lishun's musings

Thursday, August 31, 2006

breaking stereotypes

the 1960s were probably the worst times to be malaysian. my parents were in their 20s by then and were experiencing the height of the racial disquiet that had gradually escalated enough to cloud their lives and trap them in their home.

despite growing up in mostly-chinese environments (my mother's a pure kl girl while my father lived in benta and batu pahat), my parents had plenty of non-chinese friends because they served the government for a good number of years. in fact, when they got married, they moved to a government-provided housing area, where my younger aunts and uncles grew up pretending to speak tamil to their neighbours.

anyway, my parents told me enough stories about their friends of various races for me to not have any qualms about making having friends of different races myself, a quality that i have come to appreciate while growing up. they have also made a point to never express their dissatisfaction with "the system" without backing it up with solid points about how the economy works and also the challenges that face a multi-racial country, challenges that can only truly be handled the way they currently already are.

but i digress.

one of the stories my mother likes to tell me is about an incident that happened during the racial crisis of the late '60s. my father's colleague, a malay man, was in trouble for voicing his sympathy for the chinese and also for having ties with the communists. he needed a place to hide out and my parents offered him their home and hospitality.

i can't remember the man's name, but according to my mother, he was fair and clean-shaven in addition to his "liberal" views, making it very easy to mistake him as any race other than malay.

one day, during the time when my father's friend was at their house, my aunt and her best friend walked in after school. they grabbed cold drinks and sat down to gossip a little, the way secondary school girls do. during the conversation, the topic of discussion strayed towards the current state of dissatisfaction and violence among the races in malaysia.

it was then that my aunt's best friend loudly declared, "yalah, that's why i haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate those malays lah."

my parents were horrified. there, sitting in same the living room, quietly reading the newspaper, was the malay man they called their friend. they were throughly embarrassed that their guest had to be subject to such a blatant display of ignorance and belief in stereotypes in their very own home.

just as they were about to chide my aunt's best friend for her behaviour, the quiet malay man got up, rolled up his newspaper and said to her, softly, "well, i'm malay. do you hate me too?"

needless to say, my aunt's best friend chose her words much more carefully from then on.

---

i know it isn't exactly a story one would expect for "project happy malaysia", but it was a story, one of the many my parents told me, that taught me to look beyond the stereotypes and avoid dishing out generous amounts of prejudice on people who share this country that i am proud to call my home.

in school, i have definitely had chinese classmates that were neither greedy nor miserly, indian friends who tell the truth and malay friends who work their butts off in school and truly deserve every cent of the scholarships they received. if there were any conflicts between us, it was the usual misunderstandings that friends have and they were never tinged with racist sentiments.

i am ever grateful that although i don't have a "happy malaysia" story to share - sadly, i have never encountered an honest policeman and i have definitely never been chided by an air steward - my parents, the people you would most expect to be angry and bitter about racial inequality and "the system", have an endless supply of them to pass onto my sister and me.

happy 49th year of independence, malaysia!

lishun at 7:13 AM

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

attack of the talented bald men

it all started with chris daughtry.

the 26-yr-old american idol contestant, who was voted off the show waaaaaay too early (bloody americans), was my favourite to win the competition because he had soul, he had class, he had style with his hot...

ms. aguilera's words, not mine.

i mostly liked him because he managed to pull off every performance perfectly and he has a voice tailor-made for rock music. plus the fact that he's a loving husband and father really scored him some extra points in the likeability department. his band, absent element, has some really great stuff too.

then came magni asgeirsson.

