Delivered

My parents raised us in a cultural vacuum, or near-vacuum, an uncomfortable space created by one parent's baby-and-bathwater view of cultural practices not implicitly described in the Bible and the other parent's putting up with it. I guess life sans baby, bathwater, towel and tub is easier to bear in the long run than the prospect of living indefinitely with belligerent dogma.

And so I've spent a lot of energy in the past few years trying to learn more about where I came from. One thing I'd observed and wanted to know the reason for: Hokkiens really, really like sugarcane. It's there on altars or near doors whenever there's a big festival; when you pass a bridal car on the street you know if at least part of the happy couple is Hokkien by the four feet or more of sugarcane stalk protruding from the car window. I wonder now why I've never heard of any traffic incidents caused by a motorcyclist or pedestrian getting swiped by sugarcane.

Image by Jesuino Souza

So, the short version of all that I've gathered from talking to relatives and reading strangers' blogs: the Hokkiens were once on the run from enemies. Sugarcane plantations were the only place that provided cover for our trembling ancestors while their homes got sacked and pillaged. And ever since then, the strong, flexible stalks have been a symbol of our thanks. They're present at every major milestone of life to remind us how fortunate we are that life goes on at all.

I also learnt that it's on the ninth day of each year (which falls today and YAY I just proved I still have some level of attachment to this blog and I am so glad I finally have a timely post, even if it did entail having lunch at my desk) that we ritually give thanks for our deliverance as a people. I wouldn't know first hand; see beginning of post. But I have always known that there's a day during the Chinese New Year period when my relatives go the whole hog -- actually, the whole pig (roasted, head on) -- preparing food and paper offerings. By the time I got old enough to ask questions, I was also old enough to decide I didn't want to ask them because I rather prefer sweet silence to another blood pressure raising, high-volume lecture on idolatry.

Much of my energy is spent on understanding why people say and do the things they do; when I fail to arrive at comprehension, I try to accept and tolerate because I think that is how you avert most of life's destructive moments. There are things worth fighting for but once they've been identified, you realise how much else there is, therefore how much isn't worth fighting over. So I don't bear any grudges for having had huge parts of my heritage withheld from me in my formative years. There's nothing I can do now to change it all.

I'm only left wondering: how do you get so hung up on whom to thank and how to express those thanks that you cause your entire family not to give thanks at all?

New

Today's the first day of the year for us Chinese and our Korean and Vietnamese kin, and anyone else who goes by the lunar calendar. All my best wishes to you for the year ahead. May you find yourself on the road to all that your heart desires.

Scorcher

Thirty-seven degrees.

What else did I do in December?

After looking through my pictures taken in that month, it appears this post might just as well be titled "What else did I eat in December?" I think I should make concerted effort to take pictures of other things I do, because I really do more than eat.

Honestly.

But since the food-skewed pictures have been taken, I might as well share the main highlights.

A couple of months ago, feeling restless and hungry, I took a good-sized detour on my way home from church. "Huge" in the manner of "unnecessarily crossed river even though church and home lie on the same bank". The happy result was my discovery of this Vietnamese restaurant on the business end of Northbridge. It's spacious, charmingly dingy, and serves authentic, subtly flavoured food that doesn't leave me parched. I've returned a few times since, seemingly happier with each successive experience.


















December also being the month of Christmas, there was the work Christmas lunch. The set menu was a forehead-slapping ordeal for indecisive me. Did I want festive (turkey) or favourite (fish)? Unusual (veal)? Or how about going totally veggie? Veal won in the end, tweaking my animal-loving, humane-lifestyle sensitivities in the nose.

And then there was that full Sunday, which doesn't happen often at all these days (I write this thankfully, remembering seasons not so long ago when Sundays were more tightly scheduled, physically depleting, emotionally fraught and spiritually wounding than any other day). I was hungry after church and needed something to tide me over before our late-afternoon date with deep-fried sushi which was to take place before we went to the jazz club, finally, only eight months after we'd first talked about it. This kransky roll filled the gap just right.

You'd have thought I'd made Herr and Frau Hotdog's day when I insisted on having mine the way they would, the way any self-respecting German would. "Onions?" she'd asked, beaming when I nodded. Another nod to sauerkraut, and the beam got wider. But I have never seen a happier sausage-selling pair than these two when I winced at the offer of ketchup and accepted a squirt of mustard instead, not the common-or-garden mustard next to the ketchup but this secret mustard from the small bottle that stood on its own far away from the standard fixings. ("It is very, very hot. Trust me, you don't want too much." She underestimated my Malaysian-raised palate. I will have more of the "very, very hot" mustard next time.)

So, it appears I'm still eating meat. More uncomfortable dialogue between the different parts of me. Yippee.

Seize the fluffy, small, stumpy-billed moment

This lot were among those waddling around UWA's Arts courtyard when I had business being there a month ago.

