Don't Waste Your Life

Don't ask me why. I feel strangely at ease in Melbourne. I have a couple of theories why it is so.

Maybe it just feels very much like NZ. The brands, street names, accents, banks, number of Asians etc are all so similar to NZ.

Or maybe it is the comforting presence of a long-time friend. I have a feeling it's the latter. A big hug, a spontaneous arm around a shoulder, a familiar laughter. Perhaps those are closer to the heart than external sights and sounds.

Some photos, I think food will come in separate posts. :)

My newborn nephew.

We all started out small, didn't we?

And weak. and vulnerable. and helpless.

Somehow, that was when we were the most adorable.

Another life, begins.

Many more lives, begin.

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If I could tell the world just one thing
It would be, we're all okay
And not to worry
'Cause worry is wasteful and useless
In times like these

I won't be made useless
Won't be idle with despair
I will gather myself around my faith
For light does the darkness most fear

My hands are small I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
But they're not yours, they are my own
and I am never broken

Poverty stole your golden shoes
But it didn't steal your laughter
And heartache came to visit me
But I knew it wasn't ever after

We'll fight, not out of spite
For someone must stand up for what's right
'Cause where there's a man who has no voice
There ours shall go singing

My hands are small I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
But they're not yours, they are my own
and I am never broken

In the end only kindness matters

I recall that when I started needing to sign 'documents' for school. Such as attendance for excursions on the attendance sheet, or other stuff (I can't exactly remember what). I had about 3 or 4 different signatures, different patterns. Each one signed a different part of my name, like Liren, Ren, Zheng, Tay, Zheng Liren, Tay Liren. I'll leave it up to you guys to guess what my current signature is made up of. And no, it's not any of the above.

I remember looking at the signatures of the adults around me; my parents, teachers, even the school principal. I remember trying, not to fake the signatures, but to emulate them. I certainly didn't try to sign the signatures of the teachers I hated, only those I liked or at least had some form of respect for. Up till today, my dad has 2 signatures. I tried to imitate my dad's simpler one, not cos he used that one on my report books, but because it was the only one I saw. He used the other one for other major stuff like credit card transactions.

I remember spending hours trying to imitate their signatures. It felt like their signatures were for them a notation of their adulthood, and in my imitations, I craved to be initiated into the world of adults.

I chose between the different signatures. Should it be angular, or curvy? Simple, or complicated? English or Chinese? Bold or gentle? Long or short? From a mess of scribbles, they got narrowed down to the 3 or 4 which were nicer. Long pages of mess eventually became, still long pages of mess, but now the individual lumps of mess looked more homogeneous.

And I got confused which one I signed at different points. Especially for the bank accounts statements. But I guess the bank teller was gracious seeing my little kiddiness struggling with signaturising? :) Perhaps, I wasn't an adult yet no matter how badly I wanted to be one?

We were signing some forms, after which I had put down my initials on the form and she asked: "This is strange. Why do you write down your initials after you sign?"

"Er. cos if not, we don't know whose signature it is ma."

"Really meh. But after a while, we can recognise each others' signatures ma."
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And so started a short conversation about signatures that prompted me to think about the little thing called signatures that we pen down so many times each day.

Signatures are profound. And each signature has much to say about the person who signs it.

Come journey with me and ponder more.

Part 2 to come. :)

I am scared to be a father. Not that I'm actually going to be one, but I kind of felt like one today.

Needed to buy some milk powder for a low-income client and I went to the supermarket to look for the brand she gave me.

So I walked around the supermarket (I HAVE NEVER ACTUALLY EVEN HAD TO GO LOOK AT THE MILK POWDER SECTION), and then when I came to that aisle.. I stared. STARED. stared. stared. stared.

OMG. I didn't know milk powder was THAT expensive. The most expensive kind is actually those for the infants. I wonder how much difference the infant milk powder really makes. But I suspect it's really just a marketing ploy to jack up the prices cos parents are more careful about what their infants take. I seriously wonder how the low-income families cope, especially if they have 4-5 babies in a row. Especially when a SMALL can costs $16. How? Nan 1, Nan 2, Similac, Grow, Progress, Enfagrow, Pediasure etc. Oh man.

In other situations, this may not be appropriate, but for a moment like this, I think can la. Here goes....




Sigh.

I think the break to be with myself at the cafe for a couple of hours helped to calm an anxious heart always nervous at the amount of things to be done at the office. And with that came a certain open-ness to the things that were happening around me and the potential stories they would become. I've noticed that this subconscious open-ness to new reflections and insights only come when my heart is rested from the stresses of work and daily life.