"magni-ficent" has now been officially declared as a bad name pun cliche, alongside "cesc fab-ulous" and "ruud awakening", being probably the first non-football-related term to be given that honour.

anyway, here's another bald guy with facial hair, a loving family and a great rock voice. i believe he's doing for rockstar supernova what chris did for american idol and sadly, like chris, he too will be out of the competition long before his exit is due despite absolutely "killing" (to borrow that overused rockstar supernova term) songs that have great melodies.

i still look forward to his gorgeous voice and his fiery performances (even the acoustic version of "the dolphin's cry" had "h-o-t" written all over it) and although i don't see him fronting supernova, i sure hope i get to hear more of this 28-year-old rocker.

the last talented bald man to come along is prasad.

ladies and gentlemen...the current m206 orientation committee president!

he ain't no rocker, but he can sure still kick some ass with his voice. this (recently turned) 19-year-old is part of the trio that finished as the higest ranking malaysian debate team at the asian universities' debate championships (audc) in may. quick with the head and with the tongue wei!

other than being probably one of the most sporting people i know (he was the winning imcc for the m205 orientation) and also one of the smartest (i would never get into an intellectual debate with him, for fear of shame), prasad is also an extremely responsible individual who is passionate about everything he invests his time into...including his relationship with his friends.

despite his lack of facial hair, i have to say that prasad is still pretty darn hawt and truly deserves to be way up there with the talented bald men of the world.

chris, magni, move over!

oh wait, before i forget...he's *ahem* single.

*note: prasad did not pay me any money to do this post. it was entirely my idea. having said that, he now owes me lunch. bwahahaha.

lishun at 9:23 PM

Monday, August 28, 2006

bitter, huh?

it's the end of the first day and i wrote and rewrote a couple of versions of this post, but here are just some of the things i want to say:

1. ivy and kevin worked very hard for icebreakers and i am immensely sorry for the way things turned out in the end. m206, it wasn't a very nice thing to do. if there was anyone who worked especially hard to change traditions and make orientation more about the freshies and less about the seniors ragging, it would have been the icebreakers committee. i hope you feel sorry about it too.

2. you had it coming. see no.1

3. yes, you can find out which is my fave footie team and my fave player somewhere in this blog. happy searching through 3 1/2 years' worth of blog posts. bwahahahaha.

4. why on earth is the freaking timetable so freaking packed?! sighs.

5. some of you (you know who you are) really need to control yourselves.

6. i am dead tired and very very hungry. gah.

7. baaaaaaad medicine's pretty bitter, huh?

alright. that's it. i need to watch house, grab some shuteye, pray very hard that my soggy phone won't konk out and that tomorrow will be a nice new day.

lishun at 9:54 PM

Saturday, August 26, 2006

her

these are the things i miss:

having the lights switched on at 6am because she needed to dress.

holding her hand when she walked up stairs.

eating the delicious glutinous rice dumplings she made every year (no RM3 meat-stuffed dumpling can ever compare to those).

getting impatient when her semi-deaf ears could not hear what i wanted to tell her.

giving her a kiss on her birthday.

having a laugh when i realised how ridiculous it was that we were like a chicken and a duck conversing to once another (she spoke hokkien, i spoke mandarin - we understood each other perfectly).

hearing her complain when there were no veg or fruit in the fridge.

watching her face light up when i brought home grapes for her.

smelling the scent of her talcum powder lingering in my room.

complimenting her on her new hairdo when she got home from the hairdresser's.

hearing the rumbling sound of the sewing machine as she pieced together yet another blanket, another bathroom mat, another cushion cover.

seeing the semi-smile on her lips when i took the few photos i have of her.

---

these are the things i don't miss:

being stuck between the past and present because she left my house so many years ago and only came home to die.

not feeling her absence but pining for her all the same.

seeing the last photograph i took of her on my bedroom table and not being able to smile.

