mid-day sun

happy

2010-09-27T20:55:00.000+08:00

they say that it's darkest before the dawn, and now i know it to be so.

after the emotional torment that went on in the beginning of this year, things took a sudden turn for the better, much better. strange how it all happened. all at once, without warning. almost as if a switch had been flipped. or as if the dawn sun shot up high from the horizon. brightness flooded all my senses.

i remember how it was when we first met, when every text message made my heart sing, every touch made my skin tingle. it is not like that now, i don't sing or tingle like a fool in love, but i feel a reassuring comfort in my heart. i belong. i am here.

i have not been so quietly happy for a long time now.

at first, i was afraid that it would all soon evaporate, like a mirage that cruelly taunts, slightly out of reach.

but no, it wasn't a figment of my imagination. it was all real.

i lapped up this bliss like a thirsty wanderer, relieved that it was indeed a cool refreshing oasis.

i am happy.

how does love die?

2010-04-16T10:21:00.002+08:00

how does love die?
little by little, fading away to mediocrity?
by leaps and bounds, unable to forgive and forgetting too fast?

you said, i don't love her anymore, haven't had for a long time.

what do i say to that, when one day, i might become "her"?
will i love you enough for the two of us?

is love all that is needed to sustain a relationship?
what happens when our love isn't enough?

he loves me, he forgot!

2010-04-15T10:55:00.000+08:00

he loves me
he loves me not

now does he loves me
or does he not?

if he loves me
he wouldn't have said such rot
maybe he loves me
just not a lot

but why wouldn't he love me?
i'm his slave robot
but why couldn't he love me?
cos my temper is hot
but why shouldn't he love me?
of that i can't say a lot

he loves me?
he loves me?
he loves me?
helovesmenot!

so does he...
... or does he not?

i think he does
maybe he forgot!

tears

2010-04-14T07:14:00.001+08:00

the human body consists of 80% water.

i lay in bed thinking about all that had happened.
remember all that you had said last night.
a giant wave of sadness hit me.

how did we let things go so badly? am i such a monster in your eyes?

the human body consists of 80% water.
mine now contains only 63% water.

delayed response

2010-04-13T10:41:00.001+08:00

when i saw the doctor on monday, he said the tenderness behind my ears were a result of tight jaw muscles. it was not an ear infection, as i had hoped. an infection would allow me the luxury to mope in bed all day. if the infection was serious, it might even be a week. no such luck though.

too stressed? he asked. i don't know, i replied. i feel numb. he raised an eyebrow but made no further comment.

he stuck a rubber gloved finger into my mouth and poked. hard. this muscle closes your jaw, he said as he jabbed at it. i felt the pain from another universe. it was strange with the doctor's hand in my mouth. he did the same to the muscle on the other side. my ear popped - it had been blocked all morning. i could hear in stereo again.

i would have sighed with relief if not for his hand still in my mouth.

do you feel anything? i shrugged. he jabbed even harder. the pain shifted a few light years closer to my universe, though it was still distant.

you must have a very high pain threshold, he said. i knew that already, foot reflexologists always tell me that, masseuses too. most people would have tears running down by now.

not me... not yet...

this morning, the tears came. it was a delayed response triggered by a random thought that cracked my defenses; my carefully constructed shield of numbness fell away. i felt the pain. finally. this pain that laid dormant inside my heart, now awakened, sending piercing spikes through my entire being.

the floodgates opened and the tears came freely. there's no stopping now.

cure

2010-04-11T09:53:00.001+08:00

i only know one cure for broken hearts - time. which is why i use lots of thyme in my cooking. sometimes parsley or basil. sometimes coriander or rosemary. but always with a lot of chili and too little salt.

only thyme will tell, they say. tell me what? i want to know... but my herbs remain silent.

the sting of chili makes my eyes tear.

photo

2010-03-24T16:40:00.001+08:00

i have been tidying up my hard disk of all my old photos. i am surprised to note the dates on these photos of where i had been, what i had done, whom i had met. a mild sense of shock at how long ago the events took place. can it really be so long ago?

19xx-2001, photos were taken on film. i had scanned quite a number of them and though they are stored in jpg format, almost all of them don't work anymore. corruption? incompatibility? who knows. maybe the photos themselves have forgotten what they are supposed to display.

i lived a typical life of a singaporean girl. i studied hard, graduated and then i worked long hours, i played netball for a club. on weekends, i went out dancing with my friends at night, while in the day we wakeboarded and scuba dived. my film photos are lost now, though the heady days of financial freedom (we were earning salaries!) is etched deep in my memory. what fun it was - we were kings of the world!

in june 2001, i moved to the uk and said good bye to that chapter in life. 2001-2003 saw a smattering of photos of life in the uk. new places, new colleagues, how cold can winter get? new job, new life. i didn't even like indian food but english food was too bland. new environment, new culture. i moved 3 times in 2 years. i remember it with dread and nostalgia all mixed up together; i loved and hated london but was mostly trying to find my niche in a city that threatened to swallow me up. *gulp*

2004 saw an explosion of photos. reason? simple - i had bought a digicam. it followed me wherever i went, a photojournalist recording all that i saw. *click* it was also the year when i moved to france. everything went on the record: sunsets, la seine, the eiffel tower, snow in paris, the alps, friends, absolutely everything! moving from a 36 film roll to the 300-odd photos my memory card could hold, the world had no limits. i was liberated! photos of europe abound for the next years.

then came 2008, another explosion of photos after i moved back to singapore. to me, everything in the region was fascinating and vibrant after the old world. what a refreshing change! the boyfriend had moved to singapore too, and so our photos were mingled together. it's weird yet flattering to be the subject of photos instead of the photographer - but i like it. 2009 won the record for the most number of photos as i bought a DSLR and fish-eye lenses. nobody could say no to a big-nosed photo of themselves. i love the lenses because the distorted point of view offered a different way to see the world

and now, 2010. i haven't been as active with my cameras yet. after sorting through more than a decade of photos - such precious memories! - i am compelled to start snapping again.

1-2-3, say cheese!

tree

2010-03-12T15:13:00.002+08:00

it grew and grew and finally one day, it toppled after a heavy tropical storm.

there wasn't a loud crash, mainly because i wasn't there to hear it, but also because i could only imagine it doing a graceful fall, its broad leaves flapping in slow-motion helplessness like lime-green fishes drowning in air, until it came resting on the fence.

and there it stayed, at an angle across the front of my house while its beautiful crown of leaves cascade over the neighbour's front yard.

i came back from work and stared in dismal at the leaning tree. technically it was our tree because it was a weed that took root in our front yard. it looked pretty and so i left it alone, sometimes even encouraging it with fertilisers. i loved the idea of a tiny weed growing into a giant tree, right there in front of our eyes. it was already 5m high, doubled in height since we moved in 6 months ago.

a matter of time that this would happen. the grandmother next door had warned me: the roots of the tree were unable to reach the soil below the concrete ground. instead, they spread over the ground and around my flower pots. it wouldn't hold, not sturdy enough.

and now...

the grandmother next door wanted me to cut the tree down. the reclusive uncle living on the other side offered to lend me his saw. yes, i said to them. but let me talk to the landlord first. deep inside, my heart screamed in anguish: i can't kill a tree!

cut it down now, the 2 aged neighbours were like a bloodthirsty lynch mob. get rid of it now! they were bored and wanted to see some action. this tree-killing would be a welcome distraction from the usual brainless crap on tv.

they insisted, i persisted. i won.

we tied the tree back up, offering it temporary support. now the evil-looking saw is on my dining table waiting to be called into action.

cut cut cut, said the landlord. i don't care as long as you do the hard work.

cut cut cut, chanted the incontinent lynch mob.

cut cut cut, we shall, this weekend.

it is my birthday weekend. i don't enjoy killing a tree on any normal day, but i find it a particularly distasteful task to do on my birthday. another neighbour suggested that we try to pot the tree. i like his idea. i have a huge pot sitting empty and we could try. but i haven't heard of a potted plant that is 5m tall, have you?

happy birthday to me. happy re-birthday day to the tree, i hope.

clubbing

2010-03-08T14:42:00.000+08:00

i love this song, she exclaimed and started swaying gracefully to the music.

this hip club was the place to be these days. never mind that we had queued to get in and then squeezed with the thirsty crowd to get our drinks. it was the weekend and we were having fun! yay!

i couldn't muster the same level of energetic enthusiasm that she did, dancing away. i had never heard this song before in my life and in fact, i thought it was a forgettable aneamic dance song. but it was rare that i went to a dance club these days and i wanted to keep an open mind. maybe the song was all the rage on the dancefloors now. if so, i'd better get acquainted with it. i danced along.

surrounded by girls who dressed like it was the queen's birthday party, i felt a wee bit out of place in this pulsating club. i was dressed in my new blue silk jumpsuit-shorts (bought in paris - where else?). i thought it looked really cute with gold high heels but yet i felt underdressed in the midst of fake eyelashes, strings of pearls and immaculate hair. when did clubbing become such a fancy affair?

looking stylish and sexy in her tiny figure-hugging dress, my friend shared her secret: doesn't matter what you wear as long as it's extremely short! she pointed to the hemlines on other girls with glee. see!

suddenly my cute blue silk jumpsuit-shorts felt grandmotherly. i felt grandmotherly. a big american guy stepped on my toes. i protested. sorry, grandma. he stomped on. did he really say that???

my patience was wearing thin. i needed another drink but couldn't brave the thirsty masses still crowding the bar. my feet were starting to hurt from the gold high heels and it was way past my bedtime.

the song came back on, maybe it was another similar-sounding song. i couldn't tell and didn't care to love it anymore. everybody looked half my age and in a few year's time, i would be bumping into my friends' children in clubs like these. *shudder*

time for grandma to quit the scene and head back home to her cosy bed. yay!

night songs

2010-03-03T12:11:00.001+08:00

for some unfathomable reason, as i laid in bed last night, jetlagged from paris, trying to catch that elusive time-confused shuteye, barbra streisand decided to croon gently softly in my head. yes, barbra - funny girl with the big nose.

like an ipod set on repeat mode, her duet with bryan adams i finally found someone came back again and again in my head. the funny thing was, only her part of the song was featured throughout my demented night.

i tossed. "...started over coffee, we started off as friends"

and i turned. "this time it's different... nah nah nah nah..."

more 90s adult contemporary "nah nah nah nah"s later, the build-up for the finale. "my life has just begun... i finally found... someone!"

and it went all over again, back to the opening bars on the piano. all night, i tossed and turned in accompaniment.

around 4 or 5 in the morning, ms streisand decided it was time to stop singing and i gratefully drifted off to a dreamless sleep.

if i have a choice tonight, who would i want to sing to me? bryan adams?

...nah nah nah nah..................

maze

2010-03-01T12:06:00.001+08:00

all the road names looked familiar. wasn’t it here that we were before? a right turn off the main road, another wisp of memory floated by. familiar places displaced by time. i have not been back in this parisien neighbourhood since moving back to singapore.

my phone rang. where are you? i don’t know, i think i’m lost.

disorientated by the ghosts of the parisien past, i trudged on in the cold drizzle that started, in search of the rendezvous point. should i take another right here? my champagne aperitif didn’t do much for my sense of direction.

i went into a bar to ask for directions. it was warm inside, the good-looking waiter gave me a blank look. he directed me back to the metro station. yes, i should start again from there. it shouldn’t be that far.

phone again. sorry that i’m so late. please place the dinner order for me - you still remember what i always have, don’t you? yes, exactly. i’ll be there soon.

on the other side of the road, the lit signboard of the restaurant beckoned. en fin! finally! after an hour of aimless circling, i found the centre of the maze. i stepped into the restaurant, nothing inside had changed in the past 2 years. you were waiting for me, worried frown that dissolved into a relieved smile and a welcome kiss. hello, how are you? ca fait trop longtemps… it’s been a long time since we met, too long…

our conversation picked up effortlessly as if we had not been apart for 2 years. you were never that good with emails or facebook nor skype. there was always something artificial at a distance but face-to-face, you could talk forever. and you did.

how wonderful to be back in paris again (even if it was a cold wet maze in the evening rain)!

drink!

2010-02-28T11:51:00.000+08:00

sms from me: how about a drink tonight?

sms from her: a drink sounds good but I don’t know who you are.

sms from me: who else would be thinking about a drink, so early on a Monday morning, 2 hours after a 13hour flight?

sms from her: ha! suspected that it was you but wasn't sure.

sms from me: so shall we meet near your office or near mine?

how wonderful to be in paris again (especially when there are bars a-plenty and friends to exchange stories with)!

recognition

2010-02-25T17:18:00.001+08:00

the waiter at my fav parisian restaurant handed me the menu absent-mindedly. then he turned his head and saw me. his eyes lit up.

it's you! comment ça va?

it had been months since i was there, i was surprised that he recognised me. the last time that i was there, i had helped translate the french menu for 3 separate tables of english speaking tourists. i guess not many of his customers do that. i enjoyed good service and great conversation for that meal.

recognition from the smiling waiter turned my heart into fondant au chocolat: a warm gooey feeling similar to rich dark chocolate melting slowly inside. my cheeks flushed pink.

how wonderful to be in paris again (even if it's grey and gloomy)!

underwater

2010-02-24T03:59:00.001+08:00

the warm dark water splashed gently when i slid beneath it in the bathtub. it enveloped me, slowly melting away the rigid muscles that permanently plagued my shoulders.

underwater, time stood still. the melodic drip drip drip from the faucet sounded distant from another universe. eyes closed, my breathing suspended - nothing mattered - i held on for as long as i could...

... and wondered what awaited me when i finally had to come up for air.

once upon a time...

