Whose cross to bear?

It was with a heavy heart when I hopped on the plane back home. This time I did not shout to the world about my return. I arrived quietly.

I was asked if my return would serve a purpose at all since this is not my battle. Even so, it is unthinkable for me to sit around and do nothing while the family is in the midst of a crisis. Though I agree my presence does not spell solutions, I am just contended to be there with the family in this difficult moment.

Pain, however, seemed like a constant companion in this trip. Before I could catch my breath again, I received news that the dear friend hits a rough patch herself. I am truly glad that I was there to lend her a shoulder.

It is unclear if my homecoming makes a difference at all. By sharing my experience, I reckon it might help the involved parties see the situation in different perspectives. Will they learn from my experience? I do not have that wishful thinking however. Because we human are after all funny creatures. We do not learn unless we are that burnt child who dreads the fire.

We all need time to lick our wounds after the fire but no man is an island. Even at our lowest, we must also have the strength to reach out for help. Asking for help is not a display of weakness. Rather we need immense strength to cast away that deadly sin called Pride before we can reach out to grasp that helping hand.

Similarly we need to forgive ourselves first before allowing others to forgive us. Because to err is human and to forgive is divine.

There is a time and place for everything. When that moment arrives, may the force and wisdom be with you.

When will I learn? The answers to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a bottle, they're on TV!
- Homer

On growing older

When I am asked about my age these days, I no longer have the luxury to reply, ' I am 18!' in a heartbeat and bask in the envy written all over the face of the enquirer. Those days are long gone. However instead of letting the reality bite, my self-denial developed a loss of memory whenever such sensitive issue is brought up. It would usually take 30 seconds or more while I deliberately take my time adding up the years of my life before a response is given. This strategy has been working well so far until my conversation with The Bestie recently:

Bestie: I am turning 38 this year!
Hoonie: Ya, I know lah...
Bestie: And you?! You are turning 37!
Hoonie: *face cramp*

The Bestie's revealing literally blew up in my face just like that. Till then, I have never really registered the real number of my age. I usually brushed it off as 30 something.

My immediate inward reaction to her 'You are turning 37' was, 'Fuck, I am old.'

And truth be told, slivers of fear creeped up my spine just then. I panicked for a moment. But luckily the fear and panic subsided as soon as they appeared. Though I cannot explain the logic of it all.... Was it vanity at work there? Or the fear of growing old? Without a doubt.

As much as I would like to embrace my big Four O like I did my 30, it feels somehow different. Now I fully comprehend why women book themselves into beauty clinics. I seriously do not blame them. I would probably follow suit if I had that kind of dough. I am certainly not the grow-old-gracefully aka Robert Redford / Zhu An sort. Though I wouldn't resort to drastic measures lah.

I may not have great success stories to tell about the 37 years of my life. But I have gone through a few things which I believe have made me stronger and wiser. The privilege of being in the late 30s is I do not see the need to please everyone. If I do not like your guts, I can walk away anytime. I do not care if you like my face or what you think of me. What matters is the friends love me. Making new friends are harder now because I have become more selective. Not everyone can be my friends, you know.

At work, unless I made a mistake, please do not come telling me what to do because I know exactly what I am doing and am probably doing it way better than most. Therefore, I do not take shite unnecessarily and make sure everyone knows that.

There. An unhealthy overdose of self-confidence, ego and take-no-shite attitude. Qualities to embrace when you reach your late 30s.

Welcome to the jungle.

Music - the universal language

In the office today, the colleague aka The Junkie labelled my taste in music as *Singapore Trash.

Simply because when asked what's my take on Lady Gaga, the only comment I could give was, 'She is rubbish!'

Another colleague, aka The Farmer insists, 'Her music is not bad at all!'

*Faint*
_____________________________________________________________

*The origin of Singapore Trash:

We were on the way to lunch in the car one day. My very hamsome young Italian colleague assumed loudly I wouldn't enjoy the sort of music which was blasting into our ears. To which I replied rather snobbishly (I must admit), 'This is Eurotrash.'

To describe the genre of music from Singapore and since I am from Singapore, The Junkie very conveniently came up with Singapore Trash. The term is thus born. And the rest they say is history.

(Note: The Junkie was never in Asia, let alone Singapore and thought Singapore was in China and was surprised when told Singapore has indeed clubs, or rather disocs.)

Somebody, save me!!!

SICK of it

I am probably suffering the worst cold ever in my life right now.

Perhaps on the onset of every cold, I would be scurrying to the friendly neighbourbood clinic in Singapore for that fix of antibiotics that I hardly had the chance to experience the full-blown cold.

The past week was spent sneezing incessantly, with an itching nose running at full speed, a throbbing headache and a sore, dry throat. Despite the sorry state that I was, I soldiered on and went to work as usual. Make no mistake, I am not in love with my job. But with the long Easter holiday and all, I thought it unwise to absent myself again due to a common cold. The Company does have a different set of values from others when it comes to work absentees, cold or no cold, legs intact or not.

