filled. "It tasted lovely at first," she said, sipping the drink. "The second sip was still fine, but I found it getting more ordinary the more I drank."

"I guess that sums up your philosophy to life." I shrugged. "I’m not going to argue with you." she shot back.

Outrageous

Helianthus had the most studious demeanor during lectures most of the time, when she wasn't otherwise doodling on my notes. But she also wrote the most outrageous comments on lecturer's appraisal forms, though she usually erased them before submitting her feedback forms.

This private joke went on for about three years, but finally on one occasion, after she had written some disparaging remarks about a particularly boring lecturer and had had a good giggle over it, I slipped the form away just as she was reaching for her eraser and handed it to the student volunteer collecting our feedback.

She covered her mouth, her eyes wide open in amazement at me, as if she was saying, "I can't believe you did that!" before jabbing me gently on the arm. I should be able to have the cast removed by the end of this week.

Sam

My father used to give tuition to primary school children in our home and there were times when I felt that our abode was fast developing into a motel with the number of strangers streaming in and out past our creaky metal gates.

One day, he brought an unexpected guest home together with my lunch. The boy was one of his tuition students and my father had found him loitering in the playground near our house. As we sat down for lunch together, my father introduced us in his own brusque manner. “This is Sam. He has run away from home again. His parents are separated, so he is a very pitiful boy.” Nice touch, that. Then it was my turn to be introduced. Nodding in my direction, he offered, “This is my son. Don’t worry, he is a nice boy.” I cringed. No worries, Sam. I’m not exactly a cannibal.

Sam seemed mild-mannered in contrast to some of the tiny terrors who used to come for tuition. Seated opposite me across the dining table, his short boyish crop and fair complexion highlighted his doleful eyes. They were beautiful eyes, large and expressive, and rippled with the reflections of his inner soul. Yet the only emotion that they reluctantly betrayed was one of a tender sadness.

Sam didn’t speak much, nor did I. When my father empathized with Sam’s anger at the world, I thought I saw Sam’s eyes ignite with a fiery glint. Then my father went on to reassure him that everything had happened through no fault of his own, and that his experience would ultimately make him a stronger person. Sam nodded his head earnestly, trying to make some sense of the turmoil in his life.

After lunch, my father went through Sam’s homework with him while I sat around reading a book. My father then left for work after calling Sam’s mother, leaving me to keep an eye on Sam until his mother came to pick him up after work. I wanted to have a chat with Sam, hoping that I could somehow comfort him, but given that my conversational skills were as limited as camels in the ocean, I dug out some yellowing Spiderman comics --- decorated with authentic cobwebs --- to keep him occupied.

Eventually Sam’s apologetic mother called to say that she would be over in half an hour. As I walked Sam down to the main road to wait for his mother, I asked him where he lived. It was a simple question to most people, but my innocent query was evidently causing Sam some distress. After struggling with himself, he eventually whispered in his waif-like tone, the separate addresses of his biological parents.

Reeling from my own insensitivity, I tried again, asking Sam if he’d like me to bring him out for a movie someday. There was a moment of contemplative silence before he replied with an affirmative smile.

There were two things that I noticed about Sam through the brief dialogue we had. The first was that he took extreme care to analyze every question contemplatively, taking his time to think them over, before venturing an answer. The other thing I noticed was that he didn’t know what he liked. Sam had no favorites.

It seemed that the pain of rejection had caused Sam to retreat into a self-defeating shell in which he could deny his own feelings. To profuse a liking for anything would be a sign of weakness. To hold onto his sanity in the turmoil around him, he had insulated himself from his own emotions. Hence he had no favorite color, no favorite song and no favorite sport. He liked nothing in particular. This way, nothing could be taken away from him ever again.

It could be that Sam just didn’t feel comfortable confiding in someone who bred silverfish in yellowing comic books, but that wasn’t the case. Sam did tell me about himself, but he only described the activities that he participated in, devoid of any emotional input. Thus when I asked him about his favorite sport, he answered, “Nothing in particular. But my mother brings me roller-blading sometimes.” When I asked where, he just shrugged after another thoughtful silence. “Everywhere.”