I took the walk to the MRT and just as I was about to take my place to wait for the train's arrival, somebody called out to me. A petite sized lady with a few bags and a backpack slung on her front asked 'Sir, is this the train I should take to Bishan?', pointing to the train map. I said 'yes.. this is the way..' and smiled, recognising her Filipino accent.

'Hmm. Which part of Bishan are you going to?' I asked in afterthought, realising that if she didn't know how to get to Bishan, it wasn't likely that she would be able to navigate her way around the neighbourhood. She dug up a scrap of paper from her plastic bag with an address on it. I took a look and realised that it was just a couple of blocks away from my own home, and hence I offered to travel with her back and be her travel directory.

It was only then that I realised that the little pouch she dug the scrap of paper from contained air ticket stubs and she was dragging a huge luggage along too. Obviously she had just landed and was looking for her way around to go back to her employer's house.

Asking her to follow me without trying to make some small talk was strange, and I found myself asking questions about her. She lives far away from Manila, has been here for 3 years and her two boys are aged 16 and 6. She had just been back home for 15 days for her yearly holiday. She wants to visit her family, but yet at the same time each of these trips saps her savings.

I think I spotted a teary eye as she mentioned her children as she blinked and looked away. On hindsight, it probably wasn't the best time to ask her about what she left behind at home. But she did share that after 3 years here, things have gotten easier.

It's definitely interesting that she didn't know how to get to Bishan from City Hall after 3 years in Singapore though.

It got a little too awkward asking more, and so I decided to shut up and plug my mp3 earphones into my ears. She really was carrying a lot of things and there were times I really wanted to help her carry some, but I was afraid that she would see me as someone trying to con her by being overly friendly or what. Screwed up world where we are taught can't even trust people on the street. so much so that we even disallow ourselves a chance to be trusted. Who taught us that? And I noticed that I tended to ask questions that emphasised differences, not similarities. Emphasised how different she was from me, and not how we were similar as human beings.

We reached our destination and I said bade her goodbye as I went towards my block and she went towards hers. 'Bye. Take care.'

And as I took the elevator up to my home, I wondered if she was also taking an elevator to a house which was not home. I wondered what she might say if I bumped into her next time at our neighbourhood. I wondered at the story behind the little details she shared relatively openly with a stranger like me. Did I make her feel comfortable sharing? Or did her 'just re-landed' status slice open a cavity in her heart that prompted her to let out some of those details?

She has a story to tell, just like every other worker in Singapore from another country. But her story awaits its telling by the best storyteller for her story: herself.
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And so as I am typing this, a couple in their 30s are standing outside my room window (which faces the corridor) and read the little tag I have on the window.

It feels strange typing about the domestic helper's story and hear someone read out that tag while I am immersed in thoughts about my experience with her. "Social work... is my response when God called 2 years ago.." The digit in that little phrase may no longer be relevant, but nonetheless it's written by a very significant and important person in my life.

And it also happens to be a small detail about my story.

I roll up the blinds and reveal my overweight topless body to them, grinning to them that what they were reading was a little tag about me, and also about the other important person. But it almost felt like I was rolling the blinds up to ascertain to myself that those were human voices.

For that little second, the voice sounded a little too distant and aloof to be human. It sounded like some divine being was reading it out to me to remind me of my life. Just like the domestic helper was telling a little part of her story, I have mine to tell too. My story about social work and about people.

I am the only one who can tell my story best, but I've got God as my scriptwriter. :)

The very best skill, a violin, a crowd and the truth thrown in your face.

That's what this experiment was about. Joshua Bell, supposedly one of the top 3 greatest violinists alive, stood in a tunnel in the early morning just when the working crowd was passing. One of the greatest violinists, playing his 300 year old instrument, playing 6 of the best pieces of music ever written in the history of man. In a tunnel in Washington D.C. leading to the busiest federal government office belt.

1097 people passed by him in the span of 46 minutes... passed by..


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We are so busy. So so so busy.

Does it feel familiar to you? Our hearts beating faster when we are nearing the office door. Feeling you can't pull through the day without the next cup of coffee. That irritation that comes with that extra phone call at 5:43pm, that faster footstep when we sense we are going to be approached and stopped by a roadside financial planner... that....

This isn't just another one of those 'take-a-break-get-some-self-care' posts. It's more than that.

Breaks are merely times when we stop our brains from moving. I think, real self-care that has deep and lasting rest for the soul goes deeper than that. I think it stems from a consciousness that chooses to take every chance to appreciate true beauty. Real self-care goes beyond avoiding the negatives of life, it comes with an ability to see beauty even when there is a gross negativity, to see beauty where there seemingly is none.

And we have lost that.

We have lost the ability to even define beauty, much less appreciate beauty itself.