On Friday, I finally had enough. With dry and burning eyes, I couldn't last a second longer in front of the computer screen. I was stoning and my mind was an empty blank. After clearing what needed to be done, I decided it's best for me to go home and recuperate.

When told of my decision over the phone, she put me on hold. Shortly after, she came back with, 'Since it is Easter holiday and Friday noon. there is nothing much to do here. You are allowed to go back.'

I am allowed to go back?! It was as if I was at her mercy.

That bloody pisses me off!

Didn't she get it? I was not asking her. I was telling her I wanted to go home. Albeit I being very polite about it, it was not a request!

I do not need anyone to sing praises of me just because I reported for work despite being ill. Everyone in the workplace can attest that I wasn't well. It was not an act. But exactly that sort of reaction from her is the last thing I need.

If they are not going to be understanding and sympathetic about it and do not appreciate the amount of effort I put in my work, I say they can go fuck themselves.

The importance of being HAIR-raising

Finally fed-up with my annoying flopping fringe which has done nothing but irritated my eyes and obstructed my view, I nodded my head readily when my brillant hairstylist proposed to chop off my fringe.

Perhaps too readily...

Because instead of looking like this (not the guy lah, mind you!):



I end up looking like an archbishop:


*Cover face and SOB*

He, with the evil eye

I had to get accustomed to the no-shopping-on-Sundays when I first came to this country. When the weather gets too chilly to do anything outdoors and yet too depressing to coop up at home, off we would go and hit the museum.

Once, I was browsing the museum when I came upon a grotesque that was Otto Dix. I remember I was instantly drawn to his paintings. I stood in front of them and studied the biting realities which were skilfully and boldly etched on the canvas or sketched on paper.

His works are quite sinister I must say. Through his experience of fighting on various fronts during World War I, his paintings depict the brutality and the horrors of the war. Though his work on portraits of family, friends or strangers is not as ghastly as his post-war paintings, they all possess a certain ugly quality in them. Dix accentuates the weakness and the worst traits of his subjects, with no attempts to hide any flaws. For example, a pair of harsh-looking old lovers, old prositutes crouch in unnatural positions, a joyless mother holding her new-born baby, or the unsmiling children at play. Whether it is to depict the decadency in the post-war Weimar society, or to document the cruelty and sadness of the war, or to present the state of his sitters were in, his paintings are shocking and yet strangely alluring at the same time.

During World War II, he was forced to conform to Nazi's rule and started painting landscapes to earn a living. Even these supposedly innocent landscapes are dotted with black flying crows or dark hanging clouds, illustrating the bleakness and grim due to the world war.

His finest work would have to be the triptych titled Großstadt (Metropolis) which depicts the contradictions of the post-war German society: the decadency along side poverty, returning soldiers who are mentally or physically scarred with prostitutes littering the streets. The central panel shows the famous German 'Golden Twenties' where the rich (ironically, his wife, friends and acquaintances) who can afford to dance all night while the side panels offer the contrasting realities on the same night: a grim parade of the mutilated, the legless soldiers who are stumbling about on crutches in the poor end of town and of prostitutes grotesquely strutting past elaborate marble facades in the richer part of the city. Dix featured himself as one of the cripples.

Before he painted Großstadt in colour, he did a sketch of it with charcoal and pencil on paper. The black and white sketch is just as stark and blatantly shocking as the coloured painting.

His other masterpiece Der Krieg (The War) is one of the most powerful documents of man’s inhumanity to man. It consists of 51 prints. With a nightmarish and hallucinatory quality, he denounced the heinousness of the destruction in place of glorifying heroism.

In Triptych of the War the devastating remains after a shelling is presented: human cadavers are everywhere with flesh and blood strewn all over. A masked figure stands in the foreground contemplating the devastating human waste. Above him is a dead soldier with severe burns which left him half flesh and half skeleton.


His works are no doubt disturbing. But instead of repelling, they are intriguing and hold me spellbound. I can't get enough of them.

..ich habe Tatsachen gemalt, die vor Jahren genauso gültig waren wie heute, morgen und immer. Das Leben kann schön und schrecklich sein. Also ich muss auch das Schreckliche und Furchtbare machen…

- Otto Dix

A case of decaying beauty?

Garden dwarf in chocolate by Dieter Roth.

Apparently, this piece of work is as old as I am.

I hope I am aging as gracefully as it does...

Eh, what's that strange odour?

Look what look!

We were in line, waiting to pay at our friendly neighbourhood supermarket. Our turn came. The man moved ahead of me while I stood in front of the cashier, with my cash ready. The young cashier greeted the man but not me.

*I inhaled deeply*

Nevermind...

The cashier then turned to look at me, looked away, looked at me again and looked away again. I was puzzled by her strange manner when she looked past me and asked the man if the items on the counter belong to the both of us. My eyes narrowed. My blood began to simmer.

Before scanning the items, she asked the man if we have any loyalty cards.

And again, she looked past me.

I stared very hard at her.

Bloody hell, I was the one with the cash in my hands waiting to pay and yet the bloody young thing regarded me as invisible.