I found myself grieving over the loss of spontaneity in an eleven year-old child. Being able to react spontaneously is a precious gift granted only to the innocent, before years of experience and social-conditioning eventually erode it into a more skeptical and unquestioning nature. Yet Sam labored over all of his answers. On his face was written a world-weariness not befitting of an eleven year-old.

I guess I saw a lot of myself in Sam. The sadness, denial, contemplation and weariness. I couldn’t pin-point the exact moment when I lost my spontaneity as a child, but it was a rather marked change. Perhaps my grandfather’s death had a lot to do with it. Suddenly nothing was so simple and straight-forward anymore. I became guarded and found myself floundering insecurely in this new world that seemed to engulf me like an abyss at times.

“Is that your mum’s car?”

I pointed out the yellow convertible turning into our street. Sam didn’t answer. He just walked up to the road, almost hurriedly, and got into the car without turning back to say goodbye. His mother turned to him, as if prompting him to wave goodbye, but Sam just looked down at his feet. Almost embarrassingly, she waved to me, smiling sweetly, before driving off.

It would be so easy to walk away, to be driven into the comfort of your own world. But Sam, sometime in life, you will have to take over the wheel, and when that time comes, looking down at your feet just wouldn’t do at all.

One Step Forward

Oolong Tea

My secondary one Chinese teacher used to liken marking our essay scripts to drinking Chinese tea. Some essays were soothing like herbal tea, agreeable and leaving a lingering pleasant aftertaste. Others were like oolong, bitter and frown-inducing. When marking our scripts, he would alternate between oolong and herbal tea to neutralize the unpalatable effects of the former. I thought it was a very clever analogy even though I knew quite obviously which category my essays belonged to. Suffice to say even I wouldn’t have said no to a double dose of jasmine flavor when reading my own work back then.

Until I was in secondary school I never read a Chinese storybook from cover to cover. I don't think I even got through one chapter of a single book. There are vague recollections of storybooks about legendary soldiers lying around, but they remained incomprehensible and neglected till they were banished to the big-collection-of-useless-stuff department in a large forbidding cupboard.

All the years of neglect meant that I had a huge gap to bridge when I took up Chinese as a first language, which incidentally I was eligible for on the strength of my other subjects, in secondary school. Suddenly I had to write a critique of one newspaper clipping weekly. Suddenly I was expected to read Chinese newspapers.

Since the only Chinese newspapers lying around at home were my grandfather's copies of the evening edition tabloids bought chiefly for the 4D results printed on them, and I didn't know any better at the time, the first few clippings I selected were mostly of the rather sensationalist variety: taxi driver's throat slashed by robber; bar hostess disfigured in acid attack, and so on.

I think it was into the second month of school when my esteemed teacher finally saw fit to pass a few general comments about our work turned in so far. In short, the quality of our writing corresponded to the newsworthiness of the newspaper clipping. If the clipping was on a worthy topic such as a national policy or social commentary, then the critique was likely to be a well thought-out and fluent piece. On the other hand, garbage news rather tends to induce garbage comments.

I don't know if that was aimed specifically at me, but I took his comments on board and made an effort to buy the Chinese broadsheet for at least one day per week from that day onwards. My first attempt at reading a Chinese broadsheet was extremely trying to say the least. Most of the words in the bold headline screaming out for recognition were met with a blank look and the first paragraph alone took a few minutes to digest, word by word.

Gradually the newspaper reports I chose to write on became more up-market: lawyer embezzles millions; corrupt civil servant stashes bribes into secret account. Just kidding. My writing was still deplorable I suppose, but at least I had a better variety of news reports to choose from now.

At the same time we also had to do book reviews of storybooks --- which were thankfully mostly compilations of short stories or novellas, which I found more manageable. Some of the stories were rather meaningful as well, which added to my enjoyment of getting to grips with the language. There are people who detest doing things they’re not adept in, but I was never like that. Any sign of weakness is an opportunity to improve oneself, a challenge to be overcome. Or so I think anyway.

Looking back it's been a long journey, but at that time I only treated each assignment as individual class work to be completed on time. I never begrudged my Chinese teacher for his unflattering opinion of my work; on the contrary I respected him for his forthrightness and strove even harder to produce a standard of work acceptable to him. Personally he was always encouraging to me as well, recognizing the effort I was putting in. Unlike my overzealous Chinese Literature teacher who made us memorize and recite Tang poems every lesson, he was nurturing and never overbearing, so I had no reason to dislike him.

