My mother believes in Deng Xiaoping's famous quote, "It does not matter whether the cat is black or white so long as it catches the mice."
Just consider how I got to go to church when I was young...
To provide some background: When I was in primary school, the medium of instruction in school had already been changed to Malay, and the second language was English. Thus, I did not have a chance to learn Chinese - which my mother thought was a shame.
So when my mother found out about the Sunday school at the Emmanuel Baptist Church which was conducted in Cantonese, she allowed me and my sisters to attend the classes every Sunday - notwithstanding that she was not a believer. Both my mother and grandmother were Taoists and for a short while, my mother was also a believer of a Japanese sect of Buddhism.
But my mother has always been a practical sort of person. She thought that by attending the Sunday school, we would get some "free" exposure to the formal Chinese script and that would be good for us. In her opinion, the content was secondary - and anyway, my mother would rationalise, which religion teaches its followers to be bad?
Christianity was not totally alien to my mother. Her father (my grandfather, already deceased at that time) was a Christian. All my mother's cousins were Christians too. In fact, it was her cousins who attended Emmanuel Baptist and encouraged my mother to send us there.
So that was how I started going to Sunday School. Our Sunday school book was written in Chinese characters and every week we were supposed to memorise a "golden" verse in Cantonese. Besides the verses, I soon got to learn the books of the Bible and names of prophets in Cantonese. We also sang Cantonese worship songs.
The Sunday school made it hassle-free for us to attend. A small church van would come to pick us up about 7:30am and bring us home after Sunday school about 11am - gratis. We got to know the van-driver pretty well - he was a volunteer of course and was really a butcher on weekdays. My mother would give us 10 cents or 20 cents each time so that we could put into the offering bag that was passed around.
We became involved in other church activities as well. During the school holidays, we would attend the Vacation Bible School that was conducted within the church premises itself. Every year, we would participate in the Bible Verse Recital Competition.
I remember doing quite well in those competitions - in fact, it was for one of those competitions that I first learnt the entire passage on Love from 1 Corinthians 13:
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."
But I did not do it in English - imagine memorising the whole verse in Cantonese, lol!
"爱是恒久忍耐，又有恩慈。爱是不嫉妒，不自夸，不张狂；不作失礼的事，不求自己的益处，不轻易动怒，不计较人的过犯；不喜欢不义，只喜欢真理。爱是凡事包容，凡事相信，凡事盼望，凡事忍耐。爱是永存不息的。"
Easter, Christmas... we would be celebrating them at the church and we would invite family members to participate in the events. My grandmother and mother would come to church on those special occasions. I also remember witnessing baptism ceremonies whereby members who were being baptised were totally submerged in water in the small glass enclosure that was at the center of the pulpit.
Sad to say, Cantonese remains my foreign tongue. My knowledge of the Bible could only be superficial because I could not really read Chinese, without formal instruction. Thus, when I was older, I inevitably turned to reading the Bible in English and started attending other churches.
But I would always remember the warm-hearted members and pastors of Emmanuel Baptist who made us all feel very welcomed in the church. My mother would be glad that her objective was achieved - albeit in a small way. After all, I did become acquainted with the Chinese script in the end!
Saturday 28 March 2009
Monday 23 March 2009
My First Job
My first job paid RM4.50 an hour - and I was only 10 years old then. No, I was not a victim of child labour. I was actually doing a part-time job that I enjoyed.
I was introduced to this job by the new girl in school that year. CH's family had just moved to PJ and she joined our Standard 4A class. She was very talented - excelling in both the piano and ballet. She told us that when she grew up, she wanted to do a degree in Fine Arts or Performing Arts - that was the first time I ever heard of such a degree. She also had a talent in fashion designing. My fondest memories with her were our endless pursuits in designing our own wedding gowns, lol! We became bosom buddies. I remember she was into classic movies - she would dream of Clark Gable (Gone With The Wind) and Omar Sharif (Dr Zhivago) and I would roll my eyes.
Anyway, CH's aunt owned the only ballet school in town then. CH told me that the ballet school was always on the look-out for part-time pianists for its ballet classes and encouraged me to join her to play piano part-time there. At that time, I was already sufficiently advanced in piano and I thought why not? It was not difficult getting the part-time job - and I do not think it was purely due to nepotism!
Money was not the key motivation for taking up the job. I played for a few classes, perhaps around 2-4 hours a week - and although it felt good to be paid, the money I earned was just put aside as savings. I wouldn't say that I was needy or that the money was handy or anything like that.
There were two reasons why I chose to play the piano there.
One was the innate desire to spend my time meaningfully. I was coping well in school, there was money to be earned, and I could spare the time - so, it seemed a worthwhile endeavour and a good way to spend my free time.
The other reason was that I felt I could learn a little ballet that way - what other legitimate way was there to gatecrash ballet classes for free?? I do not love ballet, the way I love the piano, but I was fascinated and keen to learn more about this dance form. There is something romantically appealing to see classical ballet dancers in their ballet shoes and tutu. In fact, at one stage, my bedroom walls were all covered with pictures of ballet dancers.
Postscript: The last I heard some years ago, my friend, CH, eventually did go to the States and got the degree that she coveted. While I was writing this piece, I casually googled her name to see if I could find out more about what she is doing now and I was really happy to see that her name covered more than 1 page of Google Search! She is now a successful published composer of children's music, based in the States. Always knew she could do it :)
I was introduced to this job by the new girl in school that year. CH's family had just moved to PJ and she joined our Standard 4A class. She was very talented - excelling in both the piano and ballet. She told us that when she grew up, she wanted to do a degree in Fine Arts or Performing Arts - that was the first time I ever heard of such a degree. She also had a talent in fashion designing. My fondest memories with her were our endless pursuits in designing our own wedding gowns, lol! We became bosom buddies. I remember she was into classic movies - she would dream of Clark Gable (Gone With The Wind) and Omar Sharif (Dr Zhivago) and I would roll my eyes.
Anyway, CH's aunt owned the only ballet school in town then. CH told me that the ballet school was always on the look-out for part-time pianists for its ballet classes and encouraged me to join her to play piano part-time there. At that time, I was already sufficiently advanced in piano and I thought why not? It was not difficult getting the part-time job - and I do not think it was purely due to nepotism!Money was not the key motivation for taking up the job. I played for a few classes, perhaps around 2-4 hours a week - and although it felt good to be paid, the money I earned was just put aside as savings. I wouldn't say that I was needy or that the money was handy or anything like that.
There were two reasons why I chose to play the piano there.
One was the innate desire to spend my time meaningfully. I was coping well in school, there was money to be earned, and I could spare the time - so, it seemed a worthwhile endeavour and a good way to spend my free time.
The other reason was that I felt I could learn a little ballet that way - what other legitimate way was there to gatecrash ballet classes for free?? I do not love ballet, the way I love the piano, but I was fascinated and keen to learn more about this dance form. There is something romantically appealing to see classical ballet dancers in their ballet shoes and tutu. In fact, at one stage, my bedroom walls were all covered with pictures of ballet dancers.
Indeed, I managed to learn some ballet from the classes that I "attended" as a pianist. Well, in theory, at least. I learnt what was a plie, an arabesque and a grand jete. I learnt the 5 basic positions of ballet. I learnt the techniques for executing a piroutte and even a double piroutte. Again, I stress - the theory part, not the practical. At home, I would hold on to a bar and copy those movements and try to practise on my own, but, hmm...not very successful-leh. I was never known for my grace *blush*.
Playing piano for the ballet school had its challenges. Most of the time, we had to play the pieces on sight. Photocopying was not common at that time and we could not bring home the pieces to practise. Thus, I could remember occasions when I would cringe in embarrassment for bungling some pieces big-time. But the key thing was to continue playing, regardless - do not stop! The ballet students and their teacher would be very upset if the pianist stopped in the middle and they had to begin all over again.
I do not know whether ballet schools still have pianists in the studios nowadays or they prefer to use CDs now, which would be more cost-effective. But having pianists had a lot of advantages - we could play, on demand, slower, faster, we could "rewind" to the exact bar that the ballet teacher may want to repeat. And our reaction time was immediate. Hah, try to beat that!
This part-time job would not be possible without my mother's support. She drove me to the ballet school and drove me back. I did this for a couple of years until other activities took up my time and I had no time to spare. But it was a good experience while it lasted and I would always remember my friend who shared so much with me. CH was only in my school for about 2 years, before she followed her family to Seremban - it seemed they were always on the move. We have since lost touch.
Postscript: The last I heard some years ago, my friend, CH, eventually did go to the States and got the degree that she coveted. While I was writing this piece, I casually googled her name to see if I could find out more about what she is doing now and I was really happy to see that her name covered more than 1 page of Google Search! She is now a successful published composer of children's music, based in the States. Always knew she could do it :)
Sunday 22 March 2009
Western Influence
I grew up in a dialect-speaking household. My family spoke Cantonese at home as my mother and grandmother did not know a word of English. I only picked up English when I started school. But very quickly, I became fluent in the English language, through my voracious reading habits, and perhaps to a lesser extent, through the television programmes that we watched.
English may be my adopted language but through the language, I began to absorb elements of western culture. Overall, the impact of western influence on me – my thinking, my outlook and my way of life – has been substantial.
If I were to examine the western influences in my life, the first change took place in terms of food. As a traditional Chinese family, our diet used to consist largely rice and noodles, including chee cheong fun. For breakfast, we normally ate bread and biscuits with Milo, sometimes egg, sometimes broth (porridge). That was all.
It was my cousin's girlfriend (now wife) who introduced us to things like Kellogg's Cornflakes, Campbell's Soup, Ham and Steak. We also began to cook Hamburgers at home, bought Hot Dogs from our favourite hot dog stand at Taman Jaya and ate Waffle with Maple Syrup and Root Beer from the A & W Drive-in, which was the only fast-food restaurant in Malaysia in the seventies. We loved all these new western tastes and experiences. This type of cuisine may be taken for granted now (oh, so pedestrian, I hear you say) but at that time, believe me, it was something else.
In terms of literature, I was influenced by my two elder brothers who introduced us to UK comics like Beano, Dandy, Tammy, Mandy and later to British magazines like Jackie.
I also got to read the paper-back fictions that they passed down to us - which were pretty, erm... educational. Because of my brothers, I read Harold Robbins and Jacqueline Susann when I was an innocent 12-year-old.
I remember being shell-shocked as I turned the pages of those novels because these adult fictions were a quantum leap from the Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew and The Three Investigators books that I had been reading. There were some passages that I had to re-read to understand exactly what they meant... but I learnt fast. And my outlook broadened considerably, to say the least :) Today, these novels would be considered trashy but at that time, well, they were just eye-openers, lol!
In terms of popular culture, American hegemony was not absolute then, like how it is today, and definitely not as accessible. There were no internet or i-tunes or CD's or MP3's. We only listened to the local radio and bought cassettes of our favourite artistes. Cassettes were magnetic tape recordings (left) and we listened to the songs on a cassette player. The original cassettes were expensive and it was only later that cassette piracy came in a big way. In those early days, we needed to save to buy the original cassettes. Alternatively, we paid a small fee to the cassette shop and asked them to tape selected songs for us on blank tapes. I remember our favourite cassette shop at that time was called Horizon at the Jaya Supermarket.