How many times has the man or woman we love turned into an ugly monster because we saw him or her standing between us and our attention to our stress? When was the last time you held a baby's hand and took in the sheer beauty of her innocence and purity? (I hope it wasn't when your last baby was born..) When did I last buy the cheapest breed of durian instead of the Mao Shan Wang and open my eyes wide in pure joy as I smelt and tasted its sheer richness and creaminess even though it paled it comparison with the King of the Cat Mountain? When did we last have a conversation so deep and engaging that it left us breathless and gasping for air? When did we last give a hug and stay present in his arms and him in mine, and not rush to let go to do the next thing on our schedule? When did we last.. stop to listen to the best violinist alive play for free?
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And so I've been re-discovering iTunes ever since I managed to make it work on my computer again. And iTunes has changed so much since I last used it on my old computer back in 2006-7.

It isn't the just how the programme works anymore, or how it manages to gather all my media and play it in one place, or how its search engine is incredibly intuitive to rummage through all my music. iTunes now is all about its iTunes store, with so much media on it, I sometimes get giddy trying to navigate through it.

It seems that everyone on the earth with any significant idea to broadcast to the rest of us has a spot on iTunes. And most of the time, these ideas are sold to you for free. You don't pay anything for it except your time. Which of course would also entail giving up dinner with a friend, or with a wife, or with a child (in my case, my little dear niece). And so to remedy that, they invent the iPod so that you can listen on the go when you're travelling, without the need to disturb the rest of your day.

I am just left open-jawed at the amount of material there is on iTunes. Every conceivable topic, every conceivable subject, every conceivable perspective, every conceivable idea. Impossible is nothing.

With every single podcast packaged as nicely as the next one, I just don't know which ones to listen to. As of now, I've downloaded enough podcasts to listen to for more than 24 hours without stopping a single minute. Trust me, that's not a lot, but I already don't know where to start.

And I wonder if the neverending avalanche of stuff pouring our way, each one claiming superiority to the one behind it, each one claiming to be more insightful, more incisive, more critical, more fantastical, more sensational than every other one, is the reason we've stopped even bothering about what is truly good. We've been subconsciously disappointed too many times with mediocrity, duped by clever advertising into buying stuff not nearly as good as what it claims to be, bombarded by the drone of anticipated unexpected 'normalness' which ironically is what most of us crave for.

Maybe we need to find our definitions of beauty again, and stop to listen.

The next time you pass by Orchard MRT tunnel, Corrinne May might just be singing her song, but don't forget to rush for your new Uniqlo tee at ION Orchard.

So today, at the beginning of the 26th year of my existence, I decided to breathe some new life into my blog. I know it will draw both raves and rants, but I'd like to be allowed to be happy with it.

And besides the new-look blog, it shall also be marked with one of what I would call a typical Liren post. Here goes. :)
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I sat at Telunas beach on the last morning of our stay, which was also my 26th birthday. The incredible mix of emotions came over me, and I didn't really want to face those feelings. I took my mind off my staring into the clouded sunrise, and took a couple of photos.

It was not until I left this beautiful scene that the reflections streamed into my mind.

Perhaps, it is even so that in nature, God has ordained the "must-be's" of this world. Things must-be this way, and there is no other way.

Did the sun set out each morning to paint the sky with hues of pink, purple, blue, and orange? Did it set out to create the fleeting beauty that we all look forward so much to? No, it did not. It set out to blaze across the earth, covering it with a glory unescapable, irreplaceable.

Did the rain struggle to release itself from the restraining clutches of the clouds to gift mankind with the beauty of the rainbow's colours? No, it did not. It freed itself to feed the thirst of all creation craving for the quenching of its gentle carress.

And so it must be in life. We set out to do great things, to achieve, to conquer, to be needed. Yet, in our lives and those of whom we love, the greatest beauty comes during the 'in-betweens'. It is in the struggle between night and day, quenching and thirsting, between rain and shine, light and darkness, between love and indifference, between action and apathy that releases the incredible flashes of brilliance and profound beauty that life is capable of.

And life, is in us.

When will we reveal our true beauty and grace?

And so it's been another week, and not every week I many thoughts to share.

It's been another week in which I had to try to come to terms with the mortality of life. Had a session with a client, we were supposed to talk about something and it turns out that a close friend of his died between e last time we met and now. And my session plan flew out of the window, and became a grief counseling session. And a nav brother is also now in hospital, at one point grappling with mortality.
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Just spoke with a very sharp friend on MSN. We haven't chatted face to face in about a year plus, and yesterday was the first time.

She is sharp. She shared that after a year, she says that she feels I've developed an 'aura of indulgence'. Haaa. That's a funny term, I've never thought that way. And I wondered what it is.

