into hyperspace and back again

Tempo rubato. That’s Italian for stolen time. In the plane back from Jeju, Korea, among many Korean and Japanese movies that had me either embarassingly guffawing with laughter or crying my heart out, I learnt that magical musical term. I was watching a masterclass feature in which a piano maestro teaches a musical prodigy how to play and appreciate one of Beethoven’s famous pieces. I can’t seem to remember the names for the maestro, the prodigy and that Beethoven piece but I can vividly recall how the maestro explained tempo rubato.

It is one of those weird poignant moments that you somehow know that something you’ve just watched, read or heard or someone you’ve just met has permanently and lovingly etched itself into your memory and your heart. Thus, you can’t help but glow with this indescribable warmth of knowing that that moment will stay with you for life.

I’ve been on warp drive for the past few months; life’s been a blast, really! Everyday’s been one full day after another, and by full, I meant that every day felt like I’ve accomplished something new and meaningful. Work’s been awesome and challenging while my calendar’s overflowing with family, friends, travel plans, weddings, farewells, celebrations and all things wonderful.

It’s just amazingly scary. Bewitched is how it feels like, along with much joy and incomparable gratefulness.

Yet, another birthday that passes reminds me that I’d need to somewhat slow down and catch my breath, sometime soon. Stolen time needs some ways to be returned, to preserve the magic you created when you changed the rules. There’s only so much you can stretch before the arrangement falls into disarray and the spell gets broken. I guess it’s not worth travelling faster than light if it means I’m missing the little things in the glare along the way.

Oh but for now and just a little while longer, I’m basking in the enchantment of it all!

seeking for good ripples

I don’t know if his family still lives there but I think of Tony every time I drive pass his house. I remember asking why nobody knew and how could he have been so alone with whatever he was facing, that he had to take his own life. I remember feeling awful that we lived a few rows apart and that I’ve neglected the “friendship forever” and “keep in touch” phrases scribbled into each other’s autograph books during those last days of innocence. I remember being overwhelmed by a stifling sadness when I saw the faces of my old classmates eleven years later at his funeral and getting a déjà vu of all those feelings when I met long-lost cousins that gathered for Amah’s wake. I know you don’t accept refunds of gifts but there is mercy, right? I hope he is no longer alone. Everytime I think of him, I am reminded that I need to listen more or pay a little bit more attention to those around me. Maybe that is his legacy to me, or perhaps my tribute to him…
……..

Back in secondary school, I used to cry out of frustration when I got interrogated with questions about you that I couldn’t answer. Those were definitely intense years and girls can get a bit brutal, especially overzealous missionary ones in an all girls’ school. I just got confirmed and I was all fired-up to do your will and share the good news. Yet, they tore me apart. I couldn’t defend you, I didn’t know all the right answers. I still don’t but nowadays, I am hardly fazed. I only bother to discuss when I know the intention behind the asking is worth our time. I can’t help it, I get mad when people ask questions to set me up for religious transplants. I am just not evangelist-material or evangelist-friendly. Speaking of which, I still don’t get why they don’t get it. Why is there a need to save people who have, technically, been saved or are not on any endangered list? What is the preoccupation with such a wanton exercise of futility? Is it so difficult to celebrate the good in common rather than fight over the differences? This is perhaps why family feuds are just about the nastiest ones around.
……….

I’ve always asked you questions, and though you’ve never really answered any of them, I keep asking. I apologise for the oft repeat of the same questions and ones that I already knew the answers to. Most of the time, my questions led to more questions and a lot of confusion. Why is that? Is this what it means to have faith and to build upon it? Can a monologue be a discussion? When I do find some semblance of an answer, they came about indirectly through the words a stranger uttered (sometimes not even to me), something the priest said in his homily, an episode of a popular tv drama series, a song I heard, a line in a book I am reading, heart-shaped bloodstains on C-fold paper or just some falling leaves. Were you trying to connect with me or was I desperately connecting subtext in my surroundings to you, and thus coming up with realisations as answers? Anyhow, I hope you know that I worry at times. My biggest worry is that my reception is flawed (or that maybe you got tired of listening to me) and therefore the answers I am coming up with are self-serving. That would be quite frankly, disastrous. So, can I have some reassurance from you sometimes, once in awhile, once in a blue moon, that I’m going about this the right way… please? Thanks and yeah, I’ll be coming in for some connection tuning soon… don’t give up on me, okie?