But when I was in my early teens, my second brother was studying in London and he used to compile pop songs for me on cassettes. He recorded the latest songs or even the entire UK Top 40 radio programme on blank cassette tapes and he would send them to me from the UK by post. I used to so-look forward to receiving such cassettes in the mail. As a result, I invariably began to follow the pop charts in the UK Top 40, rather than the US Billboard. Boomtown Rats, Culture Club, Police... they were all big British bands at that time. It was not surprising thus that I favoured Top Of The Pops to Solid Gold.
Finally, my second brother was the one who introduced me to English soccer and tennis. Not the physical game, please, but as a spectator sport. At that time, the English Premier League went by a different name but the big clubs playing at the top division of the league were more or less the same. Liverpool, MU, Arsenal, Spurs. Then, Nottingham Forest was a big name. Although I was not a big fan, I took an interest in the league, even up to today. I also started watching and following the tennis championships. Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert Lloyd... I remember when I visited UK in the 90's, I made it a point to take the train to the town called Wimbledon to see the Wimbledon stadium where the famous tennis championships are held every year.
Due to these influences, I've always had a strong affinity for all things British. I absolutely love the British accent. I love British movies - Chariots Of Fire is one of my all-time favourites. I used to read all the news about the British monarchy, especially when Princess Diana was alive. I watched her wedding to Prince Charles live on TV. Even today, I feel a class above when I eat scones and jam and sip Earl Grey. In the World Cup, I am always a firm supporter of the English team.
Is that just the Colonial hangover, I wonder?
English may be my adopted language but through the language, I began to absorb elements of western culture. Overall, the impact of western influence on me – my thinking, my outlook and my way of life – has been substantial.
If I were to examine the western influences in my life, the first change took place in terms of food. As a traditional Chinese family, our diet used to consist largely rice and noodles, including chee cheong fun. For breakfast, we normally ate bread and biscuits with Milo, sometimes egg, sometimes broth (porridge). That was all.
It was my cousin's girlfriend (now wife) who introduced us to things like Kellogg's Cornflakes, Campbell's Soup, Ham and Steak. We also began to cook Hamburgers at home, bought Hot Dogs from our favourite hot dog stand at Taman Jaya and ate Waffle with Maple Syrup and Root Beer from the A & W Drive-in, which was the only fast-food restaurant in Malaysia in the seventies. We loved all these new western tastes and experiences. This type of cuisine may be taken for granted now (oh, so pedestrian, I hear you say) but at that time, believe me, it was something else.
In terms of literature, I was influenced by my two elder brothers who introduced us to UK comics like Beano, Dandy, Tammy, Mandy and later to British magazines like Jackie.I also got to read the paper-back fictions that they passed down to us - which were pretty, erm... educational. Because of my brothers, I read Harold Robbins and Jacqueline Susann when I was an innocent 12-year-old.
I remember being shell-shocked as I turned the pages of those novels because these adult fictions were a quantum leap from the Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew and The Three Investigators books that I had been reading. There were some passages that I had to re-read to understand exactly what they meant... but I learnt fast. And my outlook broadened considerably, to say the least :) Today, these novels would be considered trashy but at that time, well, they were just eye-openers, lol!
In terms of popular culture, American hegemony was not absolute then, like how it is today, and definitely not as accessible. There were no internet or i-tunes or CD's or MP3's. We only listened to the local radio and bought cassettes of our favourite artistes. Cassettes were magnetic tape recordings (left) and we listened to the songs on a cassette player. The original cassettes were expensive and it was only later that cassette piracy came in a big way. In those early days, we needed to save to buy the original cassettes. Alternatively, we paid a small fee to the cassette shop and asked them to tape selected songs for us on blank tapes. I remember our favourite cassette shop at that time was called Horizon at the Jaya Supermarket.
But when I was in my early teens, my second brother was studying in London and he used to compile pop songs for me on cassettes. He recorded the latest songs or even the entire UK Top 40 radio programme on blank cassette tapes and he would send them to me from the UK by post. I used to so-look forward to receiving such cassettes in the mail. As a result, I invariably began to follow the pop charts in the UK Top 40, rather than the US Billboard. Boomtown Rats, Culture Club, Police... they were all big British bands at that time. It was not surprising thus that I favoured Top Of The Pops to Solid Gold.Finally, my second brother was the one who introduced me to English soccer and tennis. Not the physical game, please, but as a spectator sport. At that time, the English Premier League went by a different name but the big clubs playing at the top division of the league were more or less the same. Liverpool, MU, Arsenal, Spurs. Then, Nottingham Forest was a big name. Although I was not a big fan, I took an interest in the league, even up to today. I also started watching and following the tennis championships. Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert Lloyd... I remember when I visited UK in the 90's, I made it a point to take the train to the town called Wimbledon to see the Wimbledon stadium where the famous tennis championships are held every year.
Due to these influences, I've always had a strong affinity for all things British. I absolutely love the British accent. I love British movies - Chariots Of Fire is one of my all-time favourites. I used to read all the news about the British monarchy, especially when Princess Diana was alive. I watched her wedding to Prince Charles live on TV. Even today, I feel a class above when I eat scones and jam and sip Earl Grey. In the World Cup, I am always a firm supporter of the English team.
Is that just the Colonial hangover, I wonder?
Friday 20 March 2009
Battle With The Bulge
When I was about 9 years old, my grandmother and mother decided that I was too skinny and sickly. I don't know what got into their heads. I had a father whose nickname was Fei Lo, roughly translated to Fatty, and so I could be anything but. In fact, I was blessed with fat genes from Day 1, for goodness sake! But, I concede, since young, I have always been sniffing and having a runny nose due to a sensitivity condition called allergic rhinitis. And that might have given them the impression that I was sickly.
So, my grandmother and mother asked the wise medicine men at the Chinese Medical Hall for advice and they recommended something called Waterbury's Compound. I have always pinpointed this event, rightly or wrongly, to be the start of all my trouble with the bulge (if we were to disregard the gene theory for a while).
This wonderful tonic was sold in a darkly-tinted red-labelled bottle and was hugely popular at that time. Everyday, my mother would pour out this black liquid into a tranparent measuring cup and I had to swallow that yucky tonic. The medicine men were good - the tonic was very effective. The results soon showed and my puppy fat began to pile.
When I was about 9-10 years old, I was so overweight that I had to tailor-make my dark blue pinafore that I wore as my school uniform. I still have some photos taken during that period which, ahem, shall remain in my private collection. Fortunately or unfortunately, there was no TAF or any well-being programmes in school at that time and so my weight was not monitored officially. I was ballooning for everyone to see and had no clue that it was undesirable. I was just a clueless kid.
The one who came to my rescue was the most unlikely person - my eldest brother. My eldest brother is my Yee Ma's elder son who always fancied himself as being hip or in today's lingo, what we call, cool. You know... popular, fashionable, "in", with a good dress-sense. Ten years older than me, he probably saw where I was headed and was troubled enough to buy this teen annual called Jackie for my younger sister and me.
Jackie was a UK magazine, with articles on make-up, fashion, hair and pop stars - all meant for teenage girls or tweenies, of which I was one at that time. It dawned on me thereafter that being fat was something that I, as a young girl, should be very concerned about. I began to ask my mother to buy the magazine for me fortnightly. From then on, I found myself gradually getting immersed in British culture. I also learnt the rudiments of weight control.
No longer clueless, I began to assert myself as to what I would eat and what I would not. Thus, since I was around 10 years old, my battle with the bulge had begun.
I remember my unwavering determination to win the battle. At that time, my cousin's girlfriend was working as a cashier at the local supermarket and we could buy ice-cream from the kiosk at greatly discounted staff rates. Every trip to the supermarket would see us pampering ourselves with a cone each. That had to stop immediately. I did not eat any ice-cream for years after that. Seriously. Not a single scoop, not a single spoon, not a single lick. I told myself my whole campaign would be ruined if I were to give in just once - for if I could give in to temptation once, what was there to stop me the second time?
For years, I also did not eat Kentucky Fried Chicken - I only ate the potato and the salad - and when I relented much later, I only ate the chicken meat and tore off all the skin. I tried to count calories (the western style of dieting that was popular then) but it was not possible. There was simply no calorie counter for the local, Asian food that we ate. There was no point knowing how much calories a single helping of bread-and-butter pudding or 100g of roast beef contained, was there?
Though I could not control the food that was served at the dining table at home, I tried to control the amount that I consumed. And that led to inevitable battles with my mother. My mother belonged to the generation of mothers who showed their love through food. When we ate a lot, she would beam. But when we rejected the food, it would seem like we were rejecting her love. Of course, at that time, I did not understand this, and when I rejected the food, I am sure she must have felt hurt, and so there would be battles.
Exercise was never part of the equation, but in my secondary school days, I must have burnt a lot of calories doing the march-past under the hot sun.
Driven by vanity, rather than health reasons, I count myself a success of my strict diet regime. When I entered secondary school, I was pretty much a normal teenager, in terms of weight. Nobody would call me slim, but neither can anyone call me plump either.
I know the fat cells in my body would never go away. They always threaten to swell at any hint of indiscipline - and so, throughout my life, I have always been aware of what I ate.
Today, I should be dieting for different reasons - for health reasons - but the will is getting weak. Darn, the metabolic rate is slowing down so fast that it seems to be grinding almost to a halt! Anyway, life is too short to deprive myself any more of the joy of food. Now I enjoy all my food.... but I control the quantity. If I take half a piece of that delicious carrot cake, I would already have reduced my calorie intake by 50%. Wow, isn't that an achievement? *Twinkle*
So, my grandmother and mother asked the wise medicine men at the Chinese Medical Hall for advice and they recommended something called Waterbury's Compound. I have always pinpointed this event, rightly or wrongly, to be the start of all my trouble with the bulge (if we were to disregard the gene theory for a while).
This wonderful tonic was sold in a darkly-tinted red-labelled bottle and was hugely popular at that time. Everyday, my mother would pour out this black liquid into a tranparent measuring cup and I had to swallow that yucky tonic. The medicine men were good - the tonic was very effective. The results soon showed and my puppy fat began to pile.
When I was about 9-10 years old, I was so overweight that I had to tailor-make my dark blue pinafore that I wore as my school uniform. I still have some photos taken during that period which, ahem, shall remain in my private collection. Fortunately or unfortunately, there was no TAF or any well-being programmes in school at that time and so my weight was not monitored officially. I was ballooning for everyone to see and had no clue that it was undesirable. I was just a clueless kid.
The one who came to my rescue was the most unlikely person - my eldest brother. My eldest brother is my Yee Ma's elder son who always fancied himself as being hip or in today's lingo, what we call, cool. You know... popular, fashionable, "in", with a good dress-sense. Ten years older than me, he probably saw where I was headed and was troubled enough to buy this teen annual called Jackie for my younger sister and me.