She said it's almost like.. it feels like I have seen so much of human life, I don't have a need to constantly be looking out for others' needs. But that I could just look out for myself, not feeling that I always needed to self-sacrifice, material or immaterial pleasures, or alone time.

Do you guys feel that way about me too?
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I've got a new fad. I collect classic books and try to read them. You know, those books that you can keep for life. Edmond just bought 'Man's Search for Meaning' by Viktor Frankl for me.

I just got Confessions by Augustine, who wrote in Latin in the 4th century. He's possibly the wisest man in the history of the Church, ranking alongside Calvin and Solomon. To be honest, I was quite disappointed with the response of some peeps who I read a passage of his writing to.

Sometime ago, was reading a couple of wonderful books by Kubler-Ross.

And now I'm becoming a bigger fan of U2. I want to attend one of their concerts someday.

I've been thinking about deaths. 2 deaths, in fact.

The media has been covering a lot about these 2 deaths, but definitely one more than the other. The first is the dear Anthony Yeo that so many of us in social services know so well. And of course, the other is MJ. I believe anyone who speaks the English language would have heard of him.

Just read an article in the papers 'Buy a piece of MJ', talking about how the owner of the club who were the first to sign the Jackson 5 now wants to sell the entire building brick by brick to people who want a piece of history.


People are now clamouring for MJ CD's, memorabilia, previously unpublished music, every piece of news about him, every single detail about his death. This man has fans, even when he's dead. Give him a break, will ya?

The world is, in a way, in shock.

And the other death I'm thinking about is one that is with much less fanfare and attention.

Anthony Yeo, the 'Father of Counselling' in Singapore. He devised a model of counseling that ALL of us social workers and counselors in Singapore are familiar with; the PADI model. More than that, he was a master, a student, a friend, and so much more to many others. I have not had much contact with him, except hearing him at some forums, reading his books, and watching the lone youtube video there is on him.

I remember attending the Samaritans of Singapore Suicide Awareness Forum last year, and the first line he said blew me away with its depth and wisdom. 'People who commit suicide are a special group of clients. These are people who are not afraid to die. They are afraid to live.'

Life can be such a burden that for some, death is a better option. But there are also those who live well, and who have looked through life itself so hard, that the loss of life is not really a loss. It is merely a conclusion.

As I ponder these 2 great people, powerful in infinitely intangible ways in their own fields, I can't help but ponder their lives.

There is something profound about the behaviour evoked in those who loved these two men. On one hand is an almost hysterical clamouring of whatever is leftover, on the other is a group of people who let go, albeit reluctantly.

Let's face it. While the media articles are now putting up things about MJ and his positives, this was a man who lived for himself. And towards the end of his life, we found him holding on to it with everything he had. And we know, quite certainly, that he was probably quite a tortured soul, never quite accepting himself and amassing obscene amounts of riches to fill that soul up. But food fills stomachs and clothes cover bodies; they can never fill a heart.

And you just get a sense that with all that clamouring, there is a feeling that people can't get enough him. Why? Maybe because he didn't give himself. People are clamouring for the MJ they couldn't get when he was around.

You get a feeling that the clamouring is to fill a gap left behind by a sense that this life could have been more. He could have done more. Played his 50 London comeback concerts, published his other music, brought up his children till they were of an older age. More. He could have lived more, done more. But MJ, like the rest of us, is a human being, not a human doing.

I don't want people to clamour for me after I am gone. I don't want people to feel that I could have done more, contributed more. I want people to sense that no matter how many years I lived, I had lived it to the max. I had given those I love around me; my family, friends and clients, my best.

I don't want people to 'buy a piece of Liren.'

I want people to have me, as a whole. As a whole Liren.

Will you allow me to love you, my friend, with the whole me?

Chwee Kway. Either you love it or you hate it.

For the uninformed, which are probably not many, chwee kway is a chinese snack often eaten for breakfast. It's essentially steamed rice flour cakes which are totally tasteless, eaten with preserved salted radish. The plain-ness of the flour cakes complements the extreme salt content in the radish well. Either you hate it or you love it. Personally, I quite like the pairing of the taste and texture contrast, but the radish is often SOOOOOO oily at most stalls that I end up with a bloated stomach the whole day. Yearck.

The thing is, chwee kway is round. It's supposed to be round. Everybody thinks of 'round' when they think of chwee kway. Chwee kway cannot be of any other shape. It just can't. It's just the way it is, no rhyme, no reason.