meet you there

“What? Carlsberg is for wusses!”
He held his right hand to his chest, grimaced, tottered and then steadied himself, “Aww, you hurt my feelings. I’m Danish and that’s one of my country’s pride.” Oops. Me and my big mouth. “But I prefer Heineken actually!” I heaved a sigh of relief at his funny grin and we both burst into laughter. When you have a dad that works in a brewery which you interned at and that brewery also happens to be the main competitor of Carlsberg in this region, you grow up learning to differentiate the greens and be suitably biased. Hee…

wet cats and rusty bicycles

“It’s coming! Shhhh… OK OK… go get ready at the other door. Hurry!”
The lazy feline sauntered along the longkang, oblivious to the little feet that scurried behind the walls and drops of water haphazardly dripping across the floor with mischief.

“One… two…. SPLASHHH!!”
Caught by surprise, the drenched cat jumped and sped off along the wall with a loud wailing Meowwwwwwww and just as expected, it turned a right corner at the end of the wall just before the rubber processing shed, towards door number two.

“One… two… SPLASHHH!!”
The meowing siren veered off at another right angle, this time darting across the backyard towards the rubber trees. Startled chickens, ducks and geese burst into a cacophony of noises that was joined in chorus by hoots and shouts as the two kids fell on the kitchen floor laughing, water scoop and pot clanging in victory.

“Ah Mekkkkkkk! Mai ak niao ahh! Kam khong ohhh… Tan jit ae lok ho, waipo sa buay ta ahhh!!! (Ah Mekkkkkkk, do not wet the cat! Goodness, Grandmother’s clothes will not get dry if it rains later!!!) “
Little feet hurriedly drag rag cloths across the floor, soaking up mini puddles of water before disappearing out of sight as a plump old lady came in through door number one with a basket of freshly plucked sweet potato leaves.
……….

la vie boheme

I started keeping a blog after returning from an entire month of backpacking Europe in the summer of 2004. Facing a quarter-life-crisis, restless and lost, I took up the suggestion to blog from Adrian (who’s been a mentor of sorts in more ways than he knows). All these stuff in my head, my heart, and through my eyes, they had to be deposited somewhere before they each fade from existence in Father Time’s hands.

So much have transpired as the years flew. I fell in and out of love. I made new friends and rediscovered old ones. I still have not found my calling but I know for sure what I love to do, what is important in my life and most of all, what is worth fighting for. Inspirations and epiphanies came from numerous people and places, sometimes those least expected. Milan Kundera inspired me to look for the accidental beauty in life. Ah Tan taught me the contentment that comes with jian dan de xing fu (simple happiness) and the courage to pursue love. Tommy Oshima showed me the power of preserving a moment and let it echo for eternity. Strangers wrote in to tell me how certain photographs of mine or my pieces of writings touched their lives.

Looking through the archives, I find myself relieving a myriad of moments. Some made me cringe, some made me cry all over again, some made me ponder even more but mostly, they made me smile, grin or guffaw in laughter. For the almost 250-odd posts, there are possibly a thousand more not put in writing. Thus, for all these and for more that is to come, I am brimming over with gratitude. Tomorrow as I blow out the candles to my twenty-seventh year, I only have one wish.

To be useful.

of soil and seeds

I am a graduate of UPM.