Jackie was a UK magazine, with articles on make-up, fashion, hair and pop stars - all meant for teenage girls or tweenies, of which I was one at that time. It dawned on me thereafter that being fat was something that I, as a young girl, should be very concerned about. I began to ask my mother to buy the magazine for me fortnightly. From then on, I found myself gradually getting immersed in British culture. I also learnt the rudiments of weight control.
No longer clueless, I began to assert myself as to what I would eat and what I would not. Thus, since I was around 10 years old, my battle with the bulge had begun.
I remember my unwavering determination to win the battle. At that time, my cousin's girlfriend was working as a cashier at the local supermarket and we could buy ice-cream from the kiosk at greatly discounted staff rates. Every trip to the supermarket would see us pampering ourselves with a cone each. That had to stop immediately. I did not eat any ice-cream for years after that. Seriously. Not a single scoop, not a single spoon, not a single lick. I told myself my whole campaign would be ruined if I were to give in just once - for if I could give in to temptation once, what was there to stop me the second time?
For years, I also did not eat Kentucky Fried Chicken - I only ate the potato and the salad - and when I relented much later, I only ate the chicken meat and tore off all the skin. I tried to count calories (the western style of dieting that was popular then) but it was not possible. There was simply no calorie counter for the local, Asian food that we ate. There was no point knowing how much calories a single helping of bread-and-butter pudding or 100g of roast beef contained, was there?
Though I could not control the food that was served at the dining table at home, I tried to control the amount that I consumed. And that led to inevitable battles with my mother. My mother belonged to the generation of mothers who showed their love through food. When we ate a lot, she would beam. But when we rejected the food, it would seem like we were rejecting her love. Of course, at that time, I did not understand this, and when I rejected the food, I am sure she must have felt hurt, and so there would be battles.
Exercise was never part of the equation, but in my secondary school days, I must have burnt a lot of calories doing the march-past under the hot sun.
Driven by vanity, rather than health reasons, I count myself a success of my strict diet regime. When I entered secondary school, I was pretty much a normal teenager, in terms of weight. Nobody would call me slim, but neither can anyone call me plump either.
I know the fat cells in my body would never go away. They always threaten to swell at any hint of indiscipline - and so, throughout my life, I have always been aware of what I ate.
Today, I should be dieting for different reasons - for health reasons - but the will is getting weak. Darn, the metabolic rate is slowing down so fast that it seems to be grinding almost to a halt! Anyway, life is too short to deprive myself any more of the joy of food. Now I enjoy all my food.... but I control the quantity. If I take half a piece of that delicious carrot cake, I would already have reduced my calorie intake by 50%. Wow, isn't that an achievement? *Twinkle*
Wednesday 18 March 2009
TV - The Golden Oldies
In the 60’s and 70’s, we had a black and white TV, which looked something like the picture on the left. At that time, we had only 2 channels and broadcast times would start in the evening and end by midnight.Son No 1, who will be 13 this year, expressed surprise when he first heard about this. Only then did I realize how much this younger generation took the TV for granted. He and the other two younger boys were born in an era where TV programmes were on 24/7 and they could channel-surf close to 100 channels. He probably never imagined that TV could ever exist without cable, or subscription, TV. But I digress.
Coming back to those days, even within the limited broadcast hours, we managed to watch quite a number of programmes. One of the earliest shows I remember was the cartoon Scooby-Doo, Where Are You, the timeless classic that continued to captivate my own children today. [I realise now that for one year from 2004 to 2005, Scooby-Doo held the Guinness World Record for having the most episodes of any animated television series ever produced. Amazing!]As very young children, my younger sister and I also watched a local children’s production called Tepuk Amai-Amai. Every week, the host would interact with different groups of invited children and one of the segments had the children skip around the room riding a wooden-stick horse. I remember we would follow this segment in our living room by skipping around the room, using our bolster or anything that resembled a pole, as our de facto horse! As far as western educational programmes were concerned, I don’t remember Sesame Street but instead, at that time, we watched a similar show called The Electric Company.
But the two shows that were the most popular amongst us in the 70’s were The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. The former was about a man called Steve Austin who had parts of his anatomy replaced by mechanical (bionic) parts which enabled him to perform super feats. The Bionic Woman was a spin-off from the show and more or less followed the same story line with a woman protagonist called Jaime Sommers.These were the Super Heroes of our time and we followed each episode faithfully. Believe it or not, I was such a fan that I kept a log which documented the development of the story line each episode – that clearly showed my love for writing since young! The guy who played The Six Million Dollar Man, Lee Majors, recently took the role of the grandfather in the action movie, Ben 10.
Another category of shows that we loved to watch were the family shows. My firm favourites were The Brady Bunch (left) and later, Eight Is Enough. We also watched The Little House On The Prairie and The Waltons but I was never really hooked on these two shows as they were a bit too... wholesome? I also remember a show called My Three Sons which of course is the inspiration for the title of this blog of mine :)In the late 70’s, we watched Kristy McNichol in the family drama, Family, which explored social issues in an upper middle class family with 3 fairly grown-up children.
In terms of soap, we watched Peyton Place – which was unbelievable, because the themes of adultery and betrayal in a small town were really not very suitable for our very young minds then. But the show was not graphic like the shows of today. Later, we watched Dallas – which had all the girls in school swooning over Patrick Duffy who played Bobby Ewing, the younger brother who was always outsmarted by the evil J.R.Our diet of TV shows consists of shows from many different genre. As far as entertainment variety shows were concerned, who can forget The Donny And Marie Show? Click here for the Youtube video - “I’m a little bit of country.... and I’m a little bit rock n roll…”
For crime shows, we loved Charlie’s Angels, a show about 3 beautiful lady sleuths which shot Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith to fame. I also followed a fairly light-weight show called CHiPs, which was about the adventures of two California Highway Patrol (geddit?) policemen and the only reason it remained in my mind was Erik Estrada. The high profile detective shows like Hawaii 5-O, Kojak, Starsky & Hutch and Mission Impossible were not really my cup of tea, though these were household names during the 60s and 70s.I also remember the medical drama, Emergency!, about two paramedics who drove an ambulance and the World War 2 show about a group of American soldiers in Europe called Combat. The fantasy genre threw up shows like Bewitched and Fantasy Island.
That’s not all. The 60's and 70’s had some of the best sitcoms ever. Before Cheers, Seinfeld and Friends, there were Gilligan’s Island, Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley. And they all have memorable opening songs which I am pretty sure we can still hum after all these years... Thus, I will leave this post with this great show opening number from Laverne & Shirley - Make Our Dreams Come True!
Tuesday 17 March 2009
Standard One
I do not remember much about my first day of school. I had been in kindergarten for two years before that and I was pretty mature for my age. So I believe I had no difficulty adjusting to primary school.
But this incident, I remember very well. On my first day of school, I was put in Class 1C. Now, although my mother did not speak English, she knew the letters of the English alphabet very well. And “C” was definitely not a good class to be in. I had topped my class in kindergarten the year before and she was worried that my potential might not be recognized in the new school. [Yeah, I went to a competitive kindergarten that had tests and class positions even at that level, lol!]
Anyway, the next day, my mother marched up to my class teacher then, a lady called Mrs Yong, and… well, enlightened her as to my brilliance, precocity or whatever, and also let out that my father had just died and so I should be given a fair chance to succeed in life (you get the drift) … and ultimately made her point that I should be transferred to Class 1A. Mrs Yong was sympathetic but told her not to worry. There would be a streaming test soon and if I passed it well, I would definitely go to Class 1A - which I did, soon after.
My new teacher in Class 1A was Mrs Chew. Mrs Chew and Mrs Yong were good friends and I am sure Mrs Yong would have talked to her about me, my (overbearing?) mother and my rather unusual circumstances. So my mother had in fact succeeded in singling me out to my teachers and making sure that I received due attention among the 48 students that each teacher had to manage in the classroom at that time.
Would that be a reason, I would never know, but that year in Standard One, I was given my first position of responsibility, the start of many that eventually led me to being the head prefect of the school.
In Class 1A, I was one of the four appointed leaders in class. I was responsible for collecting books from my row of tables. In addition, I was also tasked to send the teacher’s record book to the office and at the same time, collect the class register everyday, responsibilities which I carried out with great pride. I remember there was once, one of the other girls tried to “usurp” my duties, and I actually cried – the only time I ever remember crying in school!
As a class leader, I know it was not big deal but every journey began with a small step. I had thus begun my journey up the school student hierarchy from being a humble leader in Standard One to being a class monitor in later years and then graduating to becoming a prefect in Standard Five and the head prefect in Standard Six. I must add that I was well-liked by both teachers and friends and my serious but mature disposition suited positions of responsibilities very well.
Now, how my life eventually turned out - getting scholarships and so on - hinged not only on my scholastic achievement but also my student activity record. And so, I often wondered, if I were to trace back to where it all began, would I say it began the day my mother opened the door for me when she spoke with my Standard IC teacher….?
But this incident, I remember very well. On my first day of school, I was put in Class 1C. Now, although my mother did not speak English, she knew the letters of the English alphabet very well. And “C” was definitely not a good class to be in. I had topped my class in kindergarten the year before and she was worried that my potential might not be recognized in the new school. [Yeah, I went to a competitive kindergarten that had tests and class positions even at that level, lol!]
Anyway, the next day, my mother marched up to my class teacher then, a lady called Mrs Yong, and… well, enlightened her as to my brilliance, precocity or whatever, and also let out that my father had just died and so I should be given a fair chance to succeed in life (you get the drift) … and ultimately made her point that I should be transferred to Class 1A. Mrs Yong was sympathetic but told her not to worry. There would be a streaming test soon and if I passed it well, I would definitely go to Class 1A - which I did, soon after.
My new teacher in Class 1A was Mrs Chew. Mrs Chew and Mrs Yong were good friends and I am sure Mrs Yong would have talked to her about me, my (overbearing?) mother and my rather unusual circumstances. So my mother had in fact succeeded in singling me out to my teachers and making sure that I received due attention among the 48 students that each teacher had to manage in the classroom at that time.
Would that be a reason, I would never know, but that year in Standard One, I was given my first position of responsibility, the start of many that eventually led me to being the head prefect of the school.
In Class 1A, I was one of the four appointed leaders in class. I was responsible for collecting books from my row of tables. In addition, I was also tasked to send the teacher’s record book to the office and at the same time, collect the class register everyday, responsibilities which I carried out with great pride. I remember there was once, one of the other girls tried to “usurp” my duties, and I actually cried – the only time I ever remember crying in school!
As a class leader, I know it was not big deal but every journey began with a small step. I had thus begun my journey up the school student hierarchy from being a humble leader in Standard One to being a class monitor in later years and then graduating to becoming a prefect in Standard Five and the head prefect in Standard Six. I must add that I was well-liked by both teachers and friends and my serious but mature disposition suited positions of responsibilities very well.