2010-02-18T23:07:00.002+08:00

it was a special day. of course, i didn't know it then. in the morning, i was in bed, making a mental list of the things to do for the day. it was a rather busy sunday for me. i had friends coming for dinner that evening, as part of my chinese new year celebrations. i was making hainanese chicken rice, a popular singaporean specialty.

it was a hot february day, i remember that very well. i had a lunch to go to, a friend's birthday. i didn't particularly want to go, it would be filled with people i didn't know and didn't care very much for. i considered staying in bed all day instead, with the cat and my books, basking under the patch of sunshine filtering in through the grimy skylight. i would watch the dust motes dance within this beam of golden light and listen as the city slowly rouse herself on this beautiful sunday morning.

but it was i who roused herself on this beautiful sunday morning instead, reluctantly.

my phone rang, the birthday girl wanted to know if i was going. yes. but that was not why she called. she had invited "him" on an impulse the night before and she wanted to let me know so i wouldn't feel too awkward when i saw "him". "him"? well, "he" was a story that didn't work out last autumn. we left on friendly terms so i didn't particularly care but it bothered me that she went out of her way to befriend "him" towards the end, asking "him" out for walks and drinks and then recounting everything to me in her usual cocky way. she wasn't interested in "him", not even as a friend, she had told me that herself so i never quite understood what she was trying to acheive.

maybe she wanted to provoke a reaction from me, jealousy or anger, but i didn't see the point of fighting with her over "him". maybe she wanted to prove that i could be more successful with men, like she was, if i was a little more like her. for her, men were there to be seduced and she followed this maxim with gusto. maybe she did it simply because she liked the chase - she was competitive like that. but i wasn't and i couldn't and i wouldn't, so i didn't.

checking the map, the best way to the restaurant would be a few changes on the metro and then a short walk. or the direct metro to somewhere near and then a long walk. i chose the latter. it was a beautiful day, after all. i would be late, very late, but that was how i planned it to be, anyway.

i arrived drenched with perspiration from the walk. (it's a sight that you will get to know very well.) the day was a lot hotter than i had thought. we were seated together. lunch was served, i didn't like my food but the wine was flowing. i was happy to get out of the overheated restaurant to have a smoke with you - it felt like a sauna inside. we talked about random things. i remembered feigning self-confidence, pretending to be strongly opinionated, wanting to be interesting. it was my sad brave attempt to behave like the birthday girl.

i wasn't and i couldn't and i wouldn't, but i tried. (it could be that i did want to be successful with you.)

i had to leave early to prepare for dinner. as i was going, i saw you looking at me. our eyes met and you didn't look away. i didn't smile at you.

that evening, i told my dinner guests that i'd met you, that you were charming and that i kept thinking about you when i was preparing the food. we giggled and laughed like teenaged schoolgirls over that. the chicken rice dinner was a success, there were no leftovers.

************************

i am glad that i didn't stay in bed but went for the lunch that day, even though that would have been rather nice too. no, i wouldn't want to miss this very special day.

happy special day.

three tigers

2010-02-12T12:53:00.003+08:00

happy tiger year

may all our wishes come true.

global positioning system

2010-02-10T11:32:00.001+08:00

women usually ask for directions when they are lost. men, on the other hand, usually prefer to blunder around until they find the way. neither are better nor worse in any way. we just do instinctively what we are most comfortable doing.

this being the 21st century, some guys prefer to get the latest gps gadget to help them in their blundering around. which was what my friend did. on our way to dinner last night, he walked with his eyes glued to the screen, paying scant attention to his surroundings.

we were walking next to the construction for the new subway line. i laughingly warned that gps wouldn't show him where the potholes that he would fall into were, if he didn't keep his eyes on the treacherous makeshift pavement.

me, i prefer to blunder around - my heart is my internal gps. and just like the fancy new toy of my friend, my heart will not show me where the traps are if i am blind to reality.

have been blundering for a long time, i know that i will eventually find my way but my knees aren't what they used to be... i should stop, stop and ask for directions. but what happens if someone points me to the wrong way?

i still believe in my heart.

positive thoughts

2010-02-04T14:33:00.001+08:00

a friend told me that her mother said today is a very important day on the lunar calendar. her mother is in tuned with chinese beliefs of all kinds: fortune telling, feng shui and all factors that (may) influence our lives.

according to her, things happening today will dictate our paths in the coming lunar year which will start on 14 feb this year.

her mother told her to pay up all her credit card bills and whatever money that she may owe, so that she would not be in debt for the year. it was important to ensure a full stomach so that she would not starve in the coming months. money and food - the key concerns for the chinese. what else did this wise lady instruct my friend?

most important of all, she had said, was to be happy and have positive thoughts throughout the day.

i've kept to the advise of my friend's well-meaning mother all morning - think positive thoughts... positive thoughts...

it's 2.30pm now, i have another 9.5 hours to go. *positive*

translator

2010-01-27T20:41:00.002+08:00

i use google translator. it's easy to flip from english to french and flop back from french to english. my french sentences sound better and words are poshly accented. my anglo-saxon trained brain tapping on a qwerty keyboard doesn't do that easily.

every day, emails bounce in from different parts of the world and back out. flip-flop, flop-flip. everything clear, everything flows.

but i wish that there is a translator to tell me what is in your heart. and you, mine.

tail

2010-01-25T15:43:00.001+08:00

i want a tail.

not the heavy lifeless ones of the lizards, dragged along as they bask from sunny spot to sunny spot. not even the giant muscular tail of a crocodile impress me much. a quick swish to strike down the prey and a yummy meal, yes, but it wouldn't look good when i'm wearing jeans.

not the tail of a dog either. fluffy, stumpy or otherwise, all of them ever so eager to please and perpetually happy. is the dog wagging its tail or does it have a life of its own? i get dizzy just thinking about it. no no no, i do not fancy being compared to a female dog. that simply won't do.

a peacock's tail, perhaps. elegant and regal. i shall strut and display my gleaming tail all day. be awed! one thing though, only peacocks have the privilege of this wondrous tail; the peahens are brown and ordinary looking. so no emerald blue plumes for me!

but i do want a tail.

the cat stands next to me, her tail curl up nonchalantly around my leg. ticklish. affectionate. when she's scared, her tail becomes a big spiky brush. it makes me laugh as i try to calm her down.

i see the monkeys at the bukit timah reserve. they may be feral, but their tails are dainty and essential for their balance as they leap gracefully from tree to tree.

do i want a long slender tail like a monkey? a curly whorly pig's tail? or a bushy foxy tail that waves seductively at you? i want a tail that is an extension of my feelings and character.

what kind of a tail suits me?

the day that G went missing

2010-01-19T21:27:00.003+08:00

it was a day, like any other day. the sun was warmin the humidity in the air relentlessly, workin up to a tropical downpour in the late afternoon. it wasn't late afternoon yet, it was just 10 in the mornin . around this time, the children in the kinder arden were startin their sin in lesson. they have been learnin the alphabet son .

and that was when they discovered that the 7th letter of the alphabet was missin .

when i heard the news, i went online to search for it but i couldn't because oo le didn't work and the other search en ines weren’t quite as ood. I went to the usual places where alphabets would han out: keyboards, dictionaries, road si ns.

nowhere in si ht.

i bou ht a can of alphabet soup but there were only 25 letters floatin in the minestrone.

all over the world, the reaction was instantaneous. people were feelin distrau ht and rather upset. the reeks were particularly irate as they had turned into a nation of smelly people. the irish were drownin their sorrows in kilkenny as uinness just didn’t taste the same now. the irls were unhappy because their underwear became a heap of strin s; the men liked it thou h.

some felt a sense of betrayal. the ar entinean president announced that the waltz is their new national dance. reason? tan o sounded too much like dancin with two left feet.

the movies weren’t spared. kin kon didn’t sound too bad but odzilla would be rather… odd. not to mention odfather I, II and III. i heard that the mafia had taken out a contract on the missin letter.

amidst these repercussions, I couldn’t help but wonder at the reasons which compelled the letter to leave.

was it because of our bad dictation? that we don’t pronounce the letter at the end of verbs: sittin’ standin’ eatin’ sleepin’…? was it because we used it for words like erms and enocide? maybe it felt that it had lost its lory and lamour over the years.

certainly we had taken all the letters for ranted. there was never any praise for a beautifully composed word, but complaints a-plenty over illo ically spelled words. with spellcheck and its bossy auto-correct function, we cease to pay attention to the arran ement of letters. text messa es made thin s worse.

try as i mi ht, i couldn’t think of a ood reason for the 7th letter to come back. the reasons that drove it to leave would still be there. somethin needs to chan e, or there needs to be a li ht at the end of this badly spelled tunnel.

and then, will it return, cosy up with F and H, as a si n of support to the rest of the alphabet? to be a part of the camaraderie once a ain?

maybe. yes.

but we need to move fast. what will happen if more of the letters decide to leave?

amuse

2009-10-04T20:09:00.000+08:00

we were early for the movie and thought the amusement centre was a good place to while away a few minutes.

i followed you through the door...

... and a wall of whooping, beeping, wailing music came charging at us. *deafened*

... ... ... flashing lights, bright animation. so many things to see that we were *blinded*.

... ... ... ... ... and it smelled like someone had been smoking in there. non-stop. for 3 days. *yetch*

to my right was a fat guy throwing basketballs into a hoop. the counter read 268 and jumped by 2 every time he scored. the stop clock was running, counting down the time. his girlfriend looked on, hunched over with boredom and indifference. fat guy looked indifferent too, his arms moving mechanically.

*pick ball, throw ball, pick ball, throw ball*

why would anybody pay to do that was far beyond my comprehension. a basketball player wannabe, perhaps? certainly he was too short and fat to make it into the school team.

we surveyed the room. joy machines offering all permutations and combinations of violence, speed and adrenaline. bigger than life. better than life.

there was a crowd around the mortal combat machine. we took a curious look. like the rest, i was captivated by the fluidity of the on-screen fighters. they danced around the screen to their own tune of e-violence.

*front, kick, jump-turn-flying-kick, uppercut, sweep, punch*

the two players were about 14 years old, wearing specs and looked nerdy as can be. a far cry from their on-screen persona. their fingers flew across the controls with practiced ease.

*side-kick, dodge, punch, punch, retreat, flying-kick*

exchanged glances, we did. i frowned. you shook your head slightly. let's go!

we passed the fat guy on our way out. the stop clock had ran down. he score was 300something. i noticed that the top score record read 600something. commendable, especially when it was so mind-numbingly innane. he turned to leave. his girlfriend was still staring at the counter. i couldn't tell if she was impressed by his score or that she was too zoned out to notice. notice what?

game over.

at yoga last week...

2009-09-29T19:42:00.002+08:00

*breath in*

plank

*breath out*

crocodile

*breath in*

upward dog

*breath out*

downward dog

*brea-*

someone farted. very loudly.

*hold your breath and try not to laugh*

child pose

7th month

2009-09-24T20:03:00.006+08:00

the 7th lunar month came to an end at last.

the boyfriend was instructed not to kill or harm any large insects during this month, lest it be the spirit of my ancesters coming to check on me. whenever there was a wasp or a moth fluttering around, attracted by the bright florescent lights, i would run and seek refuge in another room. as i take my leave, however, i would quietly say "hello ah ma", in case it was my grandma visiting.

you never know.

i wouldn't expect my grandfathers' spirits to visit though. they were so entrenched in their archiac preference for boys to continue the family name (what so rare about our family surname?) that they had largely ignored me when i was young.

wouldn't expect that to change with death. if they came back, they would be hovering around my brothers, not me.

there was also a huge grasshopper hiding in one of my plants that i greeted every morning. it disappeared after the first week of the 7th month. maybe it got bored and hopped off to see the getai song and dance performances scattered all over singapore during this month. these getai shows were put up for the entertainment of the spirits, complete with scantily dressed singers, sexy moves and the whole works.

we believe that the gates of hell are opened on the 7th lunar month of the chinese calendar so that the spirits can visit their loved ones (and seek vengence too, probably). it's not exactly clear to me, but from what i understood when i visited haw par villa last year, the traditional belief is that there are no distinctions between heaven or hell.

when we die the good get reincarnated, while the evil-doers receive their due punishment and are tortured before they are allowed to be reincarnated. the methods of torture are very precise for the evil committed. exactly how long these punishments are mete, it wasn't stated at the haw par villa displays. i would presume a very long time, years and years.

(so don't lie, cheat and be respectful to your elders!)

during this month of remembrance, we burn material things to our departed family, all conveniently made in fire-friendly paper: cars, houses, clothes, tv sets, and of course a lot of money. money talks, even in hell!

we make food offerings and we ask to strike first prize in 4D. the chinese are practical people and extremely skilled in making deals: let me win 4D and i will burn you a sports car.

and though i am not a very superstitious person, i do secretly hope that my grandma had visited me in one form or another during this month. it would have been very nice. i miss her.

and now, we are a the 8th month. it brings along the most beautiful full moon of the year and endless sweet mooncakes. and the return of insect masacre.

tickle and itch

2009-09-20T23:02:00.000+08:00

a tiny little dot moved up my leg. it moved quickly spordiacally, stopping from time to time in between runs. it stopped. if i squint, almost crossed-eyed, i could see its feelers waving about in a purposeful manner, scenting the air. a mad dash diagonally across to the outside of my leg. it stopped again - to investigate a length of hair on my shin.

and so the little black ant proceeded up along my leg. quick run, investigate strange objects, mad dash, scent the air, dash, dash, dash.

i lifted my leg up for a closer inspection of this uninvited explorer: black common kitchen variety, resilient and very curious. my new kitchen was plagued with ants. this one had strayed into the living room and interrupted my slow drift to a blissful afternoon nap on the sofa.

another mad dash.

it crossed the kneecap area. now i could feel it moving on my more sensitive thigh area, a weird mix of tickle and itch. it was not an uncomfortable sensation but it wasn't that nice either.