---

i love you ah mah. i can't believe it's been more than a year.

lishun at 8:12 AM

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

perasan-ness

we give ourselves waaaaaaay too much credit. malaysians call this being "perasan".

i'm guilty of it too.

i often find myself apologising to people for sarcastic comments i made earlier in the day, thinking that i may have hurt their feelings when really, they don't even remember me saying anything to them.

in college, i had some hard times dealing with my friends because i thought that every slight sideways glance meant they were bitching about how insensitive i was to them or how much they disliked me.

when the realisation came, it was hard to accept that things were not about me. i didn't affect people's moods as much as i thought i did. when people gossiped, most of the time they weren't gossiping about me. people seriously had much better things to do and less petty issues to worry about than to think about what i said or did.

the reason why people do certain things or feel certain ways is because of...themselves, really.

i was very ashamed when the truth finally sank in a couple of years ago. it was what made me stop whining as much as i did in secondary school and it was what made me feel just that little less apprehensive around people than i used to be. even then, i felt that the revelation came much too late because really...the years of bitterness and suspicion i carried around were just not worth it. i could have had a much better time and made more friends.

so it surprises me that there are people, well into the first third of their lives, who still think that it's all about them. these are people that we trust to know better, people we hope are wiser than us, people who are leading us...and they still think that it's about them.

well wake up. it's not about you. it never was, it still isn't, and it never will be.

lishun at 11:33 PM

Friday, August 18, 2006

cms

"if i lay here
if i just lay here
would you lie with me and just forget the world?"
- from "chasing cars" by snow patrol

i'm having what my friend waisun calls "current menstrual syndrome", or "cms" for short.

i've just watched 22 episodes of one tree hill season 3 in three days.

the soundtrack includes alot of emo rock.

and now i feel like quoting from that stupid show.

i feel like what peyton told jake before she left savannah (that's in georgia). she said...

"you know that feeling you get when you wake up on sundays and you know it's going to be a great day? then the evening comes and you remember that you need to go to school the next day and that ruins the rest of the night."

...or something to that effect.

i feel like that now. it's the evening. school starts on monday. i haven't done a single thing i said i'd do during my too-short hols and although i had a fab time playing by ear for most of the last 2 weeks, i feel like shit now.

the next six months are looming right at me, calling me to my doom. i know i have the reward of travelling down to singapore when (if?) i pass my finals but at the moment the cms has taken over and i just feel like strangling the next person who asks me where they can find our sem3 groupings table (let me spoonfeed you: it's here).

now. leave. me. alone.

i have a pity party to attend and a world to forget.

lishun at 5:08 PM

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

signs you're getting older #256

one tree hill episode 3-03...

scene: nathan and lucas are arguing at the neighbourhood basketball court.

lucas: she loves you, nate!

nathan: and is that supposed to make everything okay?

lucas: yeah, it is.

me: *thinking* what an idiot.

nathan: you're an idiot.

---

there was a time when i thought that love would be enough. blame it on hallmark channel, the romantic comedies that i don't watch anymore, or whatever...i used to think that yes, love is supposed to make everything okay.

if you love someone, you can forgive them even if they broke your heart and messed up your life. if that person loves you, he/she deserves to be forgiven and all should be forgotten so things can go back to the way they were before they became screwed up.

pfft. sure, if you live on planet disney.

it is pretty clear that every relationship thrives on so much more than love. there are also the usual ingredients that we always talk about: friendship, trust, intimacy and - the big one - responsibility. there is no way you can forgive someone for screwing up and then resume the relationship if you don't consider that person a friend anymore, or if you've lost trust in them. love is but one factor of a relationship and its importance does not mean it overrides all the other factors that come into play.

watching one tree hill made me realise how much i have grown.

i know, they're only 17 in the show and i'm 21 - high school and college behind me, only the big unknown future ahead - it is no surprise i have trouble relating to the show anymore.

but i'm grateful nathan called lucas an idiot in the show, because i sure wish someone my age told me the same thing when i was 17. of course, my parents have often told me that our family was not built on love alone and that my future (non-existent so far, bah) relationships should not be either, but which 17-yr-old listens to her parents anyway?

bottom line is, i was a little surprised when nathan echoed what went through my head. at that precise moment, what i've known for a long time now finally truly completely sank in: love is not enough. it is never enough.

love wasn't even enough to return man to God - death still had to come into the picture.

although that realisation made me feel a little proud that i am no longer so naive, it also made me a little sad because i am also no longer so young.