I am of the "fluffy = adorable = where's my camera?" persuasion, which can be awkward on days when you've chosen to use the oversize tote with but one compartment and are holding abstracts from the conference on music and emotion in one hand, tea and a scone in the other.

But you do what you have to, because ducklings don't stay ducklings forever.

It isn't that the conference was such a drag that I had to go looking for fowl to photograph, or stay awake by posing donkey and conference materials just so. It was an interesting, eclectic three days. I made friends with an Iban girl studying music education in KL and an Australian Chinese doing her PhD in Spanish piano music at my alma mater. ("Friends" of the sort you have animated, stimulating conversations with at lunch and tea breaks but know you're unlikely ever to meet again.) Made contact with music therapy types. Listened to findings from music therapy studies on all sorts of populations: old, intellectually challenged, dying, friendly. Revised a long-ago lesson: People who can write up an interesting session abstract are not necessarily as gifted at making the actual session work. Watched a Japanese dude concentrate really hard on a score as a computer read his brain waves and played the music for all to hear.

And yet, when it was all over, I didn't wish that I could keep on listening to talks and learning from people who've done the hard yards with their clients... what I wished for was time to return to the courtyard soon with a book, beverage and sandwich, and all the time I wanted to sit and read and listen and watch ducks. A wish that has high chances of coming true.

I like it old-school

I have a soft spot for hand-lettered signs.

Vietnamese eatery in a tiny arcade, Balmain, NSW

It follows, then, that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. And Part 1. I hope you do, too.

Twelve years

It seems a lifetime ago that the whole house stood still. So many changes since then: lines on faces, hairs turned grey, a grandson born, all the familiar feline forms that my mother knew gone the way of all cats.

Work and life alike throw me plenty of opportunities to talk about grief, to help others unpack theirs. That's the thing about grief, it really is a package. Its contents are mixed. Some days you reach in and pull out comfort, warm from the sun and smelling of cosy cuddles and laughs, whispered secrets and giggles and Saturday-morning shopping excursions.

At other times you feel bitten, as by a shark rather than by a mosquito: a large chunk of you, the part of you that this person shaped, is gone and you wonder how you go on. They don't make prostheses for that, but the human spirit is a wonderful regenerative thing. What grows back will never be what you had before, but it isn't completely foreign. I see others' experiences of grief, some much older than mine, and count myself blessed for the peace that I have.

I think I would have been a very different person if my mother were still alive. I don't know how much I'd have liked being that person. I only know and love the one I am now. I hope she does, too. From the nineteen years I had with her I've taken a lot, good and bad. A public blog is no place to tell about the bad. The good, no book on earth could hold.

I didn't feel any great pressure to post this today and only today, on the anniversary date. It worked out well that it fell on a Saturday this year, giving me time to blog. But truly, most days are the same. There's rarely, or never, a day when I don't think of her and miss her. It's really hard not to think of a person you strongly resemble in face and voice. But I've had a dozen years to find a way to live without the pillar of my earlier life. So far, by the grace of God, the way has been a good one to travel.

If you're one of those who knew and loved her too, raise a glass (okay, coffee mug -- containing a brew as strong as the mug can handle; we can always have a group tremour-and-tic session after) with me in honour and memory of the beautiful, tenacious, long-suffering, glad-hearted, cat-loving woman who was my (and my brother's) Mummy. Sally Saw Leng Geok, 1948-1999.

Easy

... like Friday mornin'.

Short short story: Wave

I completed a "short" story recently. It was nearly 5,000 words long. So I decided to create more of a distinction between short and short. I think flash fiction is traditionally capped at the 100-word mark. If you know me at all, you'll laugh at the thought of me keeping my thoughts so succinct.

Anyway: tell me what you think. It's been too long since I posted fiction here.

It was too hot to care about anything as she walked home from school that first day of summer, not even that her skirt was riding up and her old gym shorts were probably showing. At first she thought the bird was waving for help; it looked so like a greeting, a plea. Hi there. I am small and weak and hurt. Can you help? She looked both ways and hurried to the middle of the road. Immediately she saw the crushed head, the tiny still chest. Calmly, she picked up the body and walked back to the shaded kerb, laying it by a tree. She knew it was well past any pain but it seemed wrong to leave this defenceless one to be smashed and spattered by traffic. Later she would remember the warm, soft feathers, the closed eyes and slightly open beak, and she would weep. Later she would realise that was the first time in years that she had touched another living thing. Later she would wonder why, when softness had finally returned, it had come so sad and still. Now, she simply picked up her backpack and walked on home, gym shorts exposed.

Sketchbook Project Limited Edition 2012

Should I do it? I've been spending so much of my time surrounded by text, words, all these linear arrangements of meaning. I think it would do me good to have an outlet in the wide open, even if it's a small, portable, recycled paper wide open.

People like this inspire me:

Want to join me? Anyone? Email/comment by December 11 if you're interested. Fees and FAQs here.