I buy breakfast sometimes from a little stall near office. The auntie self-proclaims to have been manning the stall for 12 years, and she makes pretty good stuff. I enjoy her food quite a bit. Hers is one of those Chinese-snack-breakfast-stalls selling CCF (chee cheong fun), yam cake, pumpkin cake, dumplings, pau etc. But unlike the other stalls who take their food from suppliers and factories, this auntie has helmed the stall by making her own stuff! Cool rite?

But therein lies the problem.

Her chwee kway doesn't fit the mould. It isn't round.

It's square. A cube. A block. Anything but chwee kway.

I've seen many aunties give the stall-owner a queer look when she opens her giant steamer and fishes out these blocks of steamed rice flour when they ask for chwee kway. Can you imagine? The sight is actually quite funny. And the aunties would actually ask 'Huh? is that chwee kway?? Eeyer. Your chwee kway square one. I don't want.' Sounds ridiculous? I've seen it right before my very eyes.

Chwee kway is steamed rice flour cakes eaten with preserved salted radish. Round chwee kway is steamed rice flour cakes eaten with preserved salted radish. Square chwee kway is steamed rice flour cakes eaten with preserved salted radish. Steamed rice flour cakes eaten with preserved salted radish is chwee kway.

It's interesting how we often can't recognise something just because it's changed shape. Or we think something isn't what it is anymore just because it looks different from what we are used to.

I remember reading about a man who had his legs amputated because of disease. And he said 'The toughest thing is that people see me as somebody who was. I am not who I am, I was who I was.' Even when somebody's outside changes, is he who he still is inside? Our form is changeable, but can our essence remain the same?

Our form is often what academics like to call 'social constructs'. Chwee kway must be round because it has always been round, because we are used to it being round. If it is not round, it cannot be chwee kway. People define what a chwee kway is. But a chwee kway does not cease to be a chwee kway just because it is square. Its substance, its essence remains identical.

So often, we try to fit ourselves into the moulds that others give to us. Just like the rice flour, we fit ourselves into the round mould and make ourselves that shape. The fundamental aim of every human being is self-actualisation. What is that? If we looked at the words and break it down, it essentially means we become 'our actual selves'. Ironically, too many voices out there today tell us that we are only self-actualised when we become successful in business, make a tonne of money, able to speak like Adam Khoo.. etc. The irony is that these goals are what society tells us we should be, they may or may not be 'our actual selves'. Self-actualisation leads to happiness and joy. But too many 'successful' people today are not happy, not because they are failures, but because they tried to be round when they are actually square.

And so, chwee kway should be defined as what composes it, not what it should look like. Can we also accept those who don't look like what society thinks it should look like? Can we also enjoy chwee kway that is square, savouring the salty-plain and smooth-grainy contrasts? Sure we can, but we must first put aside our thoughts that square chwee kway is not chwee kway and be willing to take a first bite.

Other vs actual me. Rejection vs acceptance. Round vs square. Form vs essence.

You choose.

But I still want my breakfast. :)

Weddings are ironic.

We call it 'settling down', but it's actually probably the most unsettling experience we will ever have in our lives.

We 'save' ourselves for the big day, but spend every damned cent we have.

We use other people's money (packed nicely in an angbao) to pay for our own narcissism.

We want the wedding to be perfect, but no marriage ever will be.

We make the closest family members sit in front, and our friends at the back. But our friends are usually closer to us and know us more than our extended family. So, what's up with the cursory ritually imputed significance?

The VIPs may not really be that important.

Everything else tells us more about the bride and groom than their alloted speech time.

The bride has her hands full holding up the massive train of her gown, and no hands left to hold her groom's.

A bride has full rights to wear anything she wants and pose any way she wants, in ways she would never be in real life.

The couple are usually the furthest from their usual selves on that day, but their usual selves are really what we want to celebrate.

How much can/will a divorcee really celebrate at a wedding?

Wedding couples vary their shoe-heights to look like they are of a more similar height. And it is likely they will spend the rest of their lives trying to 'live up' to each other, and hate it.

Weddings are ironic.

And with the band's completion of the song Zombie, we decided to go off. The conversation was just about to get deeper and more interesting, and I felt like I didn't want the conversation to end. And hence I walked him to the bus-stop where we talked until his bus came.

I wondered how I should make my way back to City Hall, and felt perhaps a long walk alone on a cool night would be therapeutic.

'I realise that e best part of our conversations tend to occur as we're about to part in the solace of the stillness of night, when somehow we wind down our defences and share about the inner sanctuary of our hearts..'

I looked around me, and proceeded to walk.
Peering into the Louis Vuitton shop and wondering why people bother to spend their money on it. Passing by Coffee Club and realising that there were tonnes of people there. Journeying past Istana Park, Orchard Rd Presbyterian Church, Chijmes.