*note: on a sidenote, it just confirms what i've always known - nathan is definitely a better (fictional) character than lucas. bwahahaha. so much for being "older". lol.

lishun at 4:07 PM

Monday, August 14, 2006

getting what you want

i find that the most valuable lesson about getting what you want can be learnt from a trip to the hairdresser's.

first of all, i think that the hair salon is second only to the dentist's office in terms of places where i feel most vulnerable. in both those places, you have to put your complete trust in a person who has the power and the tools to either cause irreparable damage or perform an incredible act of skill. it's just that at least at a hair salon, you're not lying supine and the hairdresser doesn't have a mask and goggles on while he/she prods around in one of our 7 orifices (count 'em!).

anyway, you need a bit of background info on this. although i am a perfectionist, i hate hurting people's feelings. i have a terrible tendency to "let things go" and have people semi-stomp all over me because i am compelled to be "nice" while silently fuming inside because my perfect plans are all screwed up. so let's say someone makes a mistake and looks genuinely sorry for it, but that mistake has cost me what i want. i would most probably pat that person on the shoulder, tell him/her not to feel too bad about it, and then resist the urge to whine and bitch about it to someone else lest i come across as "nice but whiny".

so you can imagine the dire consequences that have resulted from my reluctance to assert myself when it comes to what i want. especially when it comes to my hair.

on sunday, my mother, sis and i went over to the hairdresser's to get our hair styled for a wedding we had to attend that afternoon. while i was getting my hair washed, a young, pretty girl clad in pageboy cap, tank, mini and leggings (aka clueless apprentice hairdresser) asked me how i would like my hair styled.

usually i take this as an opportunity to get my hair blown dry straight because my wavy hair is the bane of my life. however, fresh from getting flattering comments about my curls the previous night (i did not wait in vain), i was determined not to let her iron out my natural waves. so i told her that i wanted it to be natural, as in leave my natural curls in.

"oh, so curly la?" she clarified, like any good clueless apprentice should. i nodded and she went back to scratching my scalp raw with her manicured nails.

here's where i digress: people, don't ever massage your scalp with your nails when you wash your own hair. use your fingertips. female magazine does not lie.

what happened next was that she proceeded to blowdry my hair without even so much as drying the loose drops of water first (female magazine says that's a no-no; your hair can get damaged). for the next 20mins or so, she and my regular stylist proceeded to put curls in my hair where there were none and i, being engrossed in a tabloid story of how jen is mad at brad for casting angie as daniel pearl's wife in a role promised to her (jen not angie) for the movie adaptation of "a mighty heart", didn't notice a single thing.

until it was too late. i looked like i stole medusa's wig. then miss manicured nails came up to me and sheepishly said, "um, it costs RM10 extra for curls."

curls? what curls? i said my hair is naturally curly and i just wanted it to not be poker-straight, that's all! and, if i knew about the extra charge, i would have stopped you earlier and you wouldn't have had to waste all that time blowing unwanted curls in my hair.

but the girl just kept apologising profusely about not telling me about the extra charge and for misinterpreting what i said. incredibly, she carried on blowing even more curls into the mess of curls that was now my hair while looking utterly miserable about her mistake. it was almost as if she expected me to say, "oh well since you're already 99% done, i can't very well be a bitch and ask you to wash it all out and re-blow dry my hair right, you poor little apprentice girl you?"

which was precisely what i said.

yeah. like i mentioned, i am just hopeless when it comes to this. i don't really have much trouble asking a typist to retype something or for anyone to change things that are easily changed, but when it comes to getting people to change things that they have put in alot of time and effort into, i just become a bowl of mush.

luckily my mother, the original step-all-over-me i got my genes from who is now older and much more experienced in getting what she wants, decided to be the meanie on my behalf and demanded that apprentice girl wash out my curls and start over.

which she did. and i came out of it with seriously gorgeous hair.

my mother has tried time and again to make me learn the lessons she learned too late in life. she's the one who is most concerned that i will go through life being a semi-stomp all over, although i am very much aware of my weakness myself. it irritates me that i allow people to weasel their way to my really too-soft heart and that it is preventing me from excelling the way i should.