Now, how my life eventually turned out - getting scholarships and so on - hinged not only on my scholastic achievement but also my student activity record. And so, I often wondered, if I were to trace back to where it all began, would I say it began the day my mother opened the door for me when she spoke with my Standard IC teacher….?
Monday 16 March 2009
House No 136
Throughout my primary schooldays, we lived in a single-storey end-terrace house near my school. This humble home of ours held a lot of fond memories for me.House No 136 faced the main road and was built below road level, so that there was gentle slope going into our house. When it rained heavily, the front porch would be transformed into a shallow pond as rain water flowed rapidly down from the road towards our house. For the children of the house, such rainy days could be fun. At the first sign of the rain water coming in, we would quickly remove all slippers and shoes from the front porch. Bare-footed, we would slosh in the ankle-deep rising waters and use the lidi broom to sweep the water away as fast as we could to prevent the water from entering the house. The optimists would say this was good fengshui as water signified riches and we certainly had plenty of those flowing into the house! On the flipside, the rain water also frequently carried mud. And after the rain, the arduous task of clearing the mud would begin.
The house had three bedrooms and all three bedrooms faced west. This meant that all the rooms would be subject to the hot afternoon sun. As we did not have air-conditioners at that time, it was pretty warm at night as the walls would emit the heat that was retained during the day.
There was only one bathroom and one toilet for the whole house. In the small bathroom, there was a tiled half-wall built at one end and this was used as a common water receptacle for us to keep water for bathing. We would use a bucket to scoop the cool water out and splash the water over our bodies. The cold water was very invigorating in our tropical climate. We had no water heater, of course, and so we always bathed in the afternoon or evening.
As we bathed, the tap water would be running so that the water in the receptacle would always be replenished. We did not have a long bath tub for soaking but I remember when I was about 8 or 9 years old, I would sometimes surreptitiously climb into the water receptacle and immerse my whole body gleefully in the water. How nice and refreshing that was, especially on a warm day!
Our house had to accommodate at least 7 of us – my grandmother, my mother and us, the five siblings. Sometimes, the number of occupants would increase if my cousins were staying with us. Thus, we were pretty flexible in our sleeping arrangements. There were always the portable camp-beds which were cool and comfortable. To create more living space, the center portion of the house was partitioned to make another bedroom and the back of the house was extended to encompass the kitchen, dining area and backyard for washing clothes.
At the backyard, we apportioned some space to rear a few hens - I remember regularly collecting freshly-laid eggs which were still warm from the chicken coop. We loved to eat these nutritious eggs half-boiled for our breakfast every morning. That was the pleasant part about rearing hens. The less pleasant part was washing away the hens’ droppings everyday - though I was never tasked to do that as I was too young. During the day, we would let the hens roam around the backyard. Come evening time, when it was time to put the hens back into the coop, we would merrily chase them and ambush them – even the youngest among us became quite adept at catching them by their wings and holding them down so that they could not slip away.
My favourite spot in the house was the narrow plot of land at the side of the house. This was where I would go to get away and read my books quietly by myself. Here, we grew a papaya tree, sugar cane and tapioca to provide some shade – the land was too narrow for any other trees. My younger siblings and I would also play teacher-student here, because my mother got a “blackboard” built for us (actually just a piece of darkly-painted wooden plank) and we used chalk to write on the board for our pretend classroom sessions here. Guess who always got to play the part of the teacher?!
In front of the house was a huge saga tree and we would spend many hours collecting the cherry red saga seeds that fell from the tree. These were pretty to look at when we put them into transparent glass jars. We also used these seeds to fill up our “five stones”. Sometimes, when we were more adventurous, we would climb into the huge drain outside our house and catch tiny fishes. I must admit my younger sister enjoyed this particular activity more than me!
In the evening, we would arrange our flower pots to form a circle in the middle of our porch so that we could ride our tricycle round and round the pots of plants. When we were older, we would play badminton with each other, or with our neighbours, over the front gate or over the fence. At night, we would listen to Cantonese tales from the redifussion with our grandmother.
These were but some of the scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind in this house that we called our home for six years. Life was indeed very simple then.
Sunday 15 March 2009
PJ - Here We Come
Before my father passed away, there were plans afoot for us to shift from KL to PJ. My father had wanted us to shift to a better neighbourhood, now that my younger brother had been born and I was about to start my formal education.
But my father died just 3 months before I started primary school and we were still living in KL. Would our plans be scuttled with this change in events?
Not if my mother had any say in it.
My father had earlier bought a double-storey bungalow for us in PJ in preparation for our move. We had in fact visited the almost-complete bungalow some time back and my younger sister and I had even earmarked one of the upstairs bedrooms as ours. The bedroom that we had chosen faced the front lawn and had a balcony – we had planned that space to be our play area. In the spacious living room downstairs, I had privately visualized the space that would be reserved for my piano – for at that time, I already knew I wanted to learn to play the piano.
Unfortunately, when my father died, the bungalow was still incomplete and not fully paid-for. My mother most certainly did not have the means to continue with the final instalments now. Our dream house was going to evaporate into thin air.
Fortunately, though, the title to the property was in my mother’s name. She managed to find a buyer, sold the house and invested the money in a completed shop house which she reckoned might give a good rental yield and provide a stable source of income for us.
Given the changed circumstances, it might have been easier if we had just continued living in KL and attended school there. But my mother was not one to take the easy way out. She was determined that our lives would continue the way she and my father had planned and so, she did all she could within her powers to stick to the plan.
The main stumbling block then was that we had no home to shift to and school was starting soon. As a desperate temporary measure, we shifted to a 3-bedroom house that was about 5 km from my school. The house was not ideal as it faced a sewerage facility and every night, a foul stench would drift towards our house.
Soon after though, we moved to our permanent home about 1 km from my school. This single-storey end-terrace house No 136 would be our home for the next six years.
We were now ready to start our new lives in PJ.
But my father died just 3 months before I started primary school and we were still living in KL. Would our plans be scuttled with this change in events?
Not if my mother had any say in it.
My father had earlier bought a double-storey bungalow for us in PJ in preparation for our move. We had in fact visited the almost-complete bungalow some time back and my younger sister and I had even earmarked one of the upstairs bedrooms as ours. The bedroom that we had chosen faced the front lawn and had a balcony – we had planned that space to be our play area. In the spacious living room downstairs, I had privately visualized the space that would be reserved for my piano – for at that time, I already knew I wanted to learn to play the piano.
Unfortunately, when my father died, the bungalow was still incomplete and not fully paid-for. My mother most certainly did not have the means to continue with the final instalments now. Our dream house was going to evaporate into thin air.
Fortunately, though, the title to the property was in my mother’s name. She managed to find a buyer, sold the house and invested the money in a completed shop house which she reckoned might give a good rental yield and provide a stable source of income for us.
Given the changed circumstances, it might have been easier if we had just continued living in KL and attended school there. But my mother was not one to take the easy way out. She was determined that our lives would continue the way she and my father had planned and so, she did all she could within her powers to stick to the plan.
The main stumbling block then was that we had no home to shift to and school was starting soon. As a desperate temporary measure, we shifted to a 3-bedroom house that was about 5 km from my school. The house was not ideal as it faced a sewerage facility and every night, a foul stench would drift towards our house.
Soon after though, we moved to our permanent home about 1 km from my school. This single-storey end-terrace house No 136 would be our home for the next six years.
We were now ready to start our new lives in PJ.
Saturday 14 March 2009
The Day The Music Died
My childhood came to an abrupt end in the wee hours of one October morning when I was six years old. I was awakened from my sleep by some unusual sounds. I opened my eyes to see my disheveled mother sobbing and rummaging through some drawers. What she was looking for, I had no idea. But when she realized that I was awake, she called my name tearfully and broke the news to me that my father had died. Ironically, it was not the message, but the sight of a crying adult - my mother - that was traumatic to the six-year-old.
The rest that followed was a blur. I remember the dark dinghy corridor of the hospital – or was that my imagination? I knew which hospital my father was sent to because my mother had blamed the hospital for not taking prompt action which might have saved my father from the fatal stroke that struck him that night.
My father’s death was a pivot point in my life. It was like the storm that blew Dorothy’s house away and left a scary new world in its place.
This is not about the emotional void left by my father – that would be a lie. I really was too young to realize the significance of what was happening but what I was experiencing then, at the funeral and the days that followed, was scary enough. As children, our security came from the familiarity of our surroundings, our routines and our trust in the adults being in control and making everything alright for us. Overnight, I was stripped bare of all feelings of security.
My father’s wake took place in the second wife’s bungalow which had a large compound that was suitable for holding a wake. We had never visited the house before this. At that time, I was not aware of the complicated ties within the family. All I knew was that we were in this strange place, surrounded by a sea of strange faces, doing strange things that I had never done before. We wore strange clothes, there were strange smells in the air and people were behaving strangely.
Amidst all the strangers, I remember how glad I was to see some of the relatives from my mother’s side as well as some of my mother’s friends. When I saw them, I smiled and greeted them, “Aunty”, like what I have always been taught to do. Surprisingly, though, they hushed me up, saying that I must not smile, that I should be crying. I remember thinking how unreasonable adults were, forcing me to cry when I did not want to cry, but at other times, I was scolded when I did cry. But obedience was my second name and so I tried hard to force some tears out… but I just could not cry.
Then there were other aunties who held me and told me that now I must be grown-up and remember to take care of my mother, my younger sister and brother. And true enough, as if through their very bidding, I grew up overnight.
Things continued to take strange turns after the funeral.
My father had died at 53 years of age - which was considered young - and so the family was in deep mourning. All of us wore black, white or dark blue attire for one whole year. We used a safety pin to fasten a piece of rectangular cloth on the left sleeve of all our clothes to signify our mourning status.
According to Chinese beliefs, the soul of the departed will return home on the 7th day after his passing away. I remember on that 7th night, all of us slept in one room and there were talks amongst the adults that some of them might like to peep out of the room to see if anything was going on. It was also debated which household the spirit would be going home to, seeing that the departed had a choice of three households. Thinking back, it must have been truly frightening for a young child then at the prospect of seeing a ghost. But my mother would say, silly girl, it’s your own father, do you think any harm would come to you?
My mother continued her desire to contact the spirit of my father via mediums. She would try to “talk” to my father, or to get instructions from him, through these mediums. If the spirit insinuated that something was lacking in the afterlife, she would burn incense and other things to make amends. It was perhaps her way of coping with her grief during those difficult early days. I would normally not be a party to such excursions to the mediums, except on one occasion, when we were visiting Ipoh and we had nowhere to go, except to wait in the car for my mother. These visits to the mediums soon stopped altogether – the Chinese believed that only fresh newly-departed spirits would talk to those remaining in this world. I do not know the rationale – it could be the belief of reincarnation, or the thinking that the spirits too had their own lives to lead in the other world.
Those early days were indeed painful for my mother. To ease her pain, which we did not fully understand then but could intuitively sense, we tried to behave ourselves and kept quiet most of the time. I did not know then, but my father’s finances were not exactly in order - and our very survival would have been my mother’s immediate worry.