*smack*

not so resilient after all, i flicked the flattened black speck off my hand and sunk back to my lazy drift into afternoon nap.

not the ABCs

2009-09-15T21:59:00.000+08:00

can you read the letters on the blackboard over there? she asked, squinting at the sign. she had her lasik procedure less than a month ago and was testing her newly improved eyesight.

i turned around to look at what she was pointing -------> the drinks list of a cafe. it wasn't that near, but even though i couldn't make out the individual letters (the handwriting wasn't good), i could make out the list of 200 variations of coffee served.

it's not about the ABCs, i told her. it's about which coffee tickles your fancy!

shoes too big

2009-09-10T17:50:00.000+08:00

i'm a child pretending to be a grown-up person.

i might do a good job of it from time to time, be a responsible and organised person who is reliable and calm. most times, i just stumble along, trying not to make too many mistakes. trying to hold everything together. trying not to get found out in these shoes that are too big for my kiddy feet.

often, i get overwhelmed. i over-react to regain the equilibrium inside. i get angry because it is the only thing i know. perhaps if i shout loud enough, the situation would be under control. while deep inside, i quake silently with fear in my too-big shoes.

sometimes i am lost. lost in this jungle of complexity. i feel all alone amidst the flashing lights and writhing dancers. the people around me, do their shoes fit like cinderella's or are they clomping clumsily around like me? how does one dance in these giant shoes?

occasionally, of course, i get it spot-on. everything falls right into place by luck or chance. i smile bravely and wriggle my toes with relief. i cross my fingers and hope to be lucky all the time.

i look down at my too big shoes and my skinny ankles. brown leather boots, well-made and sturdy, and clearly too big for me. i wonder who had made me wear them - was it my choosing? how long more before i grow into them? will i ever?

i am a child, just a child trying her darnest to be a grown-up person.

raphael

2009-09-07T17:56:00.000+08:00

over the weekend, my friend's dog died.

he died of old age and he was indeed very old. i have met him only once and he was, to me, a very fat chihuahau. at that time, he seemed to have taken a liking to me. dogs are not my favourite animals but i can be quite partial to chihuahuas and poodles. it followed me around for a little bit before plopping down with a huff. it was a hot day.

i heard that it was a sickly young pup once upon a time and my friend's mother fed it up nicely. it was something that asian mothers do very well, fattening up the young 'uns. i won't wax lyrical about him frolicking in doggie heaven now: the vision of a fat chihuahua sporting angel's wings and gnawling contentedly on a rubber slipper while sitting on a puffy cloud is too much for me to bear.

what is important is that he had a happy and contented life, and that is more than what i can say for many people i know. although my friend never referred to the dog by name, preferring to call him "my dog", "my stupid dog" or "my fat dog", i knew that he was very much loved, especially by my friend.

raphael was his name.

rest in peace.

fear and loathing in bali: metamorphosis

2009-03-06T18:23:00.000+08:00

when i woke up one morning from troubled dreams, i found myself changed into a snake in my bed.

at first i didn't notice the change. i couldn't feel my arms and legs but in my sleepy state, i had attributed the numbness to the red wine the night before. i rolled over and found that even after 5 turns i was still nowhere near the edge of the bed. truth be told, it was a rather big bed, one of those that you find in lux hotels. funny though, i didn't remember that the bed was so huge the night before.

i must be thirsty, i thought to myself as my tongue kept hanging out of my mouth. i realised that it was doing a flicking motion and no i wasn't thirsty at all. ssssstrange, i said. it was then that i knew something was wrong, terribly wrong.

looking down at my body, i saw a strong supple rope of muscle and scales leading down from my head. i started scrutinising all the details of my new body: smaller scales on the pale underbelly, the tapered tail, the differences in the 5 senses: sharper vision, scenting with my tongue, sensing vibrations instead of being reliant on my ears.

mind alert now, i tried to recall all that i knew about snakes from documentaries. snakes that eat elephants, snakes that swim, snakes that jump from tree to tree, snakes with lethal venom that kills in seconds, snakes that are tiny, snakes that dance and hypnotise, snakes with beautiful patterned scales, snakes that moult.

snakes were pretty cool creatures (i did love my pink snakeskin high heels...) and now i had turned into one.

on closer examination, my scales were in a dull shade of brown. not smooth or sleek like the snakes that i had seen before. i was slowly becoming aware of an uncomfortable sensation, as if i was wearing a jacket that had shrunk in the wash. breathing was a little laboured. i yawned to get more air. the skin around my jaw cackled and seemed to tear away. i took a deep breath and the tearing sensation spread down to the rest of my body.

i was moulting. too much sun at the beach the day before? perhaps. as a snake and i was not too concerned with sunburns anymore.

i jiggled my jaws to further loosen the old skin and gradually worked my way down. i freed myself bit by bit, progressing slowly. it felt like an eternity, and finally, done!

i looked at the old hollow skin next to me, me, glorious me. i was gorgeous in my new coat of shiny bronze scales. sssssso pretty. i hissed with deep satisfaction. how lucky that i didn't turn into one of those puny bright green garden snakes!

beside to me, the boyfriend stirred from his sleep. i had almost forgotten about him in my excitement. i waited patiently until he turned to me.

good morning, sssssweetie. how about a sssssnuggle before breakfasssst?

fear and loathing in bali: dancing with statues

2009-03-05T13:20:00.000+08:00

we turned the corner to the front of the temple with some difficulty. the sarongs were wrapped too tightly around our legs.

the women sitting nearby caught sight of us and giggled. in fact, they did more than giggle - they pointed at us and laughed outright. it sounded menacing, though they were only mocking our badly fitted sarongs. one of the women came up, smile of amusement still on her face, and proceeded to help wrap our cloth more comfortably.

with our newly fitted sarongs, we climbed up the stairs leading up into the temple. tranquility. all around us were weather worn statues of deities. i took a few close-ups. one of them winked at me through my camera lens. i reviewed the photos but there wasn't any mischievous glint in the statues' eyes on my screen.

must have been the sunlight, i thought. or the martini that i just had.

i went through a little doorway, just in time to see that a little statue had jumped from its perch and was clinging to the side of my friend's body. she shrieked and jumped about, a crazy dance spurred by horror. the statue held firm and bared its teeth at me.

i shrank back cowardly.

the boyfriend rushed forward and swatted at the stone figure that came alive. it hissed and leaped away into the relative wilderness in the far corner.

all around us, the other statues were beginning to stir...

we hitched up our sarongs and ran out as fast as we could. the mocking laughter of the women still ringing in our ears.

there was a cut on the boyfriend's hand where the wayward statue had lashed out at him. no apparent side effects though he had started complaining about stiff shoulders recently...

fear and loathing in bali : celestial snack

2009-03-04T13:11:00.004+08:00

on the beach i sat, admiring the glorious sunset in front of me. magnificent!

the clouds, in shades of deep red, hung so low that i could almost touch them. i reached out and brushed against one with the tips of my fingers. stretching out, i plucked a small red cloud out of the sky.

cool to the touch, it felt heavy and moist. like a damp sponge and not at all like the fluffy cotton candy clouds on hot sunny afternoons! i gave it a slight squeeze, water trickled down my arm. i licked the trail, my tongue following it up my arm, up my hand and then i licked the red sunset cloud. it tasted good, this red sky juice.

i took a hesitant bite at it. and then another. was i munching on a heavenly piece of watermelon or a red cloud from the evening skies? no matter, i was hungry. the air shimmered around me as i munched greedily. i took no notice. i was completely absorbed by my celestial snack. all too soon, i had eaten the entire cloud. i wiped my hands clean on my tshirt. cloud eating was a rather messy affair.

i looked at the skies hopefully. but the sun had set and it was too late to catch another red one. still hungry, i got up from the sand and headed back to my hotel for dinner.

it rained the next afternoon - a huge thunderstorm! i hid under my bed covers away from its angry eye. i cried tears of regret. my teeth that had bitten the red cloud so gleefully the night before now chattered and clattered with fear. i roared with repent when the forked lightning slashed across the grey sky with a crack of the whip.

no, no, never again!

the world turned upside down and i hid, safe under my bed covers, until the storm cloud rained out its rage at me, the insolent cloud-eater.

when i went out to the balcony, i saw the most radiant rainbow arch across the sky.

and i wondered how do rainbows taste like? i reached out eagerly towards it...

history repeating

2009-02-19T18:35:00.003+08:00

have you gone through life with a strong sense of déjà vu thinking, this is not happening again.

we go through the same thinking processes make the same decisions and finally we make the same mistakes. learn from your mistakes? that only applies to the young and the very determined. we cannot change who we are or how we function. the layout of our brains has long been hardwired. it would take massive brainwashing from a doomsday cult or perhaps a complete shock to the system to change the way we are.

i don't change. i can't change. i've known that of myself for a long time. i can accommodate, i can adapt. certain things bring out certain aspects of myself but it is still me. i'm always me.

when i was living in all the various parts of the world, i did exactly the same things that i would have done in singapore. i set resolutions to stop drinking, to exercise more, to be more outgoing (essential when you're a stranger in a strange land). in the end, i was always attracted to the same type of friends, did the same activities and never exercised enough to have a healthy heart.

none of my resolutions ever last and i revert to my true self with the passing of time. and i make the same mistakes. over and over again.

this is not happening again.

i ask myself if things were as what i wanted and what i could do to get out of this trap. for it is a trap: it is a groundhog day without any chance of improvements.

i've seen it before, and i'll see it again. just a li'l piece of history repeating...

stop now, stop.

hotel bates

2009-02-15T21:40:00.011+08:00

the financial crisis hit and virtually all my work travels had gone... virtual. web conferences, emails and conference calls have replaced my "airports, lush hotels and generous expense account" lifestyle of 2008.

we saved a hell lot of money. we didn't progress very much in our work but that doesn't matter. the bottom line is that we didn't spend any money and the bottom line is all we care about these days.

i fumed away in the office twiddling my thumbs. frustrated by the lack of progress, i managed to squeeze in a trip. but wait, there was a catch! my usual hotel was deemed to be too expensive and i had to stay at another one down the road. what kind of a hotel is it? i'll give you a few clues...

a hotel that hires kids to paint pictures for their walls.

a hotel that encourages their guests to drink tap water.

there were no drinks in the fridge (at least there was a fridge) and no doors for the cupboard either (at least there was a cupboard ).

not that i like to bitch (and i do) but hey, i do like my complimentary bottles of mineral water. this "airports, cheap hotels and meagre expense account" lifestyle for 2009 does not work at all.

i forsee a miserable week ahead. wonder if i can weasel my way home a little earlier...

ugly duckling

2009-02-14T19:35:00.002+08:00

i threw a glance at the crying, brawling red faced little thing.

bundle of joy? whoever said that babies were a bundle of joy were either 1)stone-deaf 2)death metal music fans or 3)just darn lucky with a chirpy little thing.

my darling niece at home is definitely not a chirpy little thing. her operatic performance is comes on like clockwork every hour, without fail, night or day. her cries are specially pitched to pierce through the closed doors and thick walls for souring the sweetest of dreams in the deepest darkest nights.

i've always thought that i love kids. but recently, i've been secretly calling her little monster. but only when the rest of the family is not within earshot. i wouldn't want to be branded as the weird evil spinster aunt. i tread a thin line between normalcy and being burnt as a witch. and having a cat doesn't help with the image either.

talking about the cat, she has been feeling anxious about the new baby. we found a few bald patches on her beautiful coat of fur last week. apparently cats over-groom themselves when suffering from great stress or anxiety, resulting to bald areas on their body. i have a cat who's into self-mutilation - my very own psycho-cat! i've been trying to shower her with more attention. i guess it's always assuring to have someone scratch you on the spot between the ear and the nape, especially if you're a cat. *purr*

i think it's working. she spent last night licking my hand instead.

exhausted, the little monster drifted off to sleep. i'm looking at her, a perfect picture of peace now. her miniature fingers, exquisitely formed, were curled up. i caressed her baby soft hair. it was more like a big round head with some strands of jet black hair. not the most beautiful sight in the world, but ever so soft like velvet or silk that i couldn't stop touching it.

was i like that when i was a few weeks old: a toothless hairless red-faced little monster that did nothing but eat sleep cry and poo? how did babies survive in the caveman days? wouldn't indiscriminate screaming on top of your lungs draw unwanted attention from the predators? how did all those eating sleeping crying pooing cave-babies manage to avoid the teeth of the sabre-toothed tiger? do the young of other mammals behave with such casual arrogance? shouldn't evolution reward the defenseless for being discreet?

the baby stirred. her limbs jerked and stretched. i wonder what dreams she was having. she looked quite cute now that she was quiet. i patted her tiny chest.

grow up quick, my little ugly duckling. and please please please let me sleep peacefully tonight. or else... i'll set my psychotic sabre-toothed cat on you.

real to surreal

2009-01-28T11:09:00.001+08:00

a friend recently went to the opening of an exhibition held by hermes.

it was the kind of pretentious exhibition where the artists had made a brave attempt to bridge surrealism with reality... blurred images hovered all around while paper forests hinted at lurking paper wolves. anything will look artistic in monotone, or in dramatic lighting, or both.

and there was a vast overdose of both.

although several of my favourite artists, singers and writers were cited as influences for this exhibition (which was why i visited it a few days after the opening), i found this interpretation unoriginal and uninspiring.

neither did it inspire my friend.

rather, it was the barrage of luxury handbags, not those sold in the shop but carried in the well-manicured hands of the perfumed ladies attending the event, that had sent her head reeling. except at the night markets of thailand, she had never seen such a huge congregation of branded leather.

she was carrying her beloved freitag: recycled from tarpaulin, very indie and doesn't cost a king's ransom.

i like her bag. it suits her: well-loved, indie and not extravagant.

i do like leather bags. to me, good quality bags for women are like well-made leather shoes for men. it's a mark of accomplishment. i too own a few expensive branded bags. they were bought in my younger days when i was eager to show off my "accomplishments" that i didn't quite yet achieve. months of my meager fresh grad salary were spent on those luxury bags. they now sit, mouldering silently, in my cupboard. i don't carry them anymore, they don't represent who i am.

these days, i carry a bag that i'd bought in rome during the summer sale 2 years ago. it's an up-and-coming brand that i love that is not yet famous nor extravagant. it was exactly what i wanted: a roomy leather sling bag. it's beat-up and grimy (because it's white) and unique. it will not fit in well in a hermes-organised exhibition either.

but i like my bag. it suits me well: beat-up, grimy and not yet famous.

some time later, my friend received another invitation to another opening of another surrealism exhibition organised by hermes. she asked if i wanted to join her. i said i was free.

from real to surreal? no thank you. that evening, we went out for a nice dinner instead.

happy year of the ox

2009-01-25T22:54:00.003+08:00

just home from the new year's eve reunion dinner and i'm ready for bed. but no, it's another hour before we usher in the lunar new year. i'll stay up midnight. it's the year of the ox!

the chinese horoscopes predict a good year for me. i hope it will be true because there are many uncertainties for me this year. i will need all the good luck that i can gather. with my full tummy from dinner, the new year is starting well already. we shall see...

i wish you and your families a happy and healthy year of the ox.

blandness of chicken

2009-01-21T18:20:00.003+08:00

i'm cutting down on caffeine, alcohol, nicotine and red meat. it's not abstinence, i still indulge when i'm in the mood.

abstinence doesn't suit me........