on a more serious note, i've found out that my reluctance to hurt people has extended beyond looking out for people's feelings - i'm afraid of inflicting physical pain on anyone too. i guess that came from the time right before my grandmother's death, when every touch was painful to her and every word uttered was an excruciating noise in her ears. now when i go to the hospital, i am so afraid of touching patients lest i hurt them, even if their afflictions have nothing to do with pain. it has hindered me from practising performing physical examinations, which is something i need to get used to, and it's putting quite a bit of stress on me.

well, i guess i should start with working on my inability to assert myself when i want something and then go backwards and work on overcoming my fear of causing pain, whether emotionally or physically. there will most definitely be situations in the future where i'll have to both stand my ground and potentially cause pain. i certainly do not want to buckle and disappoint, not just my perfectionist self but others as well, when that time comes.

lishun at 4:33 PM

Sunday, August 13, 2006

lookin' fwd

there are a couple of things i look forward to:

1. the homecoming of friends from the glamourous universities they go to overseas.

2. the return of curly hair into fashion (thank God for the current trend!).

3. my (now rare) movie outings with my sister.

4. good news for my parents from the doctor's office.

and

5. the start of the new season of english football! whee!!! *beams with joy*

it all starts tonight with the community shield match between the reds and the blues. 10pm yo. wouldn't miss it for the world. woohoo!

lishun at 9:56 AM

Friday, August 11, 2006

in travelling fashion

the past month has been a bit of a revelation to me about the different ways people travel.

i've discovered that my best pal june has no patience for time whatsoever and prefers to have every slot of her day filled with a place to visit, an activity to do or just something new to experience. markus prefers to slow things down and talk to people, to gain as much first-hand knowledge about the culture as possible. my friend shirley from hk, whom i had not seen since i was 11, chose petaling street and central market over the petronas twin towers when she visited kl. as for me, i find that as much as i like activities, people and shopping, i like them in ways that are very very different from june, markus and shirls.

the most important element of travel, in my opinion, is time: time to spend at my own pace, time to take in everything i like and, this is crucial, time for me to reflect on my thoughts and feelings for the day. there is nothing worse than a rushed 3-days-4-nights tour where i am whisked from one location to another in an air-conditioned bus, stopping for meals at (God forbid!) chinese restaurants when i'm not in china.

i would trade a bus route guide, a map with all the tourist spots and markets circled in pink and time to breathe for that. anytime.

while i enjoy activities, i find that doing things robs me of the luxury of being able to stop and appreciate things slowly. i have long known that extreme sports is not for safe ol' me, however cool it is to brag that i have bungee jumped into a beautiful canyon in new zealand (not that i've done that) or scaled the heights of mt. kilimanjaro (nope, haven't done that either). but that doesn't mean that i will not take a deep breath and go for it, as long as there is sufficient persuading involved. lol. i do, however, prefer activities where there is time to waste in between, for me to take another deep breath and just immerse myself in the experience.

during the climb at mt. kinabalu, i badly wanted to stop for longer periods of time to take in the full beauty of the place. alas, i was a slow climber and there was hardly any time to spare for photographs and for gazing at the lovely view from the mountain. although i was pretty upset, i would not have wanted to be one of the singaporean tourists that came up after us; they made numerous stops along the way to savour the wonders mt. kinabalu served up but paid for it later as they only reached laban rata after dark, having gone through two heavy downpours and, once at laban rata, were faced with the prospect of getting little or no rest before the ascent at 2am.

as for culture, i cannot deny that the best way to know the place is to know the people. i am most fascinated whenever ian wright, of globe trekker fame, shares a meal with the local people on the show and gets a valuable lesson in the country's cultural practices. when markus shared his stories of his encounters with the people of sabah (he was in sandakan before he joined us in kk), i felt a twinge of jealousy because i knew that i would not be able to just go up to people and talk to them and, at the end of the day, get invited for a bowl of soup at a primary schoolteacher's house.