Later, my mother told us that it was the second wife, with whom she had had no prior contact before the funeral, who had come to our rescue - not the first wife, who had turned strangely cold and distant. The second wife had offered financial assistance straight away without any conditions and this helped us tide over those early days.
Over the subsequent years, we had come to grow close to this magnanimous lady - my father’s second wife - whom we called Yee Ma. We visited each other’s houses often and shared many memories together.
But that would be another story for another time.
The rest that followed was a blur. I remember the dark dinghy corridor of the hospital – or was that my imagination? I knew which hospital my father was sent to because my mother had blamed the hospital for not taking prompt action which might have saved my father from the fatal stroke that struck him that night.
My father’s death was a pivot point in my life. It was like the storm that blew Dorothy’s house away and left a scary new world in its place.
This is not about the emotional void left by my father – that would be a lie. I really was too young to realize the significance of what was happening but what I was experiencing then, at the funeral and the days that followed, was scary enough. As children, our security came from the familiarity of our surroundings, our routines and our trust in the adults being in control and making everything alright for us. Overnight, I was stripped bare of all feelings of security.
My father’s wake took place in the second wife’s bungalow which had a large compound that was suitable for holding a wake. We had never visited the house before this. At that time, I was not aware of the complicated ties within the family. All I knew was that we were in this strange place, surrounded by a sea of strange faces, doing strange things that I had never done before. We wore strange clothes, there were strange smells in the air and people were behaving strangely.
Amidst all the strangers, I remember how glad I was to see some of the relatives from my mother’s side as well as some of my mother’s friends. When I saw them, I smiled and greeted them, “Aunty”, like what I have always been taught to do. Surprisingly, though, they hushed me up, saying that I must not smile, that I should be crying. I remember thinking how unreasonable adults were, forcing me to cry when I did not want to cry, but at other times, I was scolded when I did cry. But obedience was my second name and so I tried hard to force some tears out… but I just could not cry.
Then there were other aunties who held me and told me that now I must be grown-up and remember to take care of my mother, my younger sister and brother. And true enough, as if through their very bidding, I grew up overnight.
Things continued to take strange turns after the funeral.
My father had died at 53 years of age - which was considered young - and so the family was in deep mourning. All of us wore black, white or dark blue attire for one whole year. We used a safety pin to fasten a piece of rectangular cloth on the left sleeve of all our clothes to signify our mourning status.
According to Chinese beliefs, the soul of the departed will return home on the 7th day after his passing away. I remember on that 7th night, all of us slept in one room and there were talks amongst the adults that some of them might like to peep out of the room to see if anything was going on. It was also debated which household the spirit would be going home to, seeing that the departed had a choice of three households. Thinking back, it must have been truly frightening for a young child then at the prospect of seeing a ghost. But my mother would say, silly girl, it’s your own father, do you think any harm would come to you?
My mother continued her desire to contact the spirit of my father via mediums. She would try to “talk” to my father, or to get instructions from him, through these mediums. If the spirit insinuated that something was lacking in the afterlife, she would burn incense and other things to make amends. It was perhaps her way of coping with her grief during those difficult early days. I would normally not be a party to such excursions to the mediums, except on one occasion, when we were visiting Ipoh and we had nowhere to go, except to wait in the car for my mother. These visits to the mediums soon stopped altogether – the Chinese believed that only fresh newly-departed spirits would talk to those remaining in this world. I do not know the rationale – it could be the belief of reincarnation, or the thinking that the spirits too had their own lives to lead in the other world.
Those early days were indeed painful for my mother. To ease her pain, which we did not fully understand then but could intuitively sense, we tried to behave ourselves and kept quiet most of the time. I did not know then, but my father’s finances were not exactly in order - and our very survival would have been my mother’s immediate worry.
Later, my mother told us that it was the second wife, with whom she had had no prior contact before the funeral, who had come to our rescue - not the first wife, who had turned strangely cold and distant. The second wife had offered financial assistance straight away without any conditions and this helped us tide over those early days.
Over the subsequent years, we had come to grow close to this magnanimous lady - my father’s second wife - whom we called Yee Ma. We visited each other’s houses often and shared many memories together.
But that would be another story for another time.
Friday 13 March 2009
Drink A Cup Of Tea
This won’t be easy because I am going to tell a story that is strictly not mine to tell. But my mother’s story has such a profound influence on my life that my own story will not be complete without an understanding of her story.
My mother is my father’s third wife. Before I continue further, it is important to remember that, at that time, polygamy was not such an unusual institution. In the sixties, polygamy was legally recognized by the State and all the wives had official status – this is evident from the fact that my mother and the other two wives all received a share of my father’s pension from the government after his demise.
But when I was young, it was beyond my capability to rationalize, as I can now, the state of affairs that gave rise to my conception. I just knew that I grew up in this family that was vastly different from those of my friends, and I (figuratively) just wanted to curl up and disappear from the face of the earth... forever.
This is the story as I know it from my mother’s perspective and which I would tell as objectively as I could.
When my mother met my father, she did not know him as a married man. Later, my father told my mother that he already had a wife and that the wife was barren. They had so far adopted two children, a boy and a girl, but he craved to have his own biological children. It seemed as good a reason as any to take a second wife.
My mother was “officially” accepted by the first wife, via a tea ceremony. In Chinese tradition, the cup of tea is strongly symbolic. It can represent acceptance, forgiveness, filial piety or respect, depending on the situation. In this case, the cup of tea sealed the matrimonial arrangement and thereafter, my father and mother attended all official functions as a couple.
Soon after, though, some of my mother’s cronies told my mother that they have seen my father with another woman and two school-going boys. The final beans were spilt when my father admitted to having a second wife prior to my mother and that this second wife had already borne him two biological sons. The first wife had “colluded” because she never did like the second wife and had hoped that my mother would dilute the second wife’s influence on my father.
My mother naturally felt betrayed and angered, but there was nothing much that she could do. The rice had become broth. My father treated all the wives well and apportioned each with a fair share of time. Each of the wives lived under separate roofs and essentially led their own lives.
All the above were told to me, not in one setting, but in bits and pieces over the years by my mother. She cherished her memories and she usually talked about my father, whom she called “fei lo”, with great affection. I remember for years and years after my father's death, she would still shed tears during Qing Ming and other occasions of significance. I sense, from what she told me, that she was convinced that she, and only she, was the one true love of my father.
I am not attempting to do a character study of my father here but all I know is that growing up in those first 6 years of my life, I hardly knew my father at all. My memories of him were dim - he just did not figure in our daily lives. Perhaps this was not as unusual as I had thought, given that I now know many fathers of that generation who hardly spoke to their children, even if they were there physically.
As a child though, I could feel the immediate repercussion of my complex background. When I was in primary school, I would stammer or turn red, whenever a friend or a teacher were to ask me a simple question: how many brothers and sisters do you have?
I did not know how to answer. From my mother’s side, I already had two elder sisters who did not share my surname. Not that I knew its significance – it was not until one day when a friend in primary school asked me why my two elder sisters did not have my surname, that it dawned on me that something was amiss. I just did not know that siblings normally have the same surname - it was not built into my mental schema of things.
If one were to think about it, my answer to that dreaded question could be any of the following:
A. One brother and one sister
B. One brother and three sisters
C. Three brothers and one sister
D. Three brothers and three sisters
E. Four brothers and four sisters
Whatever I answered, I was afraid that my story and my younger sister’s story did not jive - for we had a number of friends in common. Or that my answer might not be consistent with what I might have said before. Oh, what a mess. Perhaps, that's when I started my anti-social behaviour and avoided conversations altogether.
When I finally got my act together, I tended to favour the response (D). I did not include the two adopted children of the first wife because we did not have any dealings with them and I had never met them until a few years ago.
Under (D), I am ranked fifth in terms of birth order. My friends, especially those in Singapore, would go "Wow, such a large family!" and I would smile and change the subject. But in reality, I have always been brought up as a firstborn and had the responsibilities of a firstborn thrust on me early in life.
It might be interesting too to evaluate the psychological impact that my father might have had on me in terms of my relationship with the opposite sex or my view of the world, but I am not about to do a Meredith Gray here. Anyway, psychoanalysts would just normally encourage the analysee to talk about the past – so my blogging about it should do the trick and save me from paying the moon to get an answer. Not that an answer is important, always remembering that it is how we live our lives today that's important, not the past.
My mother is my father’s third wife. Before I continue further, it is important to remember that, at that time, polygamy was not such an unusual institution. In the sixties, polygamy was legally recognized by the State and all the wives had official status – this is evident from the fact that my mother and the other two wives all received a share of my father’s pension from the government after his demise.
But when I was young, it was beyond my capability to rationalize, as I can now, the state of affairs that gave rise to my conception. I just knew that I grew up in this family that was vastly different from those of my friends, and I (figuratively) just wanted to curl up and disappear from the face of the earth... forever.
This is the story as I know it from my mother’s perspective and which I would tell as objectively as I could.
When my mother met my father, she did not know him as a married man. Later, my father told my mother that he already had a wife and that the wife was barren. They had so far adopted two children, a boy and a girl, but he craved to have his own biological children. It seemed as good a reason as any to take a second wife.
My mother was “officially” accepted by the first wife, via a tea ceremony. In Chinese tradition, the cup of tea is strongly symbolic. It can represent acceptance, forgiveness, filial piety or respect, depending on the situation. In this case, the cup of tea sealed the matrimonial arrangement and thereafter, my father and mother attended all official functions as a couple.
Soon after, though, some of my mother’s cronies told my mother that they have seen my father with another woman and two school-going boys. The final beans were spilt when my father admitted to having a second wife prior to my mother and that this second wife had already borne him two biological sons. The first wife had “colluded” because she never did like the second wife and had hoped that my mother would dilute the second wife’s influence on my father.
My mother naturally felt betrayed and angered, but there was nothing much that she could do. The rice had become broth. My father treated all the wives well and apportioned each with a fair share of time. Each of the wives lived under separate roofs and essentially led their own lives.
All the above were told to me, not in one setting, but in bits and pieces over the years by my mother. She cherished her memories and she usually talked about my father, whom she called “fei lo”, with great affection. I remember for years and years after my father's death, she would still shed tears during Qing Ming and other occasions of significance. I sense, from what she told me, that she was convinced that she, and only she, was the one true love of my father.
I am not attempting to do a character study of my father here but all I know is that growing up in those first 6 years of my life, I hardly knew my father at all. My memories of him were dim - he just did not figure in our daily lives. Perhaps this was not as unusual as I had thought, given that I now know many fathers of that generation who hardly spoke to their children, even if they were there physically.
As a child though, I could feel the immediate repercussion of my complex background. When I was in primary school, I would stammer or turn red, whenever a friend or a teacher were to ask me a simple question: how many brothers and sisters do you have?
I did not know how to answer. From my mother’s side, I already had two elder sisters who did not share my surname. Not that I knew its significance – it was not until one day when a friend in primary school asked me why my two elder sisters did not have my surname, that it dawned on me that something was amiss. I just did not know that siblings normally have the same surname - it was not built into my mental schema of things.