Each of them places I see practically week-in-week-out, but each seemed to take on a different flavour scented by the night sky and stillness.

It's true. For whom do I labour, and to what end?

The melding of the sacred and the commercial.

And then the cravings came. Like Rebecca says, they came in mid-thought, mid-stride, and u reach out a hand, seemingly to grasp for the air that was choking me up. And then I realised that an empty clutch forms a fist, not a fist of fury, but a fist formed out of the effort to suppress and push away the cravings. We each have a need to hold on to something. But when there is nothing to hold, we can choose the fist of fury or the fist of strained acceptance.

'A lighter way is to say how all of us have that need to have people to walk with you. Nice to know you're walking that journey too. Hope the walk for you may be a alone but not lonesome one.'

Oh at that point, how I wished for that. What a contrast my evening was to the partying happening elsewhere. And finally, as I reached for the room door, my forehead and hair wet with perspeiration, I entered into the welcoming embrace of the cold air-conditioning. Silence.

Called McDonalds for a McChicken meal to be delivered to my room, took a shower and watched some TV. But in my mind, his words kept ringing. 'How do you tahan the things you hear at work?' It's true, my peers are burning out. I think I'm still okay, but I'm quite sure I've heard more horror stories than the average 1 year old social worker. Not just hearing, but having to actually handle it.

As I soaked in the bathtub, that question kept ringing in my mind as I searched for an answer. Looked at my heart, and it looked familiar yet strange. It felt.. like I was really a tourist peering around the recesses of my own heart. And like the tourist, I could only find a description but did not have enough insight to explain what I was describing.

And with that, my consciousness drifted off into the darkness of the night.

I was woken up by the light shining into my room. It was pleasant. With no source of cheap breakfast in the middle of town at 8am, I sourced out a KFC Twister (which is essentially some flatbread filled with scrambled eggs, cheese, tomatoes, mayo and popcorn chicken leftover from the previous day) and a big cup of Ya Kun coffee. Sitting in silence, I stared out at the window with my very delicious breakfast. Oh, and a book detailing how God shapes us through the events of our lives. Interesting that I had just finished the chapter 'Your Calling Matters'.

It was in this silent breakfast that more introspection came. In that silence, I paid close attention to the taste of my food and the aroma of my coffee.

Perhaps what keeps me going is the fact that I am somehow gifted with the ability to perceive the beauty of the human-ness of the people I interact with. No matter how screwed they are, how messed up their lives are, I somehow am able to sense in my being the humanity. I believe God is a God who creates the concept of beauty, and then proceeded to burn this beauty onto every human's heart.

And with that, I had completed a brief vacation on my own into myself. A break from the hustle of outside life, and a break from the noises of the world. It piqued my interest, and it all felt so familiar and comfortable, and yet so foreign.

I felt.. like I was really a tourist.

Perpetual routine can actually be quite stressful on the mind. I have been needing this break for a while, and this weekend I finally decided to get it.

It's interesting how a shift in perspective and looking out intentionally for things you don't normally see can move you dramatically away from the routine drone of life. With my bags packed with a day of clothing, a book, a notebook and my lappie, I set off for my staycation.

The first thing I noticed was how things kind of felt different as I was making my way to Excelsior-Peninsula hotel on my own. The purposeful silence was in fact, quite comfortable. My first mini-adventure (known as MA from this point onwards) was to eat something for lunch that I wouldn't normally eat. Knowing that Peninsula Plaza is a place where many Burmese gather, I was nevertheless surprised to find that the food court below consisted of about 70% stalls selling Burmese food by Burmese people. I had Mohinga noodles and some 'crispy fritters' (which was really just onions fried in batter) for lunch, and there were so many Burmese around me that for a while, I even felt like I was in another country, although not necessarily Myanmar. It felt.. like I was really a tourist.

The Mohinga noodles were basically thin noodles in a fish broth with crispy bits of fried catfish in them. Maybe the American guy who tried to swim across Aung San Suu Kyi's lake in Yangon was trying to catch some of these catfish, but if he was I don't know why he bothered to go through all that fuss. The noodles, while presenting an interesting texture contrast between the crisp and the soupy, were nothing to shout about. But the texture contrast did remind me of the contrast of where I was: paying $4 for a bowl of noodles that would probably cost $0.05 back at where the dish originated and surrounded by people who were also paying $4 for the same thing that they probably grew up paying $0.05 for. The price to pay for a chance to feel like you're home, perhaps? Oh what we would pay, for a chance to be connected to that which we are fully comfortable with.

I checked into the hotel, got the keys to my room, and threw my things around. I went to check out the swimming pool, but it was way too hot for a swim. I would've gotten sunburnt. But then, who needs a swimming pool when I can soak myself in a bathtub of warm, chlorine-free water? Which was what I proceeded to do.