i am, and have been for most of my life, an observer. i prefer to learn about a place's culture by living there and experiencing it for myself. to me, there are no shortcuts to learning about people's lives. a chat on the bus may leave the door ajar, but it can only be truly opened if i lived there for awhile.

this is, of course, unrealistic when it comes to travelling. it also gives off the impression of being unfriendly if i were to really live in a foreign country. i blame myself for the fact that although i am familiar with the way singapore works, i hardly have any singaporean friends. i remained an observer for the two years i was there, so eventhough i know and am very comfortable with the singapore culture, i don't know much about the people itself.

pretty ironic, if you think about it. maybe it just means that i don't know the culture as well as i think i do because i don't know the people.

anyway, shopping is at the bottom of my travel list. the one and only reason why i'd shop at all when travelling is because my friends and family would most definitely expect souvenirs. i love collecting knick-knacks but, due to the lack of a display cabinet, i have resorted to taking as many photos as i can and saving bus tickets, museum tickets, and other little things i have accumulated over the course of the trip instead. they serve as reminders to what i did there and they evoke much more memories of the smells, tastes and touches of the place than any postcard or wooden figurine ever will.

one of my most treasured souvenirs from the mad-rush-tour-bus holiday i had with my sister in cambodia last march is the pamphlet that was given out free at the s-21 tuol sleng genocide museum in phnom penh. everytime i read through the (spelling mistake-laden) description of the museum's history and look into the eyes of the innocents that were murdered there, i am brought back to the dark, blood-streaked walls of the converted high school. i remember the overwhelming grief that greeted me as i walked the corridors and the pain in the guide's voice as he told us about his own experience during the khmer rouge's bloody reign in the 1970s.

the red and blue kroma (scarf) that now serves as a table runner in my room can never elicit the same rush of emotions i feel when i see that pamphlet. it just can't.

i guess the best way to travel would be with a companion that seeks the same kind of experience as you do. my sister is the closest i'll have to the perfect travel buddy because we enjoy travelling the same way (map in one hand, time in the other) and we love the same things...although she is less than enthusiastic about the prospect of walking from one tourist location to the other, lol.

however, i am not picky when it comes to choosing a travel partner. the friends i have travelled with so far have all given me a chance to experience different modes of travel - and we're not just talking forms of transportation here. with june, there was never a moment too dull. after talking to markus, i am far more aware of how important it is to overcome my aloof behaviour and to talk to people because it is the best way to get to know the place in a short period of time. shirley demonstrated her good taste and eye for detail when i went shopping with her at petaling street, central market and klcc.

they are three very different people with three distinct travel styles that compliment my own preferences when it comes to travelling. i'm just glad that at the end of the day, we each took something different away from the experience but we also completed the experience as a whole for each other.

lishun at 6:47 PM

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

lonely shots of singapore

"alone time is the most awesome time you could spend with anybody."
- vincent

with disregard to the obvious contradiction in the quote above (but yes, i do know precisely what you mean) i absolutely and totally agree with vincent. spending time alone is a luxury most of us living in the high-paced world cannot afford to have. after all, each day is a responsibility to the people we love, the people that pay us to work for them and the people who rely on us for their survival.

it is very selfish to indulge in alone time, of course. we've always been taught to put God first, then others, then ourselves. service above self. but there's a reason why the oh great almighty oprah winfrey keeps emphasising on the necessity to have a little "me" time...although she definitely has more than just "a little" but she's a celebrity and hence normal human rules need not apply to her). it only makes sense to take care of yourself once in a while.

for me, it is highly therapeutic to get away from the notes i have to read and the people i have to entertain and the parents i have to reassure everytime i step out of the house, and just go to the places i love - to take photographs of buildings and people i have no obligations towards.

eventhough i can only afford to do that twice a year, it definitely rejuvenates me enough for me to soldier on during the 6 months in between.

haw par villa - former must-see theme park magnificent tourist attraction. now it's pretty run down with broken statues and nothing but gateways, stale ponds and the 10 courts of hell...