......i don't do guilt.

caffeine and alcohol keep my sleep/wake cycle in check. an espresso to perk me up after a late night drinking session; a gin tonic to calm my agitation down. it's a vicious cycle of dependence. the role they play in my life is inseparable: one is rendered meaningless without the other. they exist, still, but are less important in my life now.

it's a different story for nicotine and red meat.

my urge to light up has always been erratic. and i'm bored with it now. without even noticing it, i've stopped almost completely. it's not a conscious effort, in fact, thinking about quitting would probably make me want to light up again. i let nature take its course.

on the other hand, i've been meaning to cut down on red meat but couldn't find a good reason to do it. i love red meat. i love sinking my teeth into a well prepared steak. it's really sissy to give it up for health, but i do have to heed to the possibilities of the clogging of arteries and the mounting of blood pressure. it's so hard to live without red meat... it's not abstinence, i know. i still indulge when i'm in the mood.

abstinence doesn't suit me...

i'm just... re-discovering the blandness of chicken.

stop 4: changing hanoi

2009-01-18T11:45:00.000+08:00

we stared at the quiet dark deserted doorway in dismay. it was the right address but the bar had magically transformed into something totally different. my 2 year old lonely planet vietnam was seriously out of date.

it didn't help that the seafood restaurant that we wanted to go to earlier that evening was taken over by a cafe chain called highlands coffee. who wants a mediocre cafe when there was good seafood to be had? well, the population of hanoi, apparently prefers to enjoy their overpriced cappuccinos on overstuffed red armchairs and dimmed lighting. almost a sacrilege considering how heavenly the cheap vietnamese coffee is.

disappointed, we found our way to the irish pub next to the hotel. it wasn't terribly exciting and neither was it listed in my lonely planet. maybe it was too new? but the gin tonic was good and more importantly, we knew it was there because we were there just the night before. fortunately, even hanoi doesn't move that fast.

in europe, things take centuries to evolve. i could return to the same cafe in paris that i'd visited 10 years earlier and still find the same grouchy waiter wearing the same threadbare waistcoat. in asia, nothing stands still. it's a challenge just trying to keep abreast of all the changes.

it was here, exactly here! no matter, it's a quiet dark deserted doorway now.

we need a 4 dimensional space-time navigation system: for places that exist, for places that used to exist, for places that will exist. how does one keep up with the constant flux of change?

is it for the better? in the case of the seafood restaurant, not at all.

time to recycle my old lonely planet.

stop 4: cabaret by the lake

2009-01-17T10:31:00.002+08:00

we asked the waiter where the locals go for a good time. he offered to bring us there.

a cabaret, it was. true enough, it was packed to the brim with locals young and old. the children clapped along to the sexy dancing and the pulsating music. their family craned their necks for a glimpse of a naked thigh or a modest cleavage. the girls and their skimpy dresses offered these opportunities a-plenty.

such shimmer, such glamour!

the girls had serious expressions on their faces, exuding some bizarrely stern allure. the line-up of lookalike frowning girls with the same bouncy curls and heavy eye make-up. they were barely in their teens. the dance moves were made without any understanding of the associated sexual innuendo. it felt like a sexed up version of a school dance performance. the family restaurant atmosphere made it all worse.

i suppressed the urge to laugh.

but just as i was starting to enjoy myself, a mouldy old singer came on and he stayed on stage for the rest of the night. he certainly wasn't as entertaining. the families starting leaving, past bedtime for the young ones.

we stayed until closing time but the dancing girls never came back. it must had been past bedtime for the young dancers, too

bundle of joy

2009-01-15T22:14:00.003+08:00

my niece has arrived!

i'm now officially an aunt, and it is a huge responsibility to undertake for the rest of my life. i cannot even start to imagine how this will change my life. maybe a little, maybe a lot. maybe not at all.

i hope that i will be as supportive and doting to her as my own aunt had been to me when i was growing up. such warm memories. for years, she would get me ice cream at swenson's and books from mph bookstore after exams every year. it was always such a treat in those days.

and now, it's my turn.

welcome to the world, little one. i hope that you will grow up to be a compassionate, intelligent and charming woman, and have a life filled with laughter and love. definitely, it will be filled with love from your aunt.

between stop 3 and 4: propellers

2009-01-14T17:37:00.003+08:00

excited, i clamoured up the stairs to the plane operated by laos airlines. it was a bi-propeller plane. i had not taken a plane this small before. we had seats on row 5, directly in line with the propellers.

up in the air, i looked out at the droning propellers just a few metres away from me. my excitement was starting to wane. my ears were blocked. pinching my nose and blowing hard didn't help. i felt incredibly dizzy.

for the first time in my life, i was air sick.

ignoring the sandwich lunch pack (it came with a special happy new year keychain), i fought against my nausea. i panted slowly like a dog on a sweltering day. my ears refused to clear, or maybe they were not blocked but the sub-sonic droning made everything sound faraway and hollow. there was a surreal spin that was just a little out of sync with the pounding in my head.

i thought of the scene of fear and loathing las vegas where gonzo and his attorney stumbled around, high on drugs and drunk on alcohol, in a circus carnival. the only difference was that i had a nice stewardess instead of a grinning clown.

seconds crawled slowly by. how long is this flight? an hour more. i turned a whiter shade of pale.

landing: we ground to a halt and i watched with silent relief as the propellers whined to a stop.

i saw the toilet next to the luggage belt and left the boyfriend there waiting for our luggage. feeling unsteady, i walked slowly towards it. once inside, i threw up in the toilet sink, clogging it up with the remnants of my US$8 buffet lunch that we ate at the vientiane airport. certainly, it tasted much better on the way in than out.

on solid ground at last, my ears unblocked as soon as i splashed icy tap water on my face and the vice-like grip on my temples went away. my pale wet-faced reflection looked back at me, expressionless. i felt drained. my hands were cold. i was cold. i realised that the chill i felt was not due to air-conditioning in the airport. it was the cold weather.

welcome to hanoi.

stop 3: the hunt for wild elephants

2009-01-12T13:42:00.003+08:00

laos was known in the old days as the land of a million elephants. now there are about 600-800 wild elephants still living in its forests.

we set off early to a village called ban na, 1-2 hours away from vientiane. according to the guidebook, there was a (slim) chance of spotting some wild elephants as well as other wild animals if we trek through the forests in the area. bored with urban life, we thought some forest trekking would be a nice diversion.

the giant creatures proved to be elusive. we stumbled through the secondary forest of bamboo and shrubs, driven relentlessly by the fast pace set by the guides. the guides were wearing casual flip flops and did not show any interest in the wildlife. they trampled noisily and carelessly along.

actually, the elephants were considered a nuisance for eating the villagers' sugar cane crops. this trek, i quickly realised, was simply an easy way for them to make a quick buck on the side.

they didn't speak much english, the guides, though one of them was so eager to learn english that he held the boyfriend's hands several times as we walked. hmmmm... was it only english that he was interested in? of course, insisted the boyfriend. without a doubt.

we consoled ourselves with elephant footprints (huge and round imprints) and the elephant dung (huge and round mounds). looking at the scrawny shrubs in the forest, i couldn't help but wonder, where can 800 huge and round elephants hide?

stop 3: sabaidee vientiane!

2009-01-12T00:02:00.002+08:00

according to the lonely planet - laos guidebook, "sabaidee" can be used to say both hello and goodbye. and so we did, every time we stepped into a shop, restaurant or massage palour we said sabaidee. and we said sabaidee again every time we left.

it was an simple phrase to remember and use.

on my last day in laos, i was checking my emails in an internet cafe in vientiane's chinatown area. a fellow traveller got up, paid for his internet usage and left with a polite sabaidee.

the lady in the cafe commented loudly to her colleague in heavily accented mandarin: these crazy westerns say hello for everything: to greet us and to say goodbye. they're so silly, they confuse all the phrases!

i guess we all read the same lonely planet guidebook!

stop 2: bangkok and the 3 buddhas

2009-01-10T23:35:00.004+08:00

hello, where are you from?

we were hounded by tuktuk touts all along the road. having just visited wat pho (reclining buddha was magnificent as i remembered), we had stopped for lunch at the local market before wandering down the road to the grand palace.

hello, where are you going?

i waved these overtures off with good humour that was starting to wear thin. no, i didn't want it to mar my day of sightseeing. an opportunistic tuktuk driver started following us.

hello, where are you from? how long are you in bangkok?

the boyfriend, brought up to be polite in his tout-free country, answered his every question while struggling to ignore him at the same time. we continued walking while the guy tagged behind us persistently.

grand palace is closed, come take my tuktuk. 1 hour tour of bangkok!

grand palace closed? i had read about this ploy to divert tourists in the timeout guidebook. enough of these antics! my patience evaporated in the heat of my anger. i spun around, told him a very firm thank you and good bye. still, he followed us. i said good bye again in a louder voice. he was reluctant to give up. we scurried across the road to escape from his persistence and continued walking towards the main gate.

the grand palace really was closed!

*i felt bad about brushing the guy off in such a rude manner*

the official at the palace explained that it was closed every monday afternoon for a buddhist ritual. we would have to go back again the next day. he proceeded to tell us that the locals would pray to the 3 buddhas in bangkok: the reclining buddha (at wat pho), the standing buddha and the sitting buddha for good luck.

marking the other 2 temples on our map, he said that we would need a tuktuk to visit them. it will cost 30 baht to make the trip.

30 baht? that's about US$1. we would never be able to bargain for such a low price with the cut-throat tuktuk drivers.

he must have seen the incredulous look on my face. never mind. he waved down a passing tuktuk and gave the instructions on our sightseeing itinerary. for 30 baht, he said. the driver looked at him, threw a glance at his very official looking identity badge, slapped on a greasy smile and nodded. there were other opportunities to make tourist money, no need to antagonise the palace official.

and off we went in the nifty traffic-defying tuktuk and its purring motor.

the standing buddha stood tall and imposing in a quiet temple, while the sitting buddha sat in a dark deserted temple. obviously the locals were not in need of good luck that day.

we did our respectful bows to the buddhas and admired the gold extravagance of the temples. there was something breathtakingly grand about the temples in thailand. they touched me in inexplicable ways that i don't experience in other buddhist temples. suitably blessed, we headed back to our hotel.

i never made it back to the grand palace. i'm not sure how true the good luck blessing was. we'll have to wait and see.

wish me luck.

stop 1: phuket and the walruses

2009-01-10T12:25:00.000+08:00

after our quiet days on the dive boat, we were craving for crowds and human contact. the beach, the beach! we headed straight to patong beach on our first day back on dry land.

high noon. parked all along the beach front were human walruses from northern europe. these sun-worshipers had brown leathery saggy skin displayed for all to see. with their beer bellies and oversized sunglasses, they were literally larger than life.

*shudder*

there was a bad taste in my mouth, and it wasn't due to landsickness.

i wondered briefly what my 98 year old cantonese grandmother would say. even in her old age, she kept her acid tongue and could always be counted on for caustic sarcasm. a vision of her in a shocking pink bikini flashed even more briefly across my mind. she would fit right in, her skin would be just as leathery.

*shudder*

what had happened to the patong beach that i remembered? yes, it was way back in 2000 when i was last there. yes, everything has been rebuilt after the tragic tsunami of 2004. but there was no excuse! this was downright nasty!

this is the ugliest beach i've ever seen. the boyfriend commented from our beach front restaurant. too many ugly people. the sex trade was barely hidden under a thin veneer. the leathery walruses with their packaged deals and buffet meals. the deck chairs that invaded the beautiful sand beach. everything that i had remembered about phuket was still there, in a vastly corrupted form, thanks to the over-commercialisation of everything.

*shudder*

we went back to the hotel after lunch. to hide from this ugly violation.

sunset. we ventured out to the beach again. the walruses were gone, probably at the bars for happy hour. the deck chairs were kept away and we could see the sand again. we had the beach almost to ourselves. we watched quietly as the sun sank slowly across the bay.

magic rediscovered.

stop 1: phuket and the similans

2009-01-09T18:18:00.003+08:00

a typical day on board divemaster I:

5 delicious meals proudly prepared by the chefs
4 dives made in the pristine tropical waters: dawn, morning, afternoon and night dives
3 hours of much needed nap stolen in our comfortable cabin
2 was the number tag on my dive gear for easy identification (or ber-song as the thai crew told me)
1 extra strong massage for my exhausted muscles

there was no need to do anything to do beside succumbing to the sleep-eat-dive cycle. it was pure indulgence to switch off all thoughts and let the competent crew on board take care of everything. every day, we woke up at the crack of dawn and stumbled off to bed soon after dinner. our waking hours were filled with good food and vibrant marine life. it was simple, almost rustic living.

i was overwhelmed by a sense of well-being and contentment.

and the best part was, the fishes looked happy to see me too.

happy 2009

2008-12-15T00:18:00.004+08:00

as the year draws to a close, i look back at all that had happened in the past 12 months. personal upheavals and financial downturns. who would have expected...?

it hadn't all been smooth sailing but i remain optimistic. i have hope for the new year. after all, like what i always say, what is life without hope?

my bags are packed and i'm spending the final weeks of 2008 on the road. it's time for me to explore asia and i hope to return with wonderful stories, beautiful pictures and sweet memories. i'll tell you all about it, i promise.

don't look back with regrets and don't look ahead with apprehension. be optimistic. happy 2009.

the rains came V

2008-12-12T21:00:00.001+08:00

in french, i always confuse rain la pluie, pleuvoir with crying pleurer.

aren't they the same?

one with salt and the other, with thunder.

the rains came IV

2008-12-11T21:00:00.001+08:00

i once read a chinese short story that talked about a young girl's sadness that coincided with the rainy season. i think it was written by a famous author though the name escapes me now. titled rainy season don't come again (direct translation from chinese), it described her emotions that were as cold and grey as the rain outside. happy ending - her spirits lifted just as the rain stopped.

from then, i've always associated rain with melancholy. i don't like the rain. not ever.

the rains came III

2008-12-10T21:00:00.001+08:00

i never liked the rainy season in singapore . all my plans are soaked through and shelved for a drier day that never came. i looked in dismay at the gathering black clouds. the distant rumbles of thunder, awakened.

crawl back home! no better place to be than in bed when it rains all day like this. no flappy rain soaked shoes or dripping umbrellas to deal with. no crazy arctic blasts from badly set air-conditioning in the office. safe in the sanctuary of bed.

how anyone can set the thermostat so low is a great mystery to me. is it a design flaw? an act of defiance to the office workers? a desire to suffer? shouldn’t someone do something about it?

can't someone stop the rain?

can you?

the rains came II

2008-12-09T21:00:00.002+08:00

my eyes were focused on the raindrops, the skies were a pale shade of white in the background. if my eyes were part of a camera, my aperture f-value would be set at the smallest possible.

sharp focus on the raindrops. catch the light off the curved surfaces. blur out the background for a shallow depth of view, it is almost a black and white photo in all its greyness with the CBD skyline in the background. sometimes I can see the sea in between the buildings. not today.

movement.

another droplet merged with a still one. they raced off to join the others.

i blinked. the settings changed: the tall buldings came back into focus as the raindrops shifted out of perception.

the rains came I

2008-12-08T21:00:00.001+08:00

the grey rain come trickling down the window pane, making mini rivers meandering downwards.

the smaller droplets hung on to the glass, motionless, held in place by the cohesive forces between the water molecules and glass. i watched as surface tension battled to defy gravity.

it didn't last for long. another raindrop soon came rolling down coalescing with the motionless one. too big to be held by the weak intermolecular forces now, the combined drop raced down.

ever downwards.

like a speedy gozales snail with a silver trail... and then *drip* off the edge of the window. it plunged to the ground to join its rain-mates, some twenty floors below.

gravity wins the battle. always.

just because...