Well, I must say that really, this is an age of open-ness. Literally. Check out the bathroom man!

The bathroom can be seen through a glass window from the sleeping area in the hotel room. Wooo. Talk about transparency.

And so, with some soaking in the tub, some gymming, some swimming and some lying on the bed, the alone-time was wonderful.

Not much of a view, but I liked the sunlight coming in through the windows and lighting the room naturally.

The peace of silence and the suspension of judgment. There was a strange peace inside of me as I went about all this without need to utter a single word. Peace that came, somehow, because for once there was no need to speak of myself. No need to describe, define, explain, elaborate, rephrase anything. I was just, me. There was no need for me to think about what the other person was thinking about what I was presenting about myself. In that silence, the judgment of others on me, was for that few hours, suspended. And in the suspension of judgment I found rest.

It was almost time to meet Ed. I got showered, dressed and headed out. It felt very strange to have that just-showered feeling and when you step downstairs, it's actually City Hall. The point of reference for your life matters. Where you are coming from can totally alter the direction and feel of your life, whether it is a physical location or a mental one. Whereas in today's world, we are filled with people who tell us that the only thing that matters is where we are heading and whether we get there, I beg to differ. I believe where you head towards cannot be fully dichotomised from where you come from, because the very desire to head somewhere is shaped by where you are from. Just like how it feels refreshing to be freshly showered and sauntering around City Hall in my slippers n jeans. It felt.. like I was really a tourist.

Window-shopped around Orchard, met up with Ed for dinner at MOS Burger. Checked out some shirts at Springfield, and he eventually bought one. Should I get the one I tried on too? Why is there such a strong need for me to buy something only after a few times looking at it? Is it because I feel more secure making that decision?

The band at Indochine was great as usual. The insane guitar riffs, the echoes from the mic, the rhythmic bass-lines. No Kilkenny, but a mojito instead. Mini-adventures, remember? To try things from a different perspective. The good conversations. And chicken strips this time instead of the chicken wings I usually get.

New perspectives, purposefully. More to come later.

My non-Hokkien speaking friends, forgive me okay. This post will have a lot of Hokkien. :)

I think I know why I'm a social worker now. There was a period of time I pursued compassion a lot in my life. I felt that it was a very important quality to have. It still is, but I think it has kind of changed over the years. As I told Rebby on the bus one day, now my pursuit in life is wisdom. I want wisdom, real bad. I want deeper and deeper insight into life and into humans, not just knowledge. Knowledge can be attained by going for a Masters' in psychology tomorrow, and a Phd after that. I don't want knowledge, I want wisdom.

Having said that, wisdom is what raises my competency in life, but I'm starting to see that compassion is the base of it all. What is wisdom without love? It is but a clanging cymbal. What is love without wisdom? That is naivete and foolishness. I need both.

And I think that despite the pursuit of wisdom, the seeds of compassion are still in me. I know it because whenever I see a demonstration of the fullness of human dignity, the tears well up inside me and I have an irresistable urge to say to God: 'Lord, truly this is life in its fullness.'.

Like this morning in church, a man who had a glorious past but lost much of his mental faculty due to a freak beating-up accident came to share about his life. He had once been a celebrity hairstylist but suffered brain damage after being beaten up at a party because he was mistaken for somebody else. The fullness of human dignity is demonstrated in those times, that when we are at our simplest that we are at our deepest. When we have all the riches in the world, we often live superficially, out of touch with our deep humanity. But it is when we are stripped to nothing, that we realise the greatest treasures we have are ourselves, our being. Which is why we are called human beings, not human doings or human achievings, because when we take away the doings and achievings, we are left with just our core.

And he sang this song which is one of my favourites. Pardon the quality, it's recorded with my SonyEricsson C902. :p Oh and by the way, that's me playing the drums on the song.



For another version of the song on which you can hear the lyrics better, here it is! :)



牵我的手，我的主啊，
请祢别离开我。
这条路我还要走，我需要祢来作伴。
牵我的手，我的主啊，请祢别离开我。
有时我会怕，有时不知怎样走，有时好像听不到祢声音。
牵我的手，请祢跟我作伴，给我的脚步又稳又定。
走到祢的门前，听到祢声音，跟我说：‘进来，我孩子。’

Perhaps, when we have nothing, then we realise that we have all we need in God who holds our hand.
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On another note, I love this video. We don't need our children to earn big bucks or do big things, we need to them to be by our side. I think most of the readers of this blog are more children than parents, so yea, remember, they need us to be with them. :)

I remember that bright sunny day. I remember looking up at her face along that road, her face covered in shade with the straw hat that she was wearing. She refused to let me push her trolley of cluttered stuff stacked taller than herself, citing that her leaning on the trolley as she pushed it forward gave a form of support to her legs. I remember being pleasantly surprised by her strength.