i paid S$1 to get into the gates of hell

...which i had to pay S$1 to get into. i guess you have to pay when you go to hell.

peek-a-buddha!

the view from library@orchard.

he was posing for his dad. i stole the shot.

there were some primary school kids putting on performances at paragon in conjunction with the start of the 5-day national day celebrations. tonnes of spectators. doesn't anyone work on fridays?!

a forbidden photo within the walls of the singapore art museum (sam).

la salle, lookin' really forboding. the sam was once st.joseph's institution. wonder why it's la salle's statue at the front and not st.joseph's?

the row of crosses on top of the cathedral at chijmes. just realised this picture would have been much much better if i had taken it straight.

i bumped into irwan iskandar, my former classmate at sajc (03S54-ever!), at chijmes.

you can see more pictures in my flickr photo album. just click on the flickr button on the sidebar. i'll be posting up more pics of singapore in the days to come. i think i also owe some people pics of kota kinabalu. be patient, k?

lishun at 8:41 AM

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

every 6 months

the wind was blowing ever so strongly that friday afternoon. the sun decided to hide behind the clouds that day, prompting people to come out from their homes and offices and just sit by the waterfront. i joined them, taking my place next to a group of girls who giggled while taking pictures of each other, and thought about my day.

my first stop was to library@orchard, where i spent 2 hours flipping through photographs of U2 by anton corbijn as well as the first collection of zits comics. after lunch, i headed off to city hall, where i spent most of my weekend, and paid a visit to the singapore art museum. then it was a trip to another favourite location: chijmes, home to one of the most beautiful cathedrals ever. i walked towards the esplanade, taking in the various photography displays in the tunnels along the way, which led me to the bayside where i sat, enjoying the breeze and people-watching my time away.

it is only in singapore that i can spend my time at abandon and invest the minutes into doing the things i really like: taking more than just a moment to appreciate and photograph things that i find interesting; scrutinising abstract pieces of art trying to figure out how the artist could name his work "three spaces, three lines" when there were obviously no spaces and no lines; and walking from one place to another along pedestrian-friendly roads.

it is only in singapore that i can just sit and do nothing but savour the saltiness in the wind and listen to a rock band do its soundcheck in preparation for its evening performance. my mother would balk at this wanton waste of time and chide me for days on end if i were to do this in malaysia. i would never be able to live down the guilt of not choosing to start my eos revision instead if i were to do this back at home.

but in singapore...i feel free.

i understand that all the dreariness i felt about the little red dot while i was living there is really because i was living there (and doing some studying on the side, of course). now that i have no obligations there, i find that singapore is no longer the claustrophobia-inducing island i resented three years ago. its small size is now a blessing because it means i can get around at minimal cost, relying only on "bus no.11" (my own two legs) and it means i can go to all my favourite places whenever i wished.

the only thing that suffocates me now is the love and protection of my family at home, who make me feel like a rotten child whenever i go out to a restaurant that has an in-house jazz band that plays the most excellent music. i can't take the car out without having a barrage of questions thrown at me. i know that it's only because they care, but i feel caged up at home.

that's why i look forward to my twice-yearly trips down to singapore ever so much. the 6 months in between fly past just that little bit more quickly because i know i have a train ride to 3 days of freedom at the end of it all - freedom to fall in love with the esplanade again, to hope for a wedding to peek into at the chijmes cathedral, to watch the mischievious turkish icecream man pull tricks on girls in clarke quay.

just freedom to be myself and live in the space i am most comfortable in again.

lishun at 10:08 AM

Thursday, August 03, 2006

to err

when i was little, i thought my father was a God. he single-handedly lifted his family out of the mire of poverty. my grandmother, aunts and uncles used to pretty much worship the ground he walked on. it's perfectly understandable - he was and still is the "smart one" who could be trusted to make the right decisions all the time. it made sense to put him on a pedestal and see him as everything above human.