2008-11-27T20:44:00.002+08:00

back on the chain gang

2008-11-26T22:22:00.003+08:00

i am 20 years late, i know. but for the past year or so, i've been rediscovering the music of the 80s.

there was so much good stuff from that era. even though i'd gone through it once myself, albeit at a tender young age, there were some great songs that i'd missed that first time around.

most of them, i already know. for some, i knew only a few songs from the artiste or band. for others, i didn't have the money to buy their cassettes. (yes! cassettes!) we only had radio 1 that catered to everyone's needs and the diabolical zoo 101.6 from indonesia (??). Diabolical because the music was fantastic but the reception was tortuously fuzzy when the wind blew the wrong direction.

anyway, the 80s was a busy time for a young teenager interested in music. i was into heavy metal and chinese songs and everything in between. i mourned when wham! broke up. aha's take on me music video fascinated me. i had an innocent discussion with a classmate on the lyrics of pet shop boy's rent. i was overwhelmed by the dark moods of depeche mode. i thought the lead singer from skid row was sexy and we all laughed at girls who were in love with the backstreet boys.

i went to my friend's church and watched with agitation as the zealous threw hundreds of heavy metal tapes into the bonfire. i had considered joining the church to get my hands on these tapes, hmmm, the heat from the fire must have made me dizzy.

i made tapes recorded from the radio, often with the voice of the DJ cutting into the final notes of the songs. i went everywhere with my walkman and headphones. i remember every song from the grammy awards 1983 casette. it is still my favourite grammy awards collection.

then came other stations like perfect 10, class 95 and power98. suddenly there were too many choices. and then the 90s came rushing in, carried along by the momentum of the 80s. but music started becoming a circus of the one hit wonders, run-of-the-mill boy bands, repetitive dance music and uninspired lyrics.

i turned instead to the timeless genre of jazz, classical music and world music. we didn't have a good jazz radio station in singapore, we still don't and i miss the 89.9 jazz station in paris... but i could afford CDs then and i bought everything i saw that had an interesting cover. there is so much music in the world, that i wish my ears are bigger.

but always, i always have music playing somewhere in the background or on the earphones. what type of music do i listen to now? it depends on my mood. but sometimes i wonder if i chose my music based on my mood or if i'd let the music decide my mood for me. anyway, we are inseparable - i am surrounded by music.

now with mp3s, music sharing becomes all too easy. pluck in the removable hard disk and simply drag-and-drop. last week, i had rediscovered the pretenders. there is something exciting about listening to half familiar songs that had been lurking just at the edge of my consciousness all these while. now they are awaken and i am lost in the mellow honey of chrissie hynde's voice.

i am 20 years late, i know, but it's never too late for good music.

mirror

2008-11-24T22:33:00.002+08:00

these men, they keep sms-ing me. that was her way of apology for her ping-pong of text messages throughout our lunch. she then proceeded to tell me the things she didn't like about them: the bulgarian one, the indian one, the american one and i wasn't paying attention, but i think there was one or two from singapore. i lost track.

i asked her why she bothered replying if she found them irritating. why, even, did she give them her phone number in the first place.

should i give them a fake number instead? her eyes widened at the thought of doing something so cheeky.

just say no and ignore them. no, she would feel guilty. no, she would feel bad. secretly, i'm sure that she thrives on these encounters, on their attention. why not? she is single, very attractive and furthermore, a damsel in distress type that sends egoistic men in throes of desire.

there is nothing wrong with a little harmless flirtation. but i wish she'd put away all that false pretense about "those irritating men". she should see the little smile of satisfaction on her face whenever her phone beeped. it is clear to everyone around her that she enjoys their attention.

the only person she is deceiving is herself.

**********

i try to be true to my nature. i try to see the world with clear unbiased eyes but how much of what i see is tainted by my own prejudices? and on the hand, how much of what others see in me is tainted? when i look in the mirror, do i see myself as how the others see me?

they say that there are 3 versions of history: your version, my version and what really happened. there are as many possible versions as there are witnesses, if not more. which is the truth? which do we believe in? the person who shouts the loudest or the person who wrote the history books... or neither?

and who am i? does the true version of who i am exist solely in my mind? or is the true version the projected image that is seen and reinforced by others around me?

who am i, really?

reincarnation

2008-11-15T18:11:00.005+08:00

i'm not a very religious person, neither am i a skeptic. the term sleeping buddhist would be an apt description for how spiritual i am. i am attracted by the theology of karma and the concept of what goes around comes around.

treat the people around you in the way that you want them to treat you back. it makes good sense to me, don't you agree?

however, what i like most is the whole reincarnation idea - that our spirits come back to the world of the living in another body after our time in this body has ended. i'd like to believe that if i am a good person in this life, i would have a better quality of life next time around. maybe in terms better luck or better circumstances, or maybe even to be purer in thought and kinder in deed. frankly, i wouldn't mind coming back in the body of a super model either.

it's comforting to believe that the fruits of my good deeds or kindness would be reaped at a much later point in time.

the flip side, of course, is that a cruel person or an evildoer would be sent back to suffer in the next life as penance. nobody likes to be punished, certainly not i. but at the same time, it is a chance to make amends for previous wrongdoings, to restore equilibrium in the world. but of course since we don't remember our previous lives, we are actually being penalised for something that we don't remember committing. but as they say, such is life.

but what if reincarnation doesn't exist? what if it doesn't matter what you do or say in this life because there is no light at the end of the tunnel? what if all that is waiting for us is dark oblivion?

how would one make amends for past mistakes, then?

job wanted

2008-11-12T19:19:00.003+08:00

i'm looking for a project-based job that is cross-functional and demands strategic thinking. i should have autonomy to execute my decisions independently but at the same time the nature of the job should be highly interactive.

this job should include a responsive competent manager and a proactive team that can move fast when needed. the job scope should be international in nature and must challenge my intellect.

ideally, the company should be socially responsible.

my advancements in career should, in no way, be cumbered by the fact that i am a woman, that i am ethnically chinese or by my nationality.

interested companies please send your detailed job descriptions and company profiles to my email address.

companies who are unable to give a competitive pay and benefits package need not apply.

happy together

2008-11-10T13:06:00.005+08:00

every couple of months, my work computer prompts me for a new password.

after the 4th time that i had to come with an original easy to remember password, i decided to use phrases that reflects things that are happening to my life. so when i was prompted for a new password a few days before the arrival of the boyfriend in july, i used reunitedatlast. 2 months later, in the midst of him adjusting to his brand new life in singapore, it was tryinghard. last week, i was prompted again. i took my new password from a wong kar wai movie, happytogether.

i wonder what my next password will be, in 2 months' time?

baby lion comes home

2008-11-01T10:51:00.002+08:00

up until university, i followed the straight path that was plotted for me when they issued my birth certificate. i went to the best schools, excelled in sports, had a healthy social life.

i did my best in everything, like how we were taught to do and landed on a good job just before the asian financial crisis. a few years down the line, i looked at what awaited me: marriage with my university sweetheart, apply for a HDB flat and then kids for the grandparents to babysit while i work hard towards that collection of Cs: car, condo, credit card, country club, i don't even remember the rest of the list.

i felt claustrophobic. i jammed the brakes and asked myself:

was that what i had done my best for? was that what i aspire to have?

when i stepped on the accelerator again, it was to speed away from the chosen path, away as fast as i could.

a few years spent here, a few years spent there. and now, a year in singapore.

yes, i've been back in singapore for a year now.

after 6 years away, everything had changed and yet nothing was different. the reasons why i had decided to leave, back in 2001, came rushing back at me. claustrophobia put her arm around my shoulders, "i've been waiting for you to come back."

i tried to fight everything at the same time. i struggled hard to retain my sense of self. and i lost. i hated being back in this humid little island and all i could think about was to get away again.

but now, i have finally found my place back in singapore life. the university sweetheart has married someone else, and i am a co-owner of my parents' HDB flat. no kids but the cat keeps my parents sufficiently entertained. i am not a part of the mad rat race for the Cs though i confess to having 3 credit cards to my name.

more importantly, i no longer feel the pressure to conform to society norms (as long as i avoid the relatives during chinese new year). and i have started thinking that perhaps singapore isn't such a bad place to live in. i'm not a second class citizen, dependent on the whims of a valid work permit. i don't have to pay exorbitant taxes to an ailing government nor do i need to pay rent anymore.

no more struggling with exotic languages and strange customs. i converse easily with everyone around me: on the bus, in the lifts and on the streets. i am one of them - no - i am one of us.

london, i still enjoy; paris still has a big place in my heart. but i have found my peace with singapore. it has been a long journey. perhaps, at last, this daughter of the lion city has truly come home.

dear hairdesssers of the world

2008-10-30T18:34:00.002+08:00

dear hairdressers of the world

i am writing to express all my frustrations that have been pent-up from years of bad service from you.

in view of your years of apprenticeship, starting way down the hierarchy as the shampoo girl, hours of blowdrying polyester wigs in a corner of a salon, making tea for everyone, i fail to understand why you put in such little effort when you finally earned the right to hold a pair of scissors. my 90 year old grandma has more passion in her big toe than your bored snip-snip of the scissors.

we cannot dismiss the possibility that you find hairdressing an unpleasant job: you stand for long hours, handle greasy hair, comb through flaky dandruff and deal with the occasional insect pest residing among the hair follicles. it may be physically hazardous too, all that chemicals must do quite some damage to your soft hands. you might accidentally cut your own fingers, or snip the customer's ear for that matter. i known mine had been snipped at in more than one occasion. i won't even recount the number of times when your combs catch on and rip out my earrings. *ouch*

as a customer, i strongly suggest that if you hate your job or have no talent for it, you should find another job!

i have lived through bad perm jobs - did i ever ask to look like a wet poodle? - and so many bad haircuts, that i am questioning the role of hairdressing in our society. are you a blessing or a curse?

i look to you as a consultant to the best way to handle my slightly wavy but otherwise well-behaved hair, and have met with rude flippant retorts, persistent hard sells, insensitive insults or crazy suggestions.

no, i don't want dye the ends of my hair orange, i don't want to be the freak in my regular job in a regular office with regular people. neither do i want to rebond it, i don't want a waterfall of lifeless squid-ink spaghetti on my head. you may be bored with the usual run-of-the-mill hairstyles that i request for, but my purpose in life is not to entertain you. your job is to cut hair. i am your customer. i came here for a haircut and please, just cut my hair the way i want.

this letter is also specifically addressed to the hairstylist who did my hair on tuesday. when i said i didn't want the hairstyle in the photo that you showed me, i really meant it. when i explained clearly to you twice what i wanted, you said "ok, i know what to do".

you lied. you didn't. you cut my hair exactly like the model's in the photo. even after i specifically told you not to. now i have to walk around with this *bouffant* until everything grows out.

i am angry. i am fed-up. i am boycotting hairdressers. my mother will have to take over this responsibility until i feel foolhardy enough to try again.

and for those who had ruined my hair at one time or another (and there are so, so many!), i hope that you are reincarnated back to earth as hairy monkeys...

your unsatisfied customer with the bad hair-do

metallic fruits

2008-10-28T22:37:00.000+08:00

i want a new macbook!!! the all aluminium product is so enticingly sexy. *drool*
i also want a cool DSLR with fish eye lens...
and I want a sleek wi-fi enabled phone!!!

oh, why do i lust after these tech toys? why do i spend hours reading tech reviews and visiting user chats?

while other girls want diamond earrings or some expensive branded stuff, i get turned on by the latest microchip offerings. i just get chills down my spine when i hold a powerful machine humming happily in my hands. blame it on the sleek matt silver packaging - i simply get weak in the knees.

*shudder deliciously*

so far, i've been very restrained in this electronic love affair. it's admiration from afar. everything's under control... but i'm not sure for how much longer...

*help!*

jog

2008-10-26T18:34:00.001+08:00

i shouldn’t have eaten curry chicken for lunch, was all i could think of on saturday afternoon.

*i was jogging.*

i hadn’t done anything of that sort for about 2 years, that fateful day when my knee seized up during a 10km run and I couldn’t walk for days. i decided to hang up my running shoes (read: thrown into the bin) and pursue a more sedentary lifestyle.

many people like running because it helps to clear their minds. on the contrary, i find it lacking in focus. there is no real point to it except for the ending where i get to stop and gasp helplessly for breath, sweat drenched and all.

in fact, my brain tends to clutter up when i run. it starts doing an internal audit of all my body functions:-

stomach – churning due to curry chicken lunch
bladder – bursting because i drank a load of water to avoid dehydration
knees – at the verge of collapsing
thighs – itchy due to blood racing through the tiny veins
hands – cold since all the blood has rushed to my thighs
breathing – laboured
head - spinning due to laboured breathing
vision – fuzzy
mouth – parched

enjoyment - not at all

then I warmed up and things got better, until my mind started thinking: wait, this is only the way there, i need to think about conserving energy for the way back. oh dear, i should turn back now... turn back now...

frankly i don't like the way running forces me to recognise my own physical limitations. i'm relatively fit, definitely have the stamina to run a good mid-distance race, but i just don't see the point of conquering my body. none of that mind-over-body nonsense. i prefer to have my mind and body living harmoniously together: what the body doesn't want to do, the mind doesn't impose. (conversely, what the body wants, the mind doesn't get in the way either. but that's another story entirely.)

the follies of us 2 legged apes. what price we pay to move our nose away from the ground and our eyes closer to the skies. our injuries: bad knees from sports, lower back pain from bad sitting posture and hip fractures when we get old, came from disobedience of our true skeletal structure. evolution had not prepared our body sufficiently for our higher vantage point and running is one of the worst exercises for our bone structure...