Cheh, macam support group meeting introduction! Hee…

Yes, I graduated from Universiti Putra Malaysia. The university and the course I graduated from were my first choices in my IPTA application. Call it going against type, but I was determined not to select UM simply because everybody else wanted to go there and felt that they would die if they did not succeed in their admission application. I remembered Pn. Zainita, my Year 6 class teacher and Mrs. Kua, my 6th Form class teacher saying no matter where you go or end up at, if you’re a good seed, you will grow, blossom and bear fruits of blessings for others. Logically I argued with them that it would also have to depend on the soil and environmental conditions. They both had the same reply, “If you have good soil and a bad seed, that would be such a waste, no?”. For days after, I would be thinking of coconuts floating in the ocean, finding land.

The first few weeks of university were harrowing. Firstly, I got traumatised when the VC earnestly said in his welcome speech, “Bila berada di menara gading, anda berada di ambang perkahwinan…” I swear I cringed and sunk deep into my seat. The students around me smiled sheepishly or laughed like it was the best thing they’ve heard in ages. Evidently, I failed to appreciate the humour because I felt that I didn’t go through 6th Form and STPM to end up in a bridal market.

The initial weeks also introduced me to polarization and the simple observation that boy, do our universities unravel any effort made at the primary level for racial integration. Chinese-educated peers shunned me and scoffed at my insistence in speaking English or Malay. It was never an attempt to be superior, I simply could not speak Mandarin or the other dialects, at least not without causing mass diarrhea. Chinese seniors came to my residential college and spoke of how we as Chinese must help each other in order to survive and promptly established a support network. This occurred for the other new students as well and even within the same course, seniors mostly helped juniors of the same race. Obstracized because I couldn’t speak the language and did not sympathize with the need to flock together, I spent the first month hanging out almost exclusively with Malay and Indian coursemates. A clash of mentalities perhap, but the irony of being an outcast because I was a product of the sekolah kebangsaan system in a public university was biting.

eyes wide open

There was an Iswara in front of me, awaiting traffic to ease on the opposite lane so that it can turn into the housing estate on the right. I was in my Kancil waiting for the Iswara to turn so that I can move on. The traffic on the left was too heavy for me to switch lanes. Oh well, it’s just one car; I’ll just wait. My eyes darted between the front car, the right lane traffic and the rearview mirror. Suddenly, everything that happened next unfolded as if in slow motion. A car was fast approaching from behind but something was amiss. It didn’t seem to slow down nor signal to switch lanes. My heart raced, hands gripped the sides of my car seat tight, eyes transfixed on the rearview mirror and the pair of bright growing headlights. No, no, no way… stop. SSSTT…

As the car slammed into mine, my eight beanie bears on the dashboard flew like confetti and the backseat became a mess of files, notes and clothes. As I watched two big burly men alight from the Iswara in front, I felt like I lost my brains for awhile. I got out of the car, feeling weak in the knees and looked at the car behind. Great, another Iswara. Why didn’t you stop? I felt my own voice tremble exasperatedly as I faced a dazed-looking man flushed pink in the cheeks. “Mei pan fa, xiao jie. Mei pan fa,” he said repeatedly with an irritating silly smile. Excuse me, no choice? Mei pan fa? One of the two men from the front Iswara came up angrily and demanded to know what happened as the other inspected their car. In the blur of car horns and a heated flurry of Mandarin and Cantonese, I remember staring at my poor Kancil all banged up front and back, sandwiched between two perfectly unscathed Iswaras.

Traffic was fast building up on both sides of the trunk road. No signs of pesky tow-truck operators. Pheww. I had to borrow one of the burly men’s mobile phone to call Atah as my phone battery conveniently died ten minutes before the accident. My Kancil thankfully could still start. After a short exchange of instructions with the intoxicated idiot and some words of thanks to the kind burly men, I drove my Kancil to the nearest police station, chanting the idiot’s vehicle car plate number to the accompaniment of painful clanking engine sounds and a mental replay of colourful flying bears.

Sometimes at night when sleep eludes me, I lie awake and that incident a few years ago returns in a perfectly vivid but odd recall. I can feel my chest tighten and hands grip an imaginary car seat as the mind fixes itself upon the anticipation of being hit. An imminent crash. Except I can’t see any oncoming vehicles or bright headlights. No rearview mirror. Just a huge sigh and eyes wide open.