Interestingly my Chinese teacher was also appointed my form teacher in Secondary Two. While many teachers write mostly clichéd comments in report books like "Student X needs to put in more effort in maths and history" and "So-and-so is a well-liked girl in class who always hands in her work on time", Zhao laoshi [teacher] was his usual candid self. He quoted only a ten-word Chinese phrase in my report book yet the comments though brief rang true. They translate into "If one has the endeavor, even a metal rod can be polished into a needle." Or as he might have said, with expert preparation even unappetizing oolong tea can be brewed into an exquisite delicacy.

Zhu Chang Fen

"Nobody ever appreciates artificial flowers as we know they'll be around forever."

--- overheard at a CNY bazaar

It is the late 1980s, a hot and sticky afternoon. The school bell rings relentlessly like a headache-inducing pneumatic drill to mark the end of the school day and we line up in twos at the front of our classroom, large water tumblers slung across a shoulder and oversized bags clung onto our backs, before filing out in an orderly manner. Outside, we are joined by children from other classes and all semblance of order is soon lost as rows of twos merge into one another until a bottleneck forms in the common corridor.

I see my grandfather waiting in the school porch as we edge out slowly step by step. He is there again. He is always there. Always in his blue short-sleeved shirt, black trousers and with a black umbrella in his hand.

Not again, I think. I do enjoy our fifteen minutes walk home from school together but I am now a middle form student and to be frank I am starting to get embarrassed by all this close parenting. After all, I am very well capable of carrying my oversized schoolbag and walking home alone by myself, just like most of my classmates.

I walk up to my grandfather and see some red zhu chang fen sauce around his mouth. There are dark red stains on his blue shirt as well. Oh god this is simply embarrassing, I think. He must have stopped by the coffee shop for a bite on his way to picking me up. Why doesn't he wipe the sauce off with his handkerchief? Someone should offer him a piece of tissue paper.

He is chatting with my classmate's mother as I approach him. "Oooh, that's your grandson," she coos in that condescendingly annoying adult tone in Hokkien. I tug gently at my grandfather's age-spot dotted hand and start to walk away. Let's get out of this place, I think. The mother shouts after my grandfather as I lead him away, "Take care, ah chek [uncle]!"

Later I find out that it was not zhu chang fen sauce splattered around my grandfather's face after all. He had fallen flat on his face on an unforgiving concrete pavement on his way to my school. The dark red stains on his blue shirt were that of his own blood. Needless to say, I felt like the worst grandchild in the world.

My grandfather still continued walking me to and from school most days of the week after that incident but I never felt embarrassed about it again. A few years later when I was in Primary Five, my father asked me to take the school bus to school, which of course drew howls of derision from me initially. My grandfather was getting old, he explained, and he wanted to save him the daily exertion.

It was one of the first times I was consciously aware of making a sacrifice for the sake of someone else. To someone who was handed his own set of house keys at the ripe old age of nine (I was already a latchkey kid before I had even heard of the word, much less understood what it meant), taking a school bus to school packed with lower Primary kids everyday was practically a form of emasculation. Still, I went along with the arrangement in a rather cooperative manner, though I often alighted early across the road, opposite my house, before the school bus made a large detour just so that I could sneak up from behind on my grandfather, who would be waiting for me at the designated stop in front of our house.

After I was posted to a secondary school two bus rides away, I thought the days of our long walks together were effectively over. So it was to my surprise that I saw an old man one morning clad in unmistakable blue shirt and black trousers ambling up the hill, looking lost, as throngs of students were streaming out of classrooms to get to the terraces for flag raising.

I ran up to him just like before, but this time I only felt a sense of guilt instead of public embarrassment. Holding his wrinkled hand, I pointed out my classroom to him with my other hand. He nodded his head dismissively and waved me towards the terraces before turning back downhill towards the bus-stop.

I watched him walk away, his sweat-stained back betraying the effort he had made to reach the top of the hill. Without knowing why, I chased after him and tapped him lightly on his shoulder. I'm going to join the other guys for flag raising now, I signaled, since he is deaf. He nodded his head again and waved me away. Go on, you silly boy, be on your way already. And he turned away again, walking step-by-step to the bottom of the hill and under the giant arch before he disappeared from sight.