I remember chasing her down that road, slightly alarmed at how quick she was able to go despite the limp. I remember that quick wave with a smile, as she called out a semi-grateful 'gam xia' (thank you in Hokkien). That voice was cheery and bright. I recall that sun shining above her head.

I remember feeling a kind of a pleasant resignation. Even though I didn't feel this was the best way to earn a living given her health conditions, but there was a secret smile to myself at her resilience and strength.
__________

The piles of stuff lie untouched outside the house. The empty oil cans, the cardboards, the egg cartons. Untouched, ungathered, unmoved. The door lock is spoilt and it is chained to the main gate which is secured with a padlock. There are more chains on that door than a regular door, but the chains were a sign of human presence inside it.
__________

I reeled backwards from the shock. The face was the same, so familiar, yet so distant. 'I'm about to feed her..' said the nurse. I almost did not hear that voice, until I noticed the nurse's eyes on me. 'Can I be around while you feed her?' 'Sure.' I tried to ask about frailty, but all she would say was that she was a student nurse.

I held her hand. She did not recognise me, but it's alright. After all, she had only seen me twice before this. I had trouble explaining to her I was from TRANS Centre. 'How on earth do you say TRANS Centre in Hokkien?', my mind raced. I felt awkward as the nurse started to feed her.

I tried to draw relations to people she might know in order for her to recognise me. 'Miss P. You remember Ms P?' She did not. I felt stupid after saying that. Why, at that moment, was it about me? Why on earth should that moment revolve around who I was? It didn't matter. I didn't matter. It wasn't about me.

I just held her hand. She asked if I was an officer. I asked if there were still pains. Yes, I was technically an officer. Yes, the pains were everywhere. No, I was not an officer. I was a human being.

I remembered Kubler-Ross' book, in which she had said that 'being there is the greatest sign of love.' I wanted to kick myself for my inability to fully speak and comprehend Hokkien. My language inability meant I couldn't be there. I couldn't express my concern properly. I had to make her painfully repeat her words.

I touched that ingrown, rotten thumbnail. 'Oh Hi. You're a relative?' 'No. I'm her social worker..' And the word 'relative' seemed to meld into the whir of the ceiling fans.

If a tree falls in the forest alone, and nobody hears it, did it really fall? If a son came to visit, but she has no recollection of it, did he really come? If a life was lived in quietness and nobody noticed it, was the life really lived?

'Eh. You take over the feeding. My duty over already.' 'Ok.'

In the most cheery of voices, she rang out 'Aunty, li ai jiak ah!' (meaning 'you must eat ah!' in Hokkien), with a tone of concern. That tone rang out onto the ceiling. Some of it got sucked into the fans, some of it flew out of the window, and the remaining shrill-ness bounced into my ears, reflected off the cold hard mirror of loneliness . None of it went to where it was supposed to go: her.

I was shocked at the quick change of feeders. If feeding was an act of compassion and service, how did this act get passed on? How did time come to be a fence limiting the boundaries of care? How did duty change from an active word to a passive one with the clicking of the second hand? How did duty morph from inclusivity to exclusionism?
__________

And so, I decided to leave as the awkwardness hit me again. She thanked me for coming. 'gam xia..' she said.. this time her voice trailing with a kind of weakness reflecting in stark contrast to the previous time she had thanked me.

But in that split second, images flashed past my mind. Images of suffering, of the toughness of life, of obstacles, of difficulties, of resilience, of determination, of strength. And the question hit my mind, drawing tears to their brink. 'What's the point of all this?'

What of the tubes inserted all over her body? Like the chains on her door, locking inside the presence of frail humanity? What of the people she had once cared for, the family she had borne out of this very body now so weakened with illness and pain? Untouched, ungathered, unmoved. Like her cardboards, oil cans and egg cartons.

What is the meaning of suffering? Many make meaning of suffering by hindsight. If the suffering brought blessing, that becomes their meaning. Their suffering becomes 'worth it'. But what of suffering that brings no blessing? Suffering that seemingly does not end? When morning does not come after the darkness of the night, when joy does not come with the sorrow that was supposed to last but for a night?

What is the meaning of suffering? What is the meaning of innocent suffering? It is the enduring question that philosophers have struggled to answer for centuries, and it is the question that brought those tears I tried to fight back in that ward. It is a question not just for philosophers, but for anyone who is human, even a cardboard seller.

What is the point of it all?

I don't know...