...and not only that, believe me, there is some truth in how jogging leads to saggy breasts too.

already plagued by bad knees from my sporting days of yore, i do not want to take my physical well-being for granted. i am imposing a speed limit of no more than 3km/h for all self-propelled activities. no strain, no pain and definitely no papaya breasts. and no stomach upset from a spicy lunch either.

you've reach your finishing line, running shoes! back to the bin you go!

languages in colours

2008-10-23T14:42:00.001+08:00

languages are like palettes of colours. the few languages that i speak have added new colour patchwork to my life. bizarrely, living in london had improved my cantonese as i chatted with immigrant waiters from hong kong. while living in paris had improved my spoken mandarin when i made friends with my chinese colleagues.

throw in my basic french with some rudimentary hokkien and a smattering of malay and i get a pretty potpourri of colours.

i don't like the simplification of languages. it may be a direct way of communication, a sentence stripped of etiquette and flowery descriptions. perhaps it is a lazy way of communication, a skeletal framework of abc and 123.

will we see, one day, our languages pared down to a bare minimum? like a mathamatical equation without grace? or a binary code of 101100110 computer chips?

how will we think without the faculty of languages?

how will we talk to people around us? - me tarzen, you jane. (we see the greens of a tropical forest.)

are robots allowed to have independent thoughts? - what is love? (we see the black and white world of logic.)

is it a de-evolution to our caveman days? - woman, urg. food, urg (we are blinded by the flickering flames of camp fire.)

what colour will the world be, then?

thoughts in languages

2008-10-22T10:42:00.000+08:00

what language do you think in?

in chinese, for the sentimental melancholic thoughts, thanks largely to the sentimental melancholic chinese love songs of lost loves that i listened to in my early teens. it was my background theme song at the age of surging hormones and teenage crushes. my feelings are expressed in beautiful poetic imagery in my head. snatches of chinese phrases still float in my head but i can no longer solidify the soulful tunes into words.

in english, for most things. hungry - eat. go - there. come - here. and most negative feels: anger, sadness, frustration, tiredness. in english too, i suspect, that i dream in. the language that i learned to love when i picked up a random book at the age of 10. it was one of those adventure stories that was written in england of the 50s. i didn't understand everything in that book, but i remembered the sense of fulfilment when i reached the last page.

in french, with the cat. qu'est ce que tu fais, ma puce? i ask when she jumps at me. thanks to my parents, she now understands singlish. but we still use our own private language, because it links us to our parisian past. in french too, i am starting to think in. first in english and then the same translated into french. my french train of thought is not fast like the TGV, and most of the time, i don't complete it either. derailed, mais c'est très amusant. but it's good fun.

and you, in what languages are your thoughts? the language of your childhood? the formal language that you use at work?...

or do you simply think in colours?

shanghai sunrise

2008-10-17T12:40:00.001+08:00

another fiery sunrise. i’ve been in shanghai for 5 days and it is the second sunrise that i am witnessing. my days start early here. i look impassively at this tequila sunrise in all its splendour from my taxi. it looks more like a giant tomato, intensely red.

* * * * * * * *

every evening, as I walked out of the shanghai office, i would marvel at how big and round the moon here was. and orange. my days end late here.

aiya, it’s due pollution! my colleague retorted when i pointed this magnificent orange grapefruit in the sky. of course i knew it was due to the refraction of light by the particles in the air. but how many effects of pollution have resulted in a sight so beautiful to behold?

i counted 6 chinese stamps in my passport between 2004 and 2008, all of them were for shanghai. i thought that i was here more often. i know the city much better than 6 trips... or do i?

the throbbing city haunts me with half-remembered memories.

i had been here for very different reasons, with very different people and had stayed in different parts of the city. my taxi would weave through a long winding street, and just before it swerved at a turn, a familiar restaurant would come into view.

i should remember this road so that I can find my way back here next time. the thought flitted briefly through my mind. but I never remembered. this is how Shanghai is in my mind: half lost, half remembered. like koi carp swimming in murky waters: a flash of white, a flash of red, and then nothing.

this dark city taunts me with half-imagined stories.

on one of my shanghai trips, when i was still based in paris , a broken-hearted friend flew in from singapore to meet me. we went out drinking all night, drowning her sorrows in the neon-lit city. when the watering holes along the bund close for the night, we worked our way westwards into the city, searching for dark seedy places where alcohol still flowed.

i would stumble in to work, painfully hungover and dazed. the shanghainese team thought i was jetlagged. i was happy to let them think it.

* * * * * * * *

this morning, my taxi hurtles through the pre-rush hour traffic towards pudong airport. pudong – east of the pu river. the sun rises in the east. i look at the morning sun. it looks more like a red tomato. it is the second day in a row that i have to wake up before the glowing tomato. i am tired. i ignore the taxi driver’s singsong attempt at conversation. they speak mandarin as if they were singing an old folk song. singaporeans speak mandarin like it was an animal at the bottom of the sea. slow flat intonations.

i stare at the blood red sun, like a tomato ripening in reverse from red to orange to blinding yellow.

* * * * * * * *

on the plane back, i had half remembered dreams of shanghai, koi carps, grapefruits and shiny red tomatoes. and of my endless quest for the mid day sun...

skin II

2008-10-14T12:30:00.000+08:00

it’s really cold in paris now, a friend wrote in his email to me. i’m looking forward to my move to singapore soon. hot weather would be a nice change.

hot weather would be a nice change? this would be my first hot winter in years. no long holidays planned beyond the tropic of cancer this year, i’ll be spending the end of 2008 at the equator, dressed in nothing more than a tank top, shorts and my flip-flops. and sunblock.

i wandered through the myriad of winter clothes on sale along huai hai road in shanghai : sweaters, scarves, coats, boots, everything that i will never need in sunny singapore.

i miss the cold. i miss the frosty kisses of the morning rain that greeted me, i miss seeing my breath condensing in the still air. i miss the layers upon layers of clothes that hug me ever so warmly.

how quickly the skin forgets.

but the brain always remembers. i remember holed up in a small cosy crêperie drinking bowl after bowl of cider with my cheesy galette, waiting for the winter rain to exhaust itself out. i remember a steamboat dinner with my colleagues for chinese new year. the parisian winds were howling outside but my friendly colleagues chased away my blues that lonely first year in paris.

i remember further back in time, my daily trudge across tower bridge to get to work in south-east london . my hair buffeted by the blustery winds on the grey day.

and even further back, the first time i saw my breath condensing as i breathed out. we pranced around pretending to be smoking. we tried to take photos of each other with our clouds of breath, faces contorted with our attempts.

the weather was cold but the feeling was warm.

how quickly the skin forgets. but not the heart.

in hot humid singapore , the air-conditioning is set to arctic temperatures. perhaps it was a part of our subconscious attempt to escape the inescapable heat. blast the aircon and pretend that we’re somewhere else.

the skin feels the chills of the aircon; the heart knows it’s not the same. we're not somewhere else, we're here on this tiny tropical island.

for now, i hope my friend will find warm reception in this hot humid aircon world when he arrives in 2 weeks.

battle scarred galactica

2008-10-10T14:34:00.001+08:00

i have just obtained battlestar galactica dvds seasons 1-3. i remember catching the original series back when i was too young to really understand the concept of space travel. sci-fi series were all the craze then, i also remembered the aliens stuffing mice into their mouths in V and the dogfights in buck rogers. wait, was buck rogers a computer game where you shoot at alien ships? i don't quite remember. strange enough, i wasn't quite the star trek fan even though i used to watch it on channel 5 every day at dinnertime when i was in primary school.

back to battlestar galactica, the new series. when i bought the dvds, i turned to the boyfriend and gleefully told him that i would not be free for the next three weeks. well, it's been closer to the truth that i thought. caught in between the dilemma of gobbling up the entire collection as soon as i can or pacing myself to prolong my enjoyment of the series, i chose the former.

i've been holed up at home, eyes glued to the screen, watching episode after episode after episode. non-stop. *boomer is really hot.* the cat doesn't understand why i'd been sprawled on my sofa with my eyes glued to the screen the past week. she doesn't like it when i ignore her. so she sits in front of the screen and licks her paws to get my attention. i shove her off the table but she jumps back within a few minutes.

perhaps i need to get a sony robot dog. a robot dog would understand.

last night, i finished the last episode of the third season. i'll have to wait a while before i can get my hands on season 4 and i'm feeling a little lost, a little battle-scarred. to counteract the nasty effects of withdrawal, i spent the afternoon at work pretending to be starbuck, but impersonating an insubordinate viper pilot doesn't go too well with the rest of the office. i pretended to be mr gaeta instead. he's good with calculations and charts. my excel spreadsheets had never been so clear.

sigh. this is a sad life. i need a new distraction... until season 4 comes out on dvd. what can i do?

throw a spammer in the works

2008-10-09T10:32:00.001+08:00

i've gotten so bored that i've started reading my spam mail.

but it wasn't a very good idea, not so much about the potential risks of getting a nasty bit of virus, but that oftentimes, there isn't much written in the main text.

one would think given the amount of effort they had put in to obtain my email address, there should be more originality in the contents. most of the time, it is just a one-sentence affair with a "CLICK HERE" that most probably doesn't lead to the the site that it promises to lead to.*

not all is lost, though, the subject heading is usually designed to catch your eye. my favourites are the ones citing actual quantifiable results like increases in sizes of certain organs or duration of sexual performances. there are also the more graphical phrases like scream with pleasure or sexxxy singles that amuse me endlessly.

but then again, i don't need to open the email to read the subject heading. it's easy to scan through the subject headings, have a laugh before clicking "empty spam". good riddance!

where is the incentive for me to open up and actually read my spam mail, resulting in a visit to their website, which is their ultimate aim?

i should write a letter to the spammers about their marketing strategy: jamming mailboxes to the point of irritation *eyes rolling up*, then offering little in terms of content while making dubious claims about lucky draw wins, successful dates or jobs with the CSI. you don't need to go through MBA to know that it's a sure-fire loser. afterall, how many companies specialising in sending out spam make it to the business week top 50?

they have to give something to their potential consumers. entice them with a little more than photos of some peroxide blonde with grotesquely enhanced tits. aggressive sexuality is not to everyone's taste. they have to segment the market and deliver what is actually promised to gain consumer trust. as it is, spammers already have a bad reputation and it will take time before they can be accepted by the mainstream users.

they need start now!

i wonder how much they'd pay for a strategy consultant to brush up their image...?

*i wouldn't know where they lead to - my internet access is restricted in the office and there's no way i'm going to try that with my home computer. hell no! you think i'm stupid or somethin'?

vietnam lesson four: swimming lesson

2008-10-03T13:35:00.001+08:00

we took 2 motor-taxis from danang to the airport. it was faster, cheaper and more fun than taking a regular taxi. it was the best way to experience the city and anyway, the airport wasn't too far away.

3 minutes on the bikes, someone up there turned on the tap and the rain came gushing down. it was a tropical downpour that would have done the monsoon proud. it came so suddenly. all around us, motorbike riders whipped out their rain ponchos and continued their journey.

my rider stopped at a shop and got me a poncho. how nice: pretty purple trashbin liner. but it did a good job keeping the rain off.

what a sight! all around me, there were colourful splashes of ponchos weaving in and out of the grey rain. unfazed. the rain pounded pitter-patter on my helmet, a suitable accompaniment to the scene before my eyes. i had never been on a motorbike when it poured so heavily before.

it was really fun!

and all too soon, the airport. the boyfriend was already there, waiting for me in his blue poncho and delighted smile. he had enjoyed his ride in the rain too. hand in hand, we walked into the airport terminal.

it was a perfect end to a good holiday together.

vietnam lesson three: survival skills

2008-10-02T13:05:00.003+08:00

strolling along my khe beach, just outside of danang, we came across fishermen hauling in their net. there were about 10 of them, 5 aside, pulling in a huge net back to the beach. it looked like a lot of hard work, very hard work.

having been stuffing our faces with seafood the past days, we were curious to see their catch. yummy, maybe we'll have the same fish on our dinner table tonight!

when the entire net was finally back on the beach, a rush of excitement erupted as the fishermen bustled about, making sure that none of the fish escaped. we walked nearer, careful not to get in their way. i was jumping about with curiosity: what was in the nets?

i widened my eyes in surprise. there were fish, yes, but they were only about 10cm long, not like the big fat fish that had been gracing our dinner plates in the past days. i pointed 2 globs of grey nestled among the jumping fishes to the boyfriend. what's are those?

one of the fishermen saw me pointing and picked it up. it was a jellyfish. yikes. instinctively i recoiled. no stinging jellyfishes for me!

he turned the jellyfish over, exposing the underside, and - horrors of horrors! - gorged a chunk of wibbly-wobbly from the jellyfish with his bare fingers. he offered it to me, indicating that i eat it.

i shook my head so hard that the world started spinning around me. no no no no no no thank you!

he offer it to the boyfriend who bravely took a bite. chewing, he smiled and handed the glob to me. try it.

all the fishermen were watching, amused. taking a deep breath, i bit into the transparent jello. it was a very salty agar-agar, with an overwhelmingly strong fishy taste.

*gross*

we walked quickly away from the fishermen and their catch of the day. the boyfriend threw the rest of the jellyfish that was still in his hand.

i didn't know which put me off more: the gorging of a live jellyfish or the fishy taste in my mouth. at least i would not starve if i was ever stranded on an island full of jellyfish.