If one were to think about it, my answer to that dreaded question could be any of the following:
A. One brother and one sister
B. One brother and three sisters
C. Three brothers and one sister
D. Three brothers and three sisters
E. Four brothers and four sisters
Whatever I answered, I was afraid that my story and my younger sister’s story did not jive - for we had a number of friends in common. Or that my answer might not be consistent with what I might have said before. Oh, what a mess. Perhaps, that's when I started my anti-social behaviour and avoided conversations altogether.
When I finally got my act together, I tended to favour the response (D). I did not include the two adopted children of the first wife because we did not have any dealings with them and I had never met them until a few years ago.
Under (D), I am ranked fifth in terms of birth order. My friends, especially those in Singapore, would go "Wow, such a large family!" and I would smile and change the subject. But in reality, I have always been brought up as a firstborn and had the responsibilities of a firstborn thrust on me early in life.
It might be interesting too to evaluate the psychological impact that my father might have had on me in terms of my relationship with the opposite sex or my view of the world, but I am not about to do a Meredith Gray here. Anyway, psychoanalysts would just normally encourage the analysee to talk about the past – so my blogging about it should do the trick and save me from paying the moon to get an answer. Not that an answer is important, always remembering that it is how we live our lives today that's important, not the past.
Wednesday 11 March 2009
Telok Intan a.k.a. Anson
When we were young, and when it was time for a holiday, my mother would load us into our car and drive 3-4 hours along minor trunk roads to the small town of Telok Anson in Perak to visit my Tai Yee. My Tai Yee, who passed away last year, was my mother's only sister and she was older than my mother by 10 years.
Telok Anson is now of course no longer found on the map. Its name has been changed to Telok Intan, after Malay nationalists decided to change all names, with the slightest reference to our anglo-colonialist past, to local names.
Anyway, in those pre-Expressway days, travelling on the road meant navigating through narrow roads that were mostly one-lane each way. Sometimes, if we were behind a slow-moving vehicle, we would need to wait for the right opportunity to overtake it. That took a lot of patience. Road trips were somewhat more interesting as the scenery was not bland, unlike what we have now along the highway. We would jot down the names of towns that we passed in a little note book. And to break the journey, we used to stop along small towns, like Tanjong Malim and Bidor, sipping Fanta Grape and shopping for local delicacies like the famous Bidor Chicken Biscuits.
My Tai Yee lived in a single-storey semi-detached house in a quiet neighbourhood in Telok Anson, or Telok Intan. She did not mind that we invaded her home and disrupted her peaceful life. When we reached her house after our tiring road journey, she would welcome us with my favourite dish - steamed kampung chicken. The chicken had that to-die-for firm golden yellow skin that could only be found in genuine home-reared chicken. As a young child, I had loved chicken skin - oblivious, like everybody else, to its unhealthy dietary effects. Ah, what blissful ignorance!
Telok Intan is not that small, as far as small towns go. In fact, in the league of small towns, it should rank quite high. At that time, the town already had more than one cinema, a couple of schools, a town center that was built in a mini-grid structure, a hospital and even its own landmark, the Leaning Clock Tower. Later, some entrepreneurs started a department store and a small hotel, but that's about it. Much still remained the same when I visited the place briefly last year.
So what did we do during our holidays there?
Our holidays in Telok Intan had always centered round food. In the morning, we would go to the the famous Great Asia coffee shop for breakfast where my Tai Yee and my cousins were such regulars that everybody knew their names. My favourite was the kaya toast.
In the afternoon, we would wait for the tinkling of the ice-cream man who came by on a trishaw. It was not the Walls or Magnolia ice-cream that he peddled, but even better, it was a locally manufactured ice-cream that was less milky but just as creamy. You couldn't get it anywhere else! The delicious sweet corn ice-cream which would melt in your mouth was also cheap, and that was always good, because we could bring our own bowl or saucer and greedily ask for multiple scoops. Yeah, that would be our first Earthquake, lol!
For tea, we would have rojak which I remember was special because it had lots of mangoes and prawn paste. And for supper, we would go for the assam laksa which cost only 20 sen a bowl. The various local kuih were also very cheap. No wonder we stuffed ourselves silly and thoroughly enjoyed it.
At that time, most of my cousins were already working in the city and it was only my youngest cousin who was still around to entertain us - sometimes. Most of the time, we were left to our own devices.
In between the makan times, we would sit at the corner of the mahjong table, quietly watching my mom and her friends play mahjong. Or we would run up and down the long corridor which led to the three bedrooms. In retrospect, I do not think the corridor was that long, but it sure seemed long at that time.
Those were the days. Road trips only meant one destination - and that was fine by us.
Telok Anson is now of course no longer found on the map. Its name has been changed to Telok Intan, after Malay nationalists decided to change all names, with the slightest reference to our anglo-colonialist past, to local names.
Anyway, in those pre-Expressway days, travelling on the road meant navigating through narrow roads that were mostly one-lane each way. Sometimes, if we were behind a slow-moving vehicle, we would need to wait for the right opportunity to overtake it. That took a lot of patience. Road trips were somewhat more interesting as the scenery was not bland, unlike what we have now along the highway. We would jot down the names of towns that we passed in a little note book. And to break the journey, we used to stop along small towns, like Tanjong Malim and Bidor, sipping Fanta Grape and shopping for local delicacies like the famous Bidor Chicken Biscuits.
My Tai Yee lived in a single-storey semi-detached house in a quiet neighbourhood in Telok Anson, or Telok Intan. She did not mind that we invaded her home and disrupted her peaceful life. When we reached her house after our tiring road journey, she would welcome us with my favourite dish - steamed kampung chicken. The chicken had that to-die-for firm golden yellow skin that could only be found in genuine home-reared chicken. As a young child, I had loved chicken skin - oblivious, like everybody else, to its unhealthy dietary effects. Ah, what blissful ignorance!
Telok Intan is not that small, as far as small towns go. In fact, in the league of small towns, it should rank quite high. At that time, the town already had more than one cinema, a couple of schools, a town center that was built in a mini-grid structure, a hospital and even its own landmark, the Leaning Clock Tower. Later, some entrepreneurs started a department store and a small hotel, but that's about it. Much still remained the same when I visited the place briefly last year.
So what did we do during our holidays there?
Our holidays in Telok Intan had always centered round food. In the morning, we would go to the the famous Great Asia coffee shop for breakfast where my Tai Yee and my cousins were such regulars that everybody knew their names. My favourite was the kaya toast.
In the afternoon, we would wait for the tinkling of the ice-cream man who came by on a trishaw. It was not the Walls or Magnolia ice-cream that he peddled, but even better, it was a locally manufactured ice-cream that was less milky but just as creamy. You couldn't get it anywhere else! The delicious sweet corn ice-cream which would melt in your mouth was also cheap, and that was always good, because we could bring our own bowl or saucer and greedily ask for multiple scoops. Yeah, that would be our first Earthquake, lol!
For tea, we would have rojak which I remember was special because it had lots of mangoes and prawn paste. And for supper, we would go for the assam laksa which cost only 20 sen a bowl. The various local kuih were also very cheap. No wonder we stuffed ourselves silly and thoroughly enjoyed it.
At that time, most of my cousins were already working in the city and it was only my youngest cousin who was still around to entertain us - sometimes. Most of the time, we were left to our own devices.
In between the makan times, we would sit at the corner of the mahjong table, quietly watching my mom and her friends play mahjong. Or we would run up and down the long corridor which led to the three bedrooms. In retrospect, I do not think the corridor was that long, but it sure seemed long at that time.
Those were the days. Road trips only meant one destination - and that was fine by us.
Tuesday 10 March 2009
Under The Star Fruit Tree
At the small compound in front of the house where I spent the first 6 years of my childhood, a star fruit tree used to stand. Beneath its foliage, my younger sister and I had spent many happy, carefree hours. We were the best of playmates - I do not remember ever quarrelling with her. We were not rambunctious children, like my three sons, who favoured boisterous, rough-and-tumble, competitive games. Rather, we loved cooperative role-playing games and our imagination knew no bounds.
Under the star fruit tree, we played make-believe masak-masak. We used imagined utensil to stir-fry its leaves. Then, we garnished the dish with the delicate magenta flowers from the same tree and finally served it with pretend-rice, which was nothing but the soil of the earth. The sandy soil also doubled as cake mixture or pancake dough at our command.
Besides masak-masak, one of our favourite role-play was pretending to be poor. Ya, get over it….! For whatever reason (the 60’s Cantonese movies that we watched with my mum and grandma?), pretending to be poor seemed fun, lol! Our hand-quilted blankets would end up as the roof of our humble abode and we would huddle in a corner to escape the pelting rain which threatened to drown all our precious belongings, usually pillows and bolsters!
Our versatile pillows and bolsters also became our stepping stones as we attempted to cross raging rivers. Our games would be peppered with conversations, in pretend high-pitch adult voices - the more urgent the situation, the higher our pitch!
Toys were rare. I don’t remember getting my first doll until I was in primary school. It would seem my mother preferred sensible, affordable toys. I remember a set of building blocks, not Lego, but those wooden Made-In-China ones, with pre-fabricated columns, windows and arches.
From the same shop in the vicinity of downtown Petaling Street, my mother later got us a box of wooden reading tiles, also Made-In-China, with pictures on one side and both Chinese and English inscriptions on the flipside. My mother thought it was an educational toy but unknown to her, we privately used those 3cm by 3cm tiles to play our version of mahjong and other card games.
Not all memories are sweet. In May 1969, when KL was reeling from racial riots, we had curfews. I was too young to know what was going on but I remember we were kept indoors for days with all our doors and windows shut. Curious as to what was going on outside, I remember peering out through the slit under the door to get a glimpse of what was happening outside - which, luckily, was nothing. The area where we lived was a traditional Chinese stronghold.
But stories of senseless killings filtered to us by word of mouth and for months after May 13, there were many areas in the city that we continued to avoid. My mother was expecting my brother at that time and I have no doubt that it was a stressful time for her. As a young girl, I could already sense the gravity of the situation, though not fully comprehending the far-reaching impact these events would have on the Chinese community in years to come.
Under the star fruit tree, we played make-believe masak-masak. We used imagined utensil to stir-fry its leaves. Then, we garnished the dish with the delicate magenta flowers from the same tree and finally served it with pretend-rice, which was nothing but the soil of the earth. The sandy soil also doubled as cake mixture or pancake dough at our command.
Besides masak-masak, one of our favourite role-play was pretending to be poor. Ya, get over it….! For whatever reason (the 60’s Cantonese movies that we watched with my mum and grandma?), pretending to be poor seemed fun, lol! Our hand-quilted blankets would end up as the roof of our humble abode and we would huddle in a corner to escape the pelting rain which threatened to drown all our precious belongings, usually pillows and bolsters!
Our versatile pillows and bolsters also became our stepping stones as we attempted to cross raging rivers. Our games would be peppered with conversations, in pretend high-pitch adult voices - the more urgent the situation, the higher our pitch!