(On the bright side, I count myself lucky she is not an Ah Lian who will certainly retort my stare with a 'Look what look??!!')

The man, knowing what was about to come, made his escape exit to the bakery counter.

My stare didn't waver during the whole paying transaction. The ignorant thing was probably too blur sotong to feel the heat of my glare. When she handed me the receipt, I, unwilling to let it go, accentuated my 'VIELEN DANK!!' especially loud and clear.

She started and her realisation, 'Oh, she can speak German!' was written clearly on her face. I turned abruptly and walk away.

One glance at my face, the man burst out laughing.

Because this has happened before. At the very same friendly neighbourhood supermarket, with a different cashier.

And that is exactly what ticks me off. Just because I am a foreigner, people automatically assume I do not speak their language. Have they forgotten how their government emphasized time and time again the importance of integrating into the German society by learning the German language? I took pains to learn the language and I think I shouldn't be penalised just because other settlers do not see the need to integrate. That's totally unfair. (Okay, I am in the mood to moan and whine today.)

Anyhow I wish I didn't react so stupidly in both incidents. That I could keep my wits about me and dispense something intelligent like, 'Hey I speak German by the way. As well as English and Chinese. And what about you?'

Oh, I felt like a fool....

The good old Five Stones

The Five Stones. A popular game which I used to play in my childhood days. During every school recess, when we were not out in the field or garden running and panting our lungs out, we would be sitting quietly in threes or fours playing the Five Stones. I particularly enjoyed playing this game perhaps because I was good at it.

S recently gave me a set of Five Stones. Looking at them brought back fond memories of the carefree joys of childhood, without a single worry on the young shoulders of mine. Well, except of course when I had to study for exams...

The idea of playing in those days was really simple and easy. With lots of energy to spare, kids got creative and found ways to amuse and occupy themselves. Usually inexpensive materials were used in the games. For example, Zero Point is basically just a long chain of rubber bands. Five Stones are made with green beans, sewed in pockets of cloth. Capteh is made of colourful feather with a rubber base. And then there are Catching, One Leg Catching, Eagle Catch Chicks, STOP etc. These games require no expensive toys, just plain raw energy and lots of running around. They were a good outlet for our excessive energy and kept us fully entertained. What's more, these games helped develop our social skills in schools.

As far as I can remember, I didn't have a doll or a soft toy to cuddle to sleep. Because I never actually needed those toys. I remember once, before my brother and I went to bed one night, we were sitting on our beds, pretending our pillows were slabs of meat. We were the butchers chopping those meat with our tiny hands for our customers. And we were laughing ourselves silly before being shushed to bed by our parents. In that era, we certainly didn't need much to keep us happy.

With a society becoming increasingly affluent, the needs and wants of its people and their brood change correspondingly too. Paper dolls no longer have their charm on the kids nowadays. Only Nintendo, PSP, computer games and whatnot cut it for them.

Instead of playing and socializing with their peers in the real world, these kids spend their spare time sitting in front of these devices, saving Mario or shooting in Counter-Strike in the virtual world.

I personally am not against compute games. With such rapid advances in technology, to come into contact with any kind of electronic gadgets at a young age is no longer evitable.

The crucial thing is the amount of time spend in front of these media, be it TV or computers and the content of the games and programs.

Apparently, playing computer games for long periods of time alone can cause reclusiveness and introversion. It can also give children a false sense of reality.

Another issue is the violence in games or TV programs. Violence can cause aggressiveness in particularly young men. Some children do not understand that when you kill someone, they cannot come back to life, as depicted by many video games.

Hence, I do not envy the role of parents. With a widespread of media violence these days, parents have a harder time than ever to protect their offsprings from such overexposure. Other than that, they would have to get creative and find ways to lure their children away from these media into the real outdoors.

For a game or two of Eagle Catch Chicks or Catching perhaps.

Goofy, Tom and Jerry, Anyone?

On a whim today, I put up a sign (among many others) on the door of our room in the office. Partly to disperse any questionable notions of my eats preference, But mainly, I find it quite a laugh.

It reads:

ICH BIN AUS SINGAPUR UND NICHT AUS CHINA.
(I am from Singapore and not China)

ICH HABE NOCH NIE HUNDE, KATZEN, MÄUSE, SCHLANGE GEGESSEN UND ICH WERDE NIEMALS SIE ESSEN.
(I have never eaten dogs, cats, mice and snakes before and will never ever try eating them)

ICH TRINKE HEISSES WASSER UND JA, ES IST GANZ NORMAL BEI UNS.
(I drink hot water and yes, this is normal from where I come from)

The message on the sign is self-explaining and I hope I do not need to clarify myself anymore. It is very irritating when you get asked 10,000 times every other day,'What's that you are drinking? Hot water????!!! Ewwww.... That's disgusting!!!!!!'

Most colleagues are guilty of the crime mentioned-above but they all laughed in good fun when the loud sign caught their eye.

I am very tempted to add in:

OH YES, SINGAPORE DOES HAVE DISCOS.

What say?