*gross*

vietnam lesson two: navigation skills

2008-10-01T22:59:00.003+08:00

with our rented motorbike purring, we set off from hoi-an in search of my son, a world heritage site that was said to be a smaller version of angkor wat in cambodia. it was about 45km away from where we were.

how exciting to go around exploring the vietnamese countryside on our own two wheels! armed with nothing more than a sketchy map in my 2005 lonely planet vietnam, we set off with a bellyful of our pho bo breakfast.

it looked easy on my map. just head straight until the T-junction, take a left and then follow the main road westwards. we tutted along happily in search of the T-junction until a friendly vietnamese woman waved to us from the back of her motorbike. where you from? how long you stay in hoi-an? where you go now?

it was a surreal, this conversation with a stranger while we were both zipping along on our bikes. my son? it's back there. this road is to marble mountains. she told us.

a small T-junction in 2005 had become a busy cross junction in 2008.

that set the mood of the entire journey. we stopped at each junction to ask for directions. when i pointed at each of the roads saying "my son?" repeatedly, they always nodded to all the roads that i pointed to. yes, i don't understand what you ask for. whatever it is, it's a yes and please go away now.

directions became clearer when we found out that the locals pronounced it as "may sen".

we found my son, eventually. a small version of angkor wat? small it really was. still, as the wise men always say, it's the journey that was fun, not the destination.

the way back to hoi-an took even longer...

vietnam lesson one: negotiation skills

2008-09-29T13:04:00.001+08:00

on arrival at the danang airport, we were looking for a taxi to bring us to hoi-an, about 30 km away. like in many asian airports, we were swamped with taxi touts the moment we stepped out from the security area.

the boyfriend started talking to one. 20 USD was the tout's price. according to my lonely planet, 12 USD should be the market rate. given that it was a 2005 version, and taking into account the runaway inflation of more than 20% in vietnam this year, we did a quick mental calculation and generously counter-offered 15 USD.

the gasoline prices are very high now. the vietnamese shook his head.

we decided to employ the delay tactic. nonchalantly, we stood around, had a smoke and waited for other touts to approach us. none did. apparently they had a code of honour not to undercut each other. our new friend had clearly staked us out as his potential customers.

he hovered near us. the boyfriend went over to talk to him. i saw them nodding. ok, they had reached an agreement.

how much did you agree on? - i asked as he came back to pick up our bags.

20 USD.

silver lining

2008-09-19T17:00:00.003+08:00

for the past few weeks, i've spent all my time in the office surfing the net. no work no motivation no inspiration. to add insult to injury, the evil trolls in the IT department have implemented a giant internet filter: no entertainment sites, no social network sites, no blog sites, no streaming media.

in short, no fun at all.

good thing that the recent upheavals in the financial markets, the US presidential elections and hurricane ike have provided fodder for my bored mind. fortunately newspapers are not considered to be a bad distraction from work. i attack the online newspapers with a vengeance. first the english papers followed by the same news in the french papers. at least my french is improving by leaps and bounds: there is always a silver lining somewhere if we look hard enough.

ironically, the bbc website is categorised under entertainment: the most independent news agency in the world is merely entertainment. damn those evil trolls who know nothing beyond their little worlds in their dark little caves.

friends are envious when i tell them of my predicament. overworked, combating stress ulcers and unsuccessfully trying to balance work and life, to them, my endless days in the quiet office sound like a gift from heaven. to me, it feels like a curse from hell.

seconds stretch away to eternity. an email arrived. i pounce on it like a starving mad woman. nothing important - delete. check mail again. nothing. perhaps the filter of the evil trolls have blocked off the bulk of my work emails too. maybe out there somewhere, there is a mountain of requests, approvals and report drafts waiting for my action and validation. but here in my office, nothing.

make tea, drink tea, toilet. it's still only 3 in the afternoon. make some more tea and the cycle begins all over again.

go shopping? take long lunches? get a haircut? i've done all that already. there's only so much i can do within the constraints of sustaining a minimal presence in the office so as not to arouse the attentions of the gossipy secretaries or the busy bigwigs. it's back to reading the news online for me.

it's a sad thing to feel so useless and unimportant.

right, another cup of tea perhaps and 30 minutes more before i throw in the towel. tomorrow, i leave for my week-long holiday. hopefully october will bring me more exciting things to do.

at least i will have my holiday to blog about. you see, there is always a silver lining somewhere when we look hard enough.

time for a change

2008-09-18T16:10:00.004+08:00

now that i'm back to the little island of singapore, i'm no longer wondering/wandering around the world like i used to.

everything's changed.

it's different now. my new mission is to search for my mid-day sun. come join me in my quest. i'm happy to have your company.

purity of pain

2008-09-17T17:59:00.003+08:00

violent feelings again - i guess the discipline and routine of the army couldn't do much for me.

today, i crave for the purity of physical pain. it makes me feel alive. like a fraidy cat that i am, i crave only for the "safe" kind of physical pain that i can be in control of, like muscle aches after a hard workout or a very deep massage or the satisfaction of a high kick that connected with the punching pad.

i am alive!

no, i don't want pain that i have no control over, like the pain of my stomach churning as i suffer from a bout of stomach flu (since sunday night). or the pain in the heart. or pain from bumping my head. or pain of accidentally slamming the door on my finger. although pain like these also serve to remind me that i'm alive, they also highlight how frail i can be.

i want to feel alive! i want to feel strong!

my colleague is starting to get nervous that i'm giving him funny looks. i should try to convince him of my concept of the purity of pain. he's quite rotund - he'll make a good punching bag. now, where are my boxing gloves...?

i want to join the army

2008-09-15T21:52:00.002+08:00

i want to go on road marches carrying mess tins and ration biscuits in my backpack.
i want to polish my boots with spit until every single freckle on my face is reflected.
i want to charge at paper cut-outs of enemy soldiers yelling on top of my voice.
i want to be know nothing but discipline and blind obedience all day.
i want to make beds so taut that coins could bounce right back.
i want to carry a serious looking weapon, maybe even three.
i want to do push-ups until i can no longer brush my teeth.
i want to be a faceless nameless part of a team.
i want to paint my face green and black.
i want to do water parades every night.
i want to wear a helmet full of plants.
i want to be bitten by mosquitoes.
i want to defend my country.
i want to be a foot soldier.
i want to join the army.

where do i sign up?

insomnia

2008-09-11T20:20:00.002+08:00

sleep never evades the contented, the happy.

it is the unhappy people who lay awake at night, tossing and turning, chasing the elusive oblivion of sleep. perhaps some are too afraid of sleep, afraid of what their dreams will bring: their deepest darkest fears haunting them at their most vulnerable moment.

i used to shake my head with pity when friends tell me that they don't sleep well. i could sleep through anything and i did. i didn't understand how one could be unsuccessful at something so basic. there is nothing that needs doing, except to relax and drift off to slumberland.

easy peasy.

i have been unable to sleep since i got back to singapore. countless nights of watching the shadows wax and wan, endless hours of counting sheep, waiting for the birds to serenade the coming of a brand new day. a brand new day held together by caffeine and sheer willpower. fatigue hovers constantly over my shoulders like a concerned brother.

i don't know why i can fail at something so effortless. it has been 10 months that i am back already. is there something that frighten me? ... or am i simply unhappy?

september

2008-09-04T12:50:00.003+08:00

i've always liked september. even in seasonless singapore, i can always feel the pace slowing down after the assault of pollution from forest fires in indonesia and the muggy lull when the monsoon reverses its direction.

different, this year. this year, we had a rainy august that washed away the poisonous haze. that wash away the hectic madness. buses slow to a crawl (snail going backwards, was the phrase i used when stuck in traffic along paterson road in the evening rush hour), people are stranded at the bus stops, mrt stations, looking wistfully up at the angry skies spitting rain, rain and more rain.

umbrellas are futile when the sky gods are in this mood. we whip out our phones and send text messages to friends who are caught in the same situation at different bus stops. a storm of sms bounce across rainy singapore.

this year, september crept in quietly. i didn't even realise that it was here until the second day. already it's the 4th. even though the weather remains rainy, the mood is different. i read my horoscope for the month. a horoscope prediction and a poem at the same time, i like it already. a happy month is predicted, and i like it even more now. i know all the sceptism about horoscope predictions, but it still gives me the creeps how accurate it can be. 3rd and 4th prediction is spot on - the stars are right, i shouldn't fret anymore.

last year, my september was fraught with doubts, disappointment, tears, hurt, hope, forgiveness and fighting to stay in paris. it was a huge emotional rollercoaster. 4 september 2007 was the start of it all, my saddest day that year. the reverberations are still felt in 2008. very faint now, but still there.

i want to make this year's 4 september better. it has been a shaky start, the day is already halfway through but i am determined. a pisces fish can swim everywhere when she puts her mind to it. and i've put my mind to it.

when i was living in an english small town, we could smell the wood fires as people smoke out their chimneys for the winter. a dark rich smell that lingered pensively in the evening air. we don't do the same in singapore, of course, but something is different in the air. i can feel it deep in my bones.

september is here.

badly written book

2008-09-01T12:35:00.003+08:00

today, i am a badly written book. i'm one of those paperbacks that sit prettily on a book shelf with a mysteriously black cover. a blurred photo of neon lights and traffic is splashed out on my front cover. about 313 pages long, 313 pages of suspense and thrills. i promise to be a book of action. read me.

i have a dramatically cliché title

i have a catchy title. something short, vague but altogether trendy. something that alludes to fun and excitement and maybe a hint of sexuality. something rather clever, like a single word with multiple meanings, or a play on words, or a little pun without being corny. no, a corny title wouldn't work very well.

i am not a soppy romance.

i am a badly written story, no plot, no motive, no substance. but i'm full of irony and pomp and much ado about nothing. absolutely nothing. it takes place in an anonymous exotic asian city. the characters are nameless, faceless but very stylish. there is a hero and countless inconsequential characters flitting through the chapters. the leading lady doesn't die in the end. i can't reveal if she has a happy ending. you'll have to read on.

i did not win the man booker prize.

i have rave reviews of my story: quotes of praise splashed across my back cover. "i couldn't put it down until i reached the last page", "best book this year", they proclaimed in big bold fonts. who are they? tabloids and female magazines with little literary weight. i am best suited for a cramped long-haul flight, or your summer holidays by the beach. bring me along, tuck me into your bag.

i am not a ghost story.
i am not a spy thriller.
i am not sci-fi nor fantasy.
i am not a political satire.
i am certainly not a classic.

dear readers i don't pretend to be anything that i'm not.

i am just what i am, a badly written book.

absolute zero

2008-08-29T11:10:00.003+08:00

i don't get affected by the cold. i enjoy the cold blast of air pumping out of singapore-strength (read: juiced up with steroids) aircon unit in my office. the secretaries never ceased to be amazed when i breezed by in my sleeveless tops while they huddle under layers of sweaters.

i'm very strong, they said to me.

when it turns cold, particles stop their vibrations. i guess they just decide to sit down and take a break. they're tired, i understand. all that shaking boogieing and constant motion can be tiring. go even colder and the particles lie down for a nap. tucked under their warm down duvet, they drift off to dreamland. nothing moves in absolute zero temperature. at -273.15 degC, all the particles are fast asleep.

it is usually bad news when i feel cold.

when it turns cold for me, i'd like to do exactly the same thing. hide in bed with a book, music playing in the background. shut out the real world. all that stress and frustration and anger can be tiring. it is tiring. sometimes i manage to drift off in a dreamless sleep. not often. i'm still waiting for my absolute zero to happen.

cold - it is just an absence of heat. a lack of energy. the temperature in a vacuum goes to absolute zero: there is nothing inside it to vibrate and dance around. no heat energy. a vacuum is cold.

it has been raining in singapore for the past weeks. the aircon in the office turns extremely cold whenever it rains (and is lukewarm on hot days). there is a flaw in the design, the temperature regulator must be inversed. and every day, i continue to breeze around the office in summer clothes, uncovered arms.

i hear awestruck whispers when i walk by. "ssshe'ss sssso sssstrong!"

today, for the first time since the rains arrived, i have my sweater on.

perhaps at last, my absolute zero has arrived.

falling

2008-08-28T10:26:00.004+08:00

i dreamt that i was falling. i don't know if i was really falling or if i had dreamt it. these days, my insomniac nights swirl around my fatigued days, like milk whirling in a cup of jet back coffee. white on black, and then, a monochrome brown.

i was falling.

i don't remember when exactly that i started having my fear of heights. actually, it is my fear of falling. the possibility of falling. put me on the edge of a cliff, or on top of a long flight of stairs, my stomach flips. cable cars make my uneasy, amusement park rides make me queasy. i avoid walking across the iron grills that cover storm drains. it feels too much like walking in thin air. impossible, i will fall. i must fall.

falling away, falling out, falling in, falling apart, falling in love, falling out of love, falling down, falling. always falling.

the cat likes to push things over the table and watch them fall. keys, rings, pens, i come back to find them scattered on the floor. tap tap tap, she goes with her inquisitive paws. tap tap tap over the edge. she sits and observes the falling object with intense curiosity and then finds something else to play with. tap tap tap starts over again.

the inescapable pull of gravity. the apple falls to the ground. the apple hits newton's head. the apple floats away. what goes up must come down. come back down!

i dreamt that i was falling.

i think it was a dream. i wouldn't have survived the fall otherwise. my heart would have stopped, but i am still alive in my monochrome brown state. the rush of air past my ears. the sensation of being weightless. the fear. the cold. the loneliness. nobody falls en masse. every fall is alone, isolated, encapsuled in the rushing air. fall in solitude.

i could see everything happening with crystal clear clarity. as if i was falling in slow motion. there was nothing i could do to stop this inevitable fall. how do you defy the laws of gravity, anyway?

free fall. free to fall. fall freely.

i dreamt that i was falling. i don't know if i was really falling or if i had dreamt it.

i am still falling.

normal bates

2008-08-27T12:08:00.001+08:00

would norman bates end up as psycho if he had moved out of the house when he was younger?

he could have gone to college somewhere or decided to hitchhike his way along route 66, which was all the rage in the 60s. or he could have ran away from his oppressive mother. would he still be a psychopath if he had done so?

nobody has the perfect relationship with their parents. at least i'd like to believe so. my parents and i have personality clashes of the titanic scale. being constantly unhappy, i left home at the first opportunity that i had. it wasn't easy. just plain ol' moving out goes against the grain of my old fashion traditional parents who have very strong and rigid ideas of how a girl should be like and what is acceptable behaviour.

moving out clearly belongs to the "i'll kill you for dishonouring the family name" category. not wanting to make cold-blooded dishonoured murderers out of them, i bid my time until i had a job offer in europe.

the money's better, i told them. and i've got better career opportunities when i come back.

(if i come back.)

like most asian parents aspiring better things for their children, they grudgingly agreed.

after years of freedom, i'm now back living under the same roof with them. absence didn't make heart grow fonder. in fact, we've all grown even more stubbornly set in our ways with age. i have lost the equilibrium that i had found while i was away.

i will never get used to the heat and humidity in singapore, but i can get used to the feeling of being constantly hot and sweaty.

similarly i will never get used to living with the parents, of the knowledge that i will never be something that they want me to be, but i can get used to living with the absence of happy.

and i can't help but wonder, if norman bates would have turned out the way he did if he had escaped the clutches of his overbearing mother at an early age?

we'll never know...