Toys were rare. I don’t remember getting my first doll until I was in primary school. It would seem my mother preferred sensible, affordable toys. I remember a set of building blocks, not Lego, but those wooden Made-In-China ones, with pre-fabricated columns, windows and arches.
From the same shop in the vicinity of downtown Petaling Street, my mother later got us a box of wooden reading tiles, also Made-In-China, with pictures on one side and both Chinese and English inscriptions on the flipside. My mother thought it was an educational toy but unknown to her, we privately used those 3cm by 3cm tiles to play our version of mahjong and other card games.
Not all memories are sweet. In May 1969, when KL was reeling from racial riots, we had curfews. I was too young to know what was going on but I remember we were kept indoors for days with all our doors and windows shut. Curious as to what was going on outside, I remember peering out through the slit under the door to get a glimpse of what was happening outside - which, luckily, was nothing. The area where we lived was a traditional Chinese stronghold.
But stories of senseless killings filtered to us by word of mouth and for months after May 13, there were many areas in the city that we continued to avoid. My mother was expecting my brother at that time and I have no doubt that it was a stressful time for her. As a young girl, I could already sense the gravity of the situation, though not fully comprehending the far-reaching impact these events would have on the Chinese community in years to come.
Now, more than 4 decades later, the house No 11 where I spent my childhood is still there. Strangers now occupy the place. As I approached No 11 in my car one hot weekday afternoon, the street was quiet and still, without a single soul in sight, notwithstanding that there were cars parked bumper-to-bumper on both sides of the street.
I felt a sense of deja vu. The compound in front of the house was now cemented and the star fruit tree was no longer there - in its place were several potted plants. But the patterned grills of the gate were the same, painted in the same silver paint, and the bamboo roll-up blinds still remained more than 40 years later to shield the occupants of the house from the afternoon sun.
For a while, I was transported back in time.
I saw my mother talking to our neighbours: the family living on the third floor, the spinster and her father across the road and another family two doors away. Mun Soh, Biew Soh, Lei Ku Leong... At that time, the community spirit was strong.
I saw us - me, my sister and my younger brother - cycling up and down the pavement. It was safe then. And I remember the spot where my brother fell from his tricycle and caused a panic.
And I saw my deceased grandmother sitting down and eating her favourite curry chee-cheong-fun with us. She was probably smoking and grumbling too, for her bark had always been known to be worse than her bite. But she had a heart of gold. And we, the children, were her treasures.
Saturday 7 March 2009
Baby Steps
Not all of us are destined for greatness. Not all of us are destined to build a nation, set world records or blaze trails for future generations. But each and everyone of us has a story to tell.
And my story began one morning in early March at the KL General Hospital. On the same day that I was born, elsewhere in the world, the first US combat forces arrived in Vietnam with 3,500 Marines and the UK No 1 hit was I'll Never Find Another You by The Seekers. That year was a tumultous year in the annals of local history. Lee Kuan Yew and Tunku Abdul Rahman sought to meet the demands of their respective communities and amidst a yawning ideology gap, found that separation was the only way out, thus paving the way for the birth of the tiny nation called Singapore. That same year, The Sound Of Music won the Oscar for Best Picture.
Oblivious to the changing world around us, back in the KL General Hospital, I was happily cosseted by a doting mother and a father, who could have been happier if I were a son, but nevertheless, rejoiced at my birth, his first biological daughter. At that time, the gender of the baby was not known until the actual birth and I could imagine how anxious both my parents must have been while awaiting my arrival.
I was given a name to signify the high expectations that they had of me, a name that is not overtly feminine, which was the trend at that time (eg flower, cloud, rainbow), but a name that sought to combine elegance with greatness and majestic splendour. It was a good name - a name that carried the hopes and the cherished dreams of my mother.
The nurses in the hospital had another name for me, though. "King Kong", they nicknamed me. At >9 lbs (>4kg) at birth, I was a huge baby with lusty cries. I believe I must have got the best of attention from the nurses because we were in a first class ward. My father was a respected civil servant who enjoyed hugely subsidised rates in the government hospital and would never consider a private hospital, unless he was under extreme duress.
My first home was the ground floor unit of a 3-storey walk-up apartment block in the "East End" of KL (see above). We lived with my maternal grandmother who, bless her, took care of me and my mother. My father went for a World Tour shortly after my birth. A World Tour was a big deal at that time and I believe he was away for months. I have seen a photograph of my father at the Macao landmark, Ruins of St Paul, and some postcards that he wrote to my mother in his well-formed cursive handwriting.
I have not heard many stories about me when I was a baby, but my mother loved to tell the story of how I learnt to walk at 9 months (which could be a mother's exaggeration, I don't know, or maybe not, because after all, I was a big baby to begin with). I was already running around during my 1-year-old birthday celebration, with the knife meant for cutting my birthday cake in my hand. We did have some photographs taken on that special occasion which I promise to hunt down one of these days.
My mother's other favourite story was how I was admitted to the KL General Hospital when I was 17 months old, at the same time that she was admitted for the delivery of my younger sister. I had some throat problems - it could be croup or tonsilitis - but it was definitely something serious enough that warranted close medical supervision. But as my grandmother did not want to cause my mother any anxiety while she was recuperating from the birth of my sister, my mother was actually kept in the dark about it. Understandably, she was pretty upset later when she found out.
When I was very young, my bogyman was one of my mother's close friend, a lady called Lily. I do not know why but I grew to fear her more than anyone else. I know that at times, memory may blend with imagination, so that one is unable to separate the two after a long while. But to this day, I have a vision of a very young me sobbing after taking a bath, half naked with just a towel draped around me, and Aunty Lily wielding a cane at me! Was it trauma that caused this slice of memory to be burnt deeply into my psyche, I wonder?
And my story began one morning in early March at the KL General Hospital. On the same day that I was born, elsewhere in the world, the first US combat forces arrived in Vietnam with 3,500 Marines and the UK No 1 hit was I'll Never Find Another You by The Seekers. That year was a tumultous year in the annals of local history. Lee Kuan Yew and Tunku Abdul Rahman sought to meet the demands of their respective communities and amidst a yawning ideology gap, found that separation was the only way out, thus paving the way for the birth of the tiny nation called Singapore. That same year, The Sound Of Music won the Oscar for Best Picture.
Oblivious to the changing world around us, back in the KL General Hospital, I was happily cosseted by a doting mother and a father, who could have been happier if I were a son, but nevertheless, rejoiced at my birth, his first biological daughter. At that time, the gender of the baby was not known until the actual birth and I could imagine how anxious both my parents must have been while awaiting my arrival.
I was given a name to signify the high expectations that they had of me, a name that is not overtly feminine, which was the trend at that time (eg flower, cloud, rainbow), but a name that sought to combine elegance with greatness and majestic splendour. It was a good name - a name that carried the hopes and the cherished dreams of my mother.
The nurses in the hospital had another name for me, though. "King Kong", they nicknamed me. At >9 lbs (>4kg) at birth, I was a huge baby with lusty cries. I believe I must have got the best of attention from the nurses because we were in a first class ward. My father was a respected civil servant who enjoyed hugely subsidised rates in the government hospital and would never consider a private hospital, unless he was under extreme duress.
My first home was the ground floor unit of a 3-storey walk-up apartment block in the "East End" of KL (see above). We lived with my maternal grandmother who, bless her, took care of me and my mother. My father went for a World Tour shortly after my birth. A World Tour was a big deal at that time and I believe he was away for months. I have seen a photograph of my father at the Macao landmark, Ruins of St Paul, and some postcards that he wrote to my mother in his well-formed cursive handwriting.I have not heard many stories about me when I was a baby, but my mother loved to tell the story of how I learnt to walk at 9 months (which could be a mother's exaggeration, I don't know, or maybe not, because after all, I was a big baby to begin with). I was already running around during my 1-year-old birthday celebration, with the knife meant for cutting my birthday cake in my hand. We did have some photographs taken on that special occasion which I promise to hunt down one of these days.
My mother's other favourite story was how I was admitted to the KL General Hospital when I was 17 months old, at the same time that she was admitted for the delivery of my younger sister. I had some throat problems - it could be croup or tonsilitis - but it was definitely something serious enough that warranted close medical supervision. But as my grandmother did not want to cause my mother any anxiety while she was recuperating from the birth of my sister, my mother was actually kept in the dark about it. Understandably, she was pretty upset later when she found out.
When I was very young, my bogyman was one of my mother's close friend, a lady called Lily. I do not know why but I grew to fear her more than anyone else. I know that at times, memory may blend with imagination, so that one is unable to separate the two after a long while. But to this day, I have a vision of a very young me sobbing after taking a bath, half naked with just a towel draped around me, and Aunty Lily wielding a cane at me! Was it trauma that caused this slice of memory to be burnt deeply into my psyche, I wonder?
Friday 6 March 2009
Activity Snapshot
The following snapshots feature "One Week In The Life Of...."
(Scheduled events only)
Son No 3
- 5 days of kindergarten (8:30am - 12:30pm)
- 3 Mandarin Enrichment classes
- 1 English Speech & Drama class
- 1 Piano lesson
- 1 Taekwando class
Son No 2
- 5 days of primary school (1:05pm - 6:40pm)
- 2 Mandarin Enrichment classes
- 1 Piano lesson
- 1 Taekwando class
Son No 1
- 5 days of high school (8:00am - 3:30pm)
- 2 Mandarin Enrichment classes
- 3 Tennis sessions
- 1 Taekwando class
Mummy
- All of the above (driving duties only)
- Less overlap in Taekwando (class attended by the 3 boys together)
- 1 Marketing trip to the wet market
- 1 Grocery shopping trip to the hypermart
Wow... how humdrum can life be...
OK, invites going out to everyone to top the humdrum scale....=^=
(Scheduled events only)
Son No 3
- 5 days of kindergarten (8:30am - 12:30pm)
- 3 Mandarin Enrichment classes
- 1 English Speech & Drama class
- 1 Piano lesson
- 1 Taekwando class
Son No 2
- 5 days of primary school (1:05pm - 6:40pm)
- 2 Mandarin Enrichment classes
- 1 Piano lesson
- 1 Taekwando class
Son No 1
- 5 days of high school (8:00am - 3:30pm)
- 2 Mandarin Enrichment classes
- 3 Tennis sessions
- 1 Taekwando class
Mummy
- All of the above (driving duties only)
- Less overlap in Taekwando (class attended by the 3 boys together)
- 1 Marketing trip to the wet market
- 1 Grocery shopping trip to the hypermart
Wow... how humdrum can life be...
OK, invites going out to everyone to top the humdrum scale....=^=
Thursday 5 March 2009
Pop Snapshot
This is the result of my straw poll yesterday, plus recent observation:
Son No 3
Current Favourite Song
Circus by Britney Spears.