my father is now 63. he still puts on a shirt and a tie everyday to work a 9-to-5 job that will pay for the many many years i have left as a student. for all the warmth he has shown other people by going out of his way to help them (there would be too many examples to fit in here), i have never really blamed him for being cold at home, especially towards my sister and me, because i know beyond a doubt that he loves us very much.

i guess it was when i first cried over his absentee father ways that i first saw my father as a human being. before, it was impossible for him to make mistakes; not only because i have never heard him apologise to anyone but also because he was so respected by my family and my extended family.

a couple of years before that, i opened a drawer in my parents' bedroom and found a stash of stuff that should not be there. my mother was in the room at the moment and she rushed over to me, making excuses like, "oh those were gifts from your father's colleagues. they're just being cheeky."

at the time, i believed her. or rather, i wanted so badly to believe her because i still thought of my father as more than a human being. he was someone who could do no wrong and indulge in no vices. after all, he doesn't gamble, he doesn't smoke and, after a liver cirrhosis scare 10 years ago, he doesn't even drink much anymore. all he does is get up in the morning, go for a morning walk hand-in-hand with my mother, get dressed for work, go to work, come home for dinner and go to bed at 9pm every night.

anyway, i ignored that incident. then came that time when i finally saw my father as a human being - because i realised that fathers are not supposed to be absent in their daughters' lives - and hence is allowed to make mistakes.

then came last night. i was playing with my father's phone and i took a picture of my mother with the 2.0MP camera (bah). i looked through the folders to see if i could change the alignment and put it as the phone wallpaper and there, in the folders, were pictures that should not be there; pictures that were obviously taken from a laptop.

it reminded me of that day, several years ago, when i found what should not be there in my parents' bedroom. it's only now that i know that they were meant to be there because they were a part of my father's life. i have found the vice that haunts him and makes him no more than a human being just like you and me.

i'm 21 now. i should know better than to keep believing that my parents are flawless beings who don't err and are hence not human. but i do like the idea that my family is a "good" one. a boring one, but a good one nonetheless. i am always ashamed of making mistakes because i believe that everytime i do something wrong, i am smudging ink on the white cloth that is my family.

it is a relief to know that even my father, who can do no wrong, does indeed find himself cornered by the devil in the same position we find ourselves sometimes. it's a relief to know that he makes mistakes, although trying to forget about it and not become a hypocrite by condemning him for it is a totally different matter altogether.

but i'm trying.

---

*note: i'm off to the little red dot for the weekend, just to catch up with friends and maybe even finally visit all the lovely museums i never visited during my two years there. am looking forward to having a bit of fun. see you on monday! =)

lishun at 8:07 AM

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

jealousy

we're living in an age where people change handphones like they change clothes. i know of acquaintances who go out and buy the latest slinky black number from samsung the moment it debuts on the market. these are people who display their new toys the way the aunties in the chinese new year ads show off their gold trinkets: accidentally on purpose.

"oh, could you please give me so-and-so's number?"
*whips out cool, slim slide phone*
"i'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

anyway, it's hard not to be envious of people like that. i grew up in the city, with aunts and uncles who think that material wealth is everything. i have friends who live in multi-million ringgit homes and drive luxury cars. there are alot of times when i feel almost compelled to screw every value my parents instilled in me and turn into a brat who wants to be "just like my friends".

don't get me wrong. my friends are the most humble people in the world. being able to attain material things isn't something wrong. i personally think that if you've got the means to spend money and you want to spend money, go ahead. but the peer pressure is still there sometimes and i'm very glad that my parents made sure i knew better than to succumb to it.

however, it is pretty difficult not to even feel a little twinge of unreasonable, immature jealousy when my own father, the very father whose blood courses through my veins, went out and got himself this...

sony ericsson k750i

...while i'm still stuck with my trusty 4-yr-old second hand nokia 8310, with a glitch in the lcd screen, that i bought with my own dough in singapore because i got my first phone stolen 3 months into the school year.

bah.

lishun at 9:45 AM