... but whatever you do, don't ever shower at my place. you never know what might happen.

if happiness is a fruit

2008-08-26T17:22:00.003+08:00

will it be a peach, a gentle sweet ripeness underneath its soft velvety skin? promising endless joy until you bite too deeply and break your tooth on the stone hard pit inside? to give up something in exchange for the all encompassing sweetness, is that happiness?

will it be a shiny red apple, innocently offering us with the knowledge of good and evil? knowledge, does knowing everything make one happy? the apple was the mode of poison used by the evil queen to send snow white to her sleeping death. well, she did get woken up by her price charming and lived happily ever after. is "happily ever after" happiness?

or will it be a coconut floating away to sea. wandering around the world until it finds a nice beach to rest. waiting for someone to pick it up, rinse away the sand before proceeding to split it open for the refreshing coconut water inside. this person would then painstakingly scrap at the tender white flesh to finish his snack. the ultimate sacrifice to bring relief from the heat to someone. is that happiness?

* * * * * * * *
the guy who shares my office told me of his dream of getting an apple orchard by the sea with his wife. his face lit up as he told me the story of how he discovered the fragrance of apple blossoms in the middle of nowhere somewhere in scotland. is having a dream happiness?

if happiness is a fruit, what fruit will it be?

not fair

2008-08-14T10:08:00.003+08:00

it's no secret that asians like clear porcelain white skin. here in singapore, sunblocks and whitening creams are sold everywhere together with face moisturiser creams with SPF50. everywhere, we can find ads featuring whitening treatments for those who aspire towards this fair-skinned perfection.

i am naturally tanned, a healthy shade of dark brown. and i have freckles on my face. after 5 minutes under the sun, i turn a few shades darker with a few more spots on my nose. unlike most asians, i happen to like my skin colour and the splatter of brown spots across my face.

pale face? only if i'm sick, no thank you!

i get harassed by salesgirls at beauty counters to buy whitening creams. i get harassed even by my hairdresser to get whitening facials. i get harassed by my mother who couldn't understand how the fruit of her womb turned out to be dark-skinned and be so irritatingly stubborn against seeking professional help about it.

i just go on with my life, impervious to the madcap flurry of desperate whitening happening all around me.

but yesterday, i was harassed by my gynae about my freckles. i suppose, as a doctor, she has the right to lecture me about the dangers of skin cancer, premature aging and how fair skin is really more attractive.

but shouldn't she focus on the plumbing down there, and not the freckles up here on my face?

wait

2008-07-14T11:21:00.004+08:00

like sleeping beauty in her sleep, waiting for someone to wake her up. i wonder if she dreamt in her slumber, or was it deep, dark and dreamless? did she ever wondered if he was going to turn up? if so, when? did she ever feared that he who kiss her would be an uncouth boar? or did she have faith in the fairy tale happily ever after? did she ever get frustrated with the wait?

i float on the silent water, watching the pale moon swell and wan through her phases. waiting the pale moon as she casts her silver light on the gleaming steel skyscrapers, on the endless busy roads, on the trees awake with life. waiting as she gets eaten by the sky dog every night only to grow round again.

waiting, just waiting. patience is never one of my virtues. still, i waited.

36 weeks, nine cycles, nine full moons.

i'm back in singapore for 36 weeks now. today, he joins me here.

the wait is over! today, a new chapter begins.

pop art

2008-07-09T17:44:00.005+08:00

too dry. the doctor shook his head after flashing his lights into my eyeballs. all your flying doesn't help. tsk tsk.

i reminded him that he was the same doctor who had assured me repeatedly that i could hop onto the plane 2 days after the lasik procedure. yes yes, the cabin air is too dry for you. no good. shouldn't have flown.

too late, doc. now what?

he prescribed more eyedrops for me.

awashed with liquids in various forms, my vision clouded and cleared erratically.

i saw pop art everywhere. colours became intense. luminous. splashes of marilyn monroe and campbell soup cans in psychedelic colours. what were in these eyedrops? hallucinogenics?

in the lift to the office, my lipsticked lips leered eerily at me from the mirror. they have a life of their own. i had a feeling that it was going to be another long day at work.

my chemicals freed themselves from the periodic table, disobeying all laws of valency and molecular weight. like repressed teenagers in their new-found freedom, they gathered in collective mischief.
* flourine-uranium-carbon-potassium. hey don't be rude, you elements!
what? the carbon and potassium raced over to the other end to form cobalt-carbon-potassium. *mischievous hackling*
i squeezed my eyes shut as copper inched closer to nitrogen. aha! too bad, no T for you. i pushed them back to the table. go back! they give a final double whammy: argon-selenium and arsenic-sulphur.

how juvenile!

then, my powerpoint presentations stared acting up. they swam around in a colourful alphabet soup, campbell soup, of course. at least they were more matured than the periodic table. no rude words. i put more eyedrops into my parched eyes. now they really are swimming!

stop it!

some green tea should calm me down. i looked into my mug of lurid green. is it normal that tea glow in the dark?

i've been avoiding my colleague with dancing elephants on his tie. he wants an update from my trip. i am fearful of what his elephants would do. i'm busy, go away!

i sighed.

if i can't beat them, i might as well be a part of the pop art scene. fluorescent green tea with andy warhol and more eye drops for the rest of the day. i can be a dry-eyed marilyn monroe with bright pink lips.

* argon Ar; arsenic As; carbon C; cobalt Co; copper Cu; flourine F; nitrogen N; potassium K; selenium Se; sulphur S; uranium U

wife beater

2008-07-08T17:12:00.004+08:00

monday evening found me shopping with a gay friend along orchard road. he was back in town for a quick visit and wanted to stock up on things before hopping back to his newly adopted homeland. when i say shopping with a gay guy, i suppose one would expect trawling along dressy classy shops.

but no.

we ended up in the underwear department in takashimaya. not the lingerie department, but the underwear department. apparently men's basic intimate wear are cheaper here.

he picked up some sleeveless undershirts. in the uk, these are called wife-beaters. how this innocent white cotton tshirt without sleeves got its nickname baffles me. it might be the preferred homewear for the abusive alcoholic husbands. no sleeves to hinder movement when giving her a black eye.

in france they are called marcel. maybe marcel from france was a wife beater too. the only marcel i know is 11 years old and well, it's a little too early to verify if he would have violent urges towards the female species. anyway, he lives in canada, not france.

in singapore they are simply called singlets. boring and safe. which is perfect since only babies wear them here. marcel was probably wearing one the first time i saw him, when he was still a drooling pooing pudgy baby.

at the end of the evening, my friend went home with 6 singlets in his shopping bag. why a gay guy would wear a wife-beater defeats me.

a life less ironical

2008-07-03T14:15:00.000+08:00

note to self :
get reincarnated to a life less ironical next time. accumulate good karma now.

monopoly

2008-07-02T03:48:00.001+08:00

life is like a game of monopoly, some people breeze through GO, collect their $200 and get to stay in the mansion in mayfair for free. enjoy the lovely view.

for some other people, they get condemned to go directly to jail , do not pass GO and to add insult to injury, get piled up to their eyeballs with the french income tax. unfortunate draw of the COMMUNITY CHEST cards. sorry, charity only helps those who try to help themselves. but i did struggle to change the situation. my efforts appeared to be wasted, or misguided, or perhaps merely mis-directed.

or maybe it wasn’t COMMUNITY CHEST but the CHANCE cards that landed me in jail. in french, CHANCE means luck. i’ve always had luck for small escapes but never for the big things when it really mattered.

lady luck smiles not at me.

tough chance. tough luck. tough game, life is.

am i ready to throw in the towel or should i continue to strive hard for that mayfair property before GAME OVER? how long can i fend off bankruptcy in this lopsided game? it is never a level playing field, this tough game of life.

when is it my turn to roll the dice again?

and...

2008-06-25T08:38:00.000+08:00

... will i see the world differently?

one in a million

2008-06-25T08:01:00.003+08:00

in a while, i will go for my lasik procedure. it's not an operation, they call it a procedure these days. blade free and everything automated. the chances of things going badly is one in a million. same chances as striking the lottery. or winning a lucky draw.

a friend once told me that he didn't believe in winning lucky draws. we were having dinner, and the restaurant gave us entry forms to their lucky draw. he didn't believe in his chances of winning and so didn't submit the entry forms. instead of having a one in a million chance of winning, he gave himself none.

in a while, i will go for my lasik procedure. having worn specs since i was 10, i have forgotten the sweet liberty of a life unencumbered by contact lenses and spectacles. i have to give myself a chance for perfect eyesight. and hope that the one in a million chance of something going wrong will not fall on me.

*fingers crossed*

anxiety

2008-06-24T10:16:00.003+08:00

my dreams, i never remember them, not even the wipsy fragments floating on the wake as sleep speedily departs. in the absence of midnight stories, of exotic fantasies or vibrant imageries, i assumed that sleep enveloped me thoroughly in my cocoon of silent darkness. i assumed that i don't dream.

i started having nightmares a few days ago, after i got back from my business trip.

the first consisted of rainbows and waterfalls.
the second was of dinner and the conversation around it.
the third, was a girl handing out hors d'oeuvre made of boiled spinach.

innocent dreams? i have no explanation for the intense feeling of horror that overtook me as these dreams unfolded. i wake up feeling anxious.

unexplainably anxious.

do you drink?

2008-06-16T14:24:00.004+08:00

hello, i'm waiting for you at the hotel lobby.

after a brief slightly awkward introduction, we headed off for lunch. as i was in tokyo alone, a kindly friend had asked her japanese friend to come meet me. i hated eating alone but had since gotten used to it.

still, some company was preferred.

french food was suggested - i didn't mind, all i wanted was to get out of the hotel and into the beautiful day outside. we went to a creperie.

it was crowded. but we had called ahead and a table was waiting for us in a nice quiet corner. it looked like a very trendy place to spend the afternoon.

as we weaved through the small tables placed too close to each other, my new friend turned around and asked:

do you drink?

i could tell, this was going to be a wonderful day.

for you

2008-06-16T07:00:00.000+08:00

milk

2008-06-14T21:57:00.007+08:00

milk.
that was all i could think of this afternoon.

let me rewind a little, explain from the beginning.

i made a day trip to hakona, the hot spring spa town in the mt fuji area. it was a sweltering day. i wore minimal clothes from my suitcase: a loose blouse with spaghetti straps and linen cut-offs. might as well try to get a tan while roaming around the mountains, i thought.

apparently i was the only one with this in mind.

the japanese women were decked out in long-sleeved shirts and hats. and umbrellas. those who had short-sleeve tops were wearing gloves, i'm not kidding, gloves. those long opera ones that reach the elbows. even young girls who wore shorts had socks all the way up their thighs. socks with shorts and high heels? someone please lock them up! alas, they're safe. the fashion police is hiding in the shade. even they didn't want to risk a tan by venturing outside.

how could they stand the heat? they must be cooking under all those layers. slow cooked like white fish wrapped in aluminuim foil in a hot oven, the way jamie oliver used to do. just looking at them made me perspire even more. *shudder*

in the onsen hot spring spa this afternoon, i gaped at the fruits of their pain and endurance. all of them had milky smooth unblemished skin.

milk. milk and 2 bacci chocolates.
that was all i could think of this afternoon.

groundhog day

2008-06-12T23:11:00.004+08:00

if today was groundhog day, i would not have worn my brown suit. because i would have known that the button would pop out exactly 5 minutes 32 seconds after i left the hotel. then i wouldn't need to walk back to the hotel and change into my black suit. and be late for work. and no, it wasn't because i had put on weight. no!

if today was groundhog day, i would have told my project manager to go stuff the powerpoint files up his... *ahem*... nostrils when he asked me to print a copy of everything for "the meeting in an hour's time". i was not a secretary. and i cared not for that meeting in an hour's time.

actually if today was groundhog day, i would have just stayed in bed until i felt ready to face the world...

no, if today was groundhog day, i would have woken up at the crack of dawn to practise an hour of yoga before going back to bed. and then staying in bed until i felt ready to face the world.

if today was groundhog day, i would have left the office earlier. because by the time i reached the steak restaurant, and i had been craving so badly for a steak, it had already stopped dinner service. *rumbling stomach*

if today was groundhog day, i would have whispered "i love you" to you with all my heart.

but today wasn't groundhog day. and frankly, i am really glad not to go through this awful day again.

water torture

2008-06-10T19:42:00.004+08:00

the incessant water drip *drip* dripping *drip* drips on my head. just when i thought it was going to stop, another drop.

*drip*

half mad with helplessness, i am. eaten away like a boulder by the river, a cliff by the sea. slowly, tortuously and incessantly. when is the end?

*drip*

stop please.

*drip*

stop, i say.

*drip*

stop.

*drip*

coconut

2008-06-08T20:35:00.004+08:00

coconut? yes i like the sound of it. why not?
i have a feeling it's going to be an important beginning to something amazing and wonderful... in 1001 different ways...

silenced

2008-06-07T12:20:00.000+08:00

while sitting at the bus stop last night, a jogger went past me singing under his breath. he had a nice voice.

looking at his departing figure, i though: how wonderful that he can combine these 2 activities that he clearly enjoyed. it was only then when i realised that there is no music playing in my head. no tune winding round and round everything as i go about in my life. not anymore.

well, i am not musically talented and can't sing to save my life, but i love listening to all kinds of music. in fact, i go through phases of near obsession with a song for months. i usually have a tune in my head, something that matches my general mood. in an indulgent mood, i would hum tunelessly as i go about with my daily life.

but silence had crept in and taken over without my noticing. when did that happen?

i should head out and pick up a few good CDs, find a new tune that can wrap itself around me and everything that i do.

listened to any good songs lately?

hide

2008-06-06T16:14:00.001+08:00

heart thumping like a half-crazed drummer, i hid under the bed. a dark shadow noiselessly flitted past, searching for me, no doubt. please don't like the blood sucker find me, i whispered a silent prayer. i tried to slow down my nervous panting, or at least to breathe quietly.

was the coast clear?

i crept slowly towards the exit doorway, keeping a watchful eye for the hateful creature. my feet felt like cold lead. there was light coming under the door... freedom beckoned.

there was a whisper of a noise to my left.

i froze. after what felt like an eternity, i continued my slow torturous escape. the urge to run, to flee was overpowering.

just a few more steps and i would be free...

i reached for the door the same time that the cold hands of the blood sucker grabbed my shoulders.

*game over*

it's time to file my french taxes.