Current Favourite TV Shows
1) Tom And Jerry
2) Spongebob Squarepants
3) Little Einsteins
Current Books
Chinese "Little Scrolls" Series
*****************************************************************************
Son No 2
Current Favourite Song
Love Bug by Jonas Brothers
Current Favourite TV Show/Movie
High School Musical 3
The Most Extreme Animal Series
Current Books
The 6th book of the Secret Seven series
Various animal books
*****************************************************************************
Son No 1
Current Favourite Song
"Don't know"
Listens to I-Tunes Top 10 Songs
Recently Watched TV Show
90210
Recently Read
The Twilight series
Dan Brown
******************************************************************************
Mummy
Current Favourite Song
None.
Now listening to Stephanie Sun in the car.
Current Favourite TV Show
Brothers And Sisters
(just finished Season 2)
Recently Read
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Now Reading
Bill Gates Speaks by Janet Lowe
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
Son No 3Current Favourite Song
Circus by Britney Spears.
Current Favourite TV Shows
1) Tom And Jerry
2) Spongebob Squarepants
3) Little Einsteins
Current Books
Chinese "Little Scrolls" Series
*****************************************************************************
Son No 2Current Favourite Song
Love Bug by Jonas Brothers
Current Favourite TV Show/Movie
High School Musical 3
The Most Extreme Animal Series
Current Books
The 6th book of the Secret Seven series
Various animal books
*****************************************************************************
Son No 1Current Favourite Song
"Don't know"
Listens to I-Tunes Top 10 Songs
Recently Watched TV Show
90210
Recently Read
The Twilight series
Dan Brown
******************************************************************************
MummyCurrent Favourite Song
None.
Now listening to Stephanie Sun in the car.
Current Favourite TV Show
Brothers And Sisters
(just finished Season 2)
Recently Read
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Now Reading
Bill Gates Speaks by Janet Lowe
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
Wednesday 4 March 2009
The Rainbow Connection
It is fair to say that whatever our age, we are excited when we chance upon a rainbow. But after the initial excitement, what next? Well, then it does depend on your age...
Son No 3 would say "I want to go to the rainbow". His mummy, down-to-earth and dead-honest as usual, would say that he can't. Why not? Well, because a rainbow is just a vision.... (blank look), it is an illusion... (huh?), it is not real.... (it looked very real to him). Look, it will disappear when you go near it, OK? "You mean, it is like the clouds?" Hmm... never mind, I do not really want to take away that innocence so soon. I can't very well tell him that the rainbow is caused by the refraction of electromagnetic waves when the waves travel through media of different density.
Son No 2, two years older and thinking that he is wiser, would say "No-la, you can only get the rainbow when there is rain and sun together, right, mummy?" Then he would go on to say, "I want to go to the end of the rainbow." He has heard of the common folklore and wants that pot of gold. I am not sure whether it is a sign that there is still some innocence left in him.
Son No 1, the analytical big brother, would want to show off to his younger siblings. He would say, "I can tell you all the colours of the rainbow" and would go on to rattle off the names of the colours by heart. Then mummy would challenge him, so which colour is in the inner arc of the rainbow? And after pausing for a while to think, he would be able to provide the answer.
Mummy, on the other hand, would keep her thoughts to herself - pondering philosophically why she sees more rainbows here in KL than in Singapore. The last one she saw was just during the Chinese New Year period. Is the weather pattern here really so different?
Or is God showering more blessings on this country? After all, this country is run by clowns (and that's putting it really mildly since clowns do no harm to others) and yet, the country has managed to function and even escape great calamities. The country has been registering positive growth over the years despite the huge amount of wastage that flows through the very large crevices that everybody knows about. Is this country blessed (in a certain way) or what?
Coming back to the rainbow, some may offer this simple explanation: that Singapore has too many highrise buildings which block the line of sight. To even see the sky, for heaven's sake, one needs to look vertically up. So how to see the rainbow?!
There is an even simpler explanation: when most people come home from work, it is already dark. If one does not even see the blue sky, then how to see the rainbow?
Photo courtesy of pauel_0206
Tuesday 3 March 2009
Rainbows and Traffic Jams
Yesterday, we saw another rainbow on our way home after fetching Son No 2. The rainbow was spectacular, arching over the entire sky. It lifted our spirits and as always, I am reminded of the Bible and God's covenant to mankind.I have seen more rainbows here over the past two years than my entire life in Singapore.
Today, there was no rainbow. Instead, I was caught in a 1.5-hour traffic jam going to fetch Son No 2 AND another 1.5-hour traffic jam coming back. That's altogether 3 hours on the road. My fingers were so stiff gripping the steering wheel that I had to do finger-flexing exercises. My right foot was similarly stiff after holding it angled in a fixed position for 3 hours.
I have had more traffic jams here over the past two years than my entire life in Singapore.
That about describes my life here in KL.
BTW, in case you missed the point, this is supposed to be cheem!
Sunday 1 March 2009
My Piano And Me
My love affair with the piano began a long time ago. I have no idea what triggered it but I have always wanted to play the piano.
I started piano lessons when I was 8 years old. My father had passed away and my mother was making ends meet. Life was ...well, not really hard... but certainly not easy. But my mother knew that I wanted to play the piano and she found a piano teacher for me. I remember how my mother bargained on the fees from the going rate of RM30 to RM28 a month. That savings of RM2 a month was enough to cover the transportation cost.
I went for my piano lessons every week by bus. My piano teacher's house was at Old Town which was like a 15-minute bus ride away. My eldest sister would accompany me for my piano lessons after she had finished school. Later, my piano teacher shifted to Section 7 which was nearer to my house and I walked there every week by myself.
The duration of the official lesson was 1.5 hours, but I remember my mom would always encourage my sister be late in picking me up. She reckoned it was more worth the money if I stayed longer, lol! My piano teacher did not mind and I ended up doing a lot of theory practice.
When I delve into the corners of my mind, it's amazing what inconsequential memory still holds in my memory bank. I remember my piano bag was a clear plastic bag with red trimmings and a big strawberry picture in front and my first piano book was Michael Aaron. I remember my sisters gathering round me and singing Christopher Columbus, one of the earliest songs I learnt during those first few lessons.
I was a very disciplined music student. I practised everyday, initially an hour a day and steadily progressing to 3 hours a day when I reached higher grades. My family gave me a lot of encouragement. They never complained, not even once, when I banged away on my scales or my exam pieces repeatedly day in day out. In our small house, the racket that I was raising must be considerable. My neighbours must have wished that we would go away, I am sure!
My first piano, oh, I do not even remember its brand - it was a second-hand piano that my mother got for me for practise. When I reached Grade 5, my piano teacher advised my mother to get me a good piano. The Challen that we got was a joy to play and it was with me for many, many years.
As for my first public performance.... ah! When I was in Standard Four, I was the most advanced piano student in my class as I had skipped two grades. My class was scheduled to perform during one of the assembly periods. I remember I played Strauss's "Tales From The Vienna Woods" while a friend of mine choreographed the dance.
Once, I also played for a radio programme. My piano teacher had some connections with a radio station and she managed to get a slot for a few of her students to perform. I was about the youngest student that she chose to perform and I remember I played Dvorak's "Humoresque".
I finished my Grade 8 when I was 14. My teacher thought I should continue my music education with another teacher and she recommended me to one who lived at Pantai Hills. My mother would drive me there and wait for me for 45 minutes to finish my lesson.
I never completed my diploma in piano because I went down to Singapore to study when I was 16. For a short while, I had lessons in Singapore but staying in a hostel, it was just too difficult to continue. I had to walk like a mile to the music room to practise on this rickety Made-In-China piano. I enjoyed the walk though :)
But strangely, it was when my formal lessons ended that I really learnt to play the piano. I started experimenting with pop songs and making up my own music whenever I could and it was liberating. When I was in JC, I accompanied a friend of mine in a singing contest, playing the Carpenters' hit, "Goodbye To Love".
Today, I play all sorts of music, whatever my mood suits me, whatever I feel like playing.... the Classics, Mandarin pop, English pop, Disney's songs, Richard Clayderman ... When words fail, my music takes over.
For all this, I thank my mother - who gave me this great gift - a music education.
I started piano lessons when I was 8 years old. My father had passed away and my mother was making ends meet. Life was ...well, not really hard... but certainly not easy. But my mother knew that I wanted to play the piano and she found a piano teacher for me. I remember how my mother bargained on the fees from the going rate of RM30 to RM28 a month. That savings of RM2 a month was enough to cover the transportation cost.
I went for my piano lessons every week by bus. My piano teacher's house was at Old Town which was like a 15-minute bus ride away. My eldest sister would accompany me for my piano lessons after she had finished school. Later, my piano teacher shifted to Section 7 which was nearer to my house and I walked there every week by myself.
The duration of the official lesson was 1.5 hours, but I remember my mom would always encourage my sister be late in picking me up. She reckoned it was more worth the money if I stayed longer, lol! My piano teacher did not mind and I ended up doing a lot of theory practice.
When I delve into the corners of my mind, it's amazing what inconsequential memory still holds in my memory bank. I remember my piano bag was a clear plastic bag with red trimmings and a big strawberry picture in front and my first piano book was Michael Aaron. I remember my sisters gathering round me and singing Christopher Columbus, one of the earliest songs I learnt during those first few lessons.
I was a very disciplined music student. I practised everyday, initially an hour a day and steadily progressing to 3 hours a day when I reached higher grades. My family gave me a lot of encouragement. They never complained, not even once, when I banged away on my scales or my exam pieces repeatedly day in day out. In our small house, the racket that I was raising must be considerable. My neighbours must have wished that we would go away, I am sure!
My first piano, oh, I do not even remember its brand - it was a second-hand piano that my mother got for me for practise. When I reached Grade 5, my piano teacher advised my mother to get me a good piano. The Challen that we got was a joy to play and it was with me for many, many years.
As for my first public performance.... ah! When I was in Standard Four, I was the most advanced piano student in my class as I had skipped two grades. My class was scheduled to perform during one of the assembly periods. I remember I played Strauss's "Tales From The Vienna Woods" while a friend of mine choreographed the dance.
Once, I also played for a radio programme. My piano teacher had some connections with a radio station and she managed to get a slot for a few of her students to perform. I was about the youngest student that she chose to perform and I remember I played Dvorak's "Humoresque".
I finished my Grade 8 when I was 14. My teacher thought I should continue my music education with another teacher and she recommended me to one who lived at Pantai Hills. My mother would drive me there and wait for me for 45 minutes to finish my lesson.
I never completed my diploma in piano because I went down to Singapore to study when I was 16. For a short while, I had lessons in Singapore but staying in a hostel, it was just too difficult to continue. I had to walk like a mile to the music room to practise on this rickety Made-In-China piano. I enjoyed the walk though :)
But strangely, it was when my formal lessons ended that I really learnt to play the piano. I started experimenting with pop songs and making up my own music whenever I could and it was liberating. When I was in JC, I accompanied a friend of mine in a singing contest, playing the Carpenters' hit, "Goodbye To Love".
Today, I play all sorts of music, whatever my mood suits me, whatever I feel like playing.... the Classics, Mandarin pop, English pop, Disney's songs, Richard Clayderman ... When words fail, my music takes over.
For all this, I thank my mother - who gave me this great gift - a music education.
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