CNY

Happy Chinese New Year people! (Hah I sound like I'm writing one of those People Society emails...) Had a fabulous 10 days celebrating at home, spent some lovely quality time with parents and relatives, pigged out for all I was worth... Thankfully I seemed to have brought the rain back with me, so it was a pretty wet and cooling CNY for a change.

Wrote the following semi-fictional short piece during my 6-hr-transit in Abu Dhabi airport. 'Tis killing two birds with one stone as it fits Sean's silly MPH theme of "The Young Malaysian's Identity" as well as my contribution to Jian Liang's Bristol newsletter of which he's given me free reign. PleasepleasePLEASE leave some constructive criticism if you do read it.

Coffee Arabica

The initial mystery that attends any journey is:

how did the traveller reach his starting point in the first place?

- Anonymous

Here I am again, sipping an iced coffee in the waiting lounge of an unfamiliar airport, in yet another foreign country. All around me hangs the shimmering, shallow allure of the different, the mirage wavering only when one looks past the exotic mosaics and gilt, red-wrapped Valentine cherubs to the grittiness, the sandiness underneath. The Costa coffee cost me six US dollars, my neighbour to the right is a middle-aged Caucasian man in a blue chequered shirt, but the younger men to the left in matching leather jackets and shoes, puffing away between exclamations in a melodic tongue are, like the majority of travellers here, Middle-Eastern. Across the concourse, a dark-skinned man stands shirtless in front of the Swatch shop, half-heartedly fanning away the encroaching evening heat. Abu Dhabi, I decide, is an unapologetic diamond in the rough.

If life is a journey, then it feels as though I have spent these twenty years of my life in an airport waiting lounge. The decision to undertake the journey was made long ago, but still the uncertainty resounds – why am I here? Where am I heading to? The moment I check in, I merge into the many-hued crowd, the only stamp of my identity is a passport and the sheet of fragile paper I clutch which says, Name: HUI/YIWEN MISS, Destination:… The destination has changed many times over the years, the countless airports merged into the single image of a universal waiting lounge.

Was it really the wisest decision to leave home - Malaysia, at the age of fourteen? One is always advised never to look back and harbour regrets, but I simply cannot ignore the irresistible urge to re-examine the past. The years of travelling from country to country have made it so easy to fit in everywhere and yet nowhere, so easy to run away whenever things turn sour. Every time my destination changes, I am back again in this place where all paths intersect, the ubiquitous traveller-in-transit.

Tomorrow will be the first time in six years that I will celebrate Chinese New Year with my family, at home. But can I honestly say that this is home? There is barely anything left to keep me anchored here, merely a childish sense of loyalty - or duty? - towards this country I’ve never truly experienced. A feeling of… displacement, the longing to belong somewhere, emptiness harboured within for many years.

Within hours I will be back in the sticky warmth I was born into, see the familiar-forgotten smiles through the Arrivals glass, and feel the security of my family around me. Then I’ll savour the hour-long drive from the airport when my inner world slowly unwinds on the road to rest. And when I enter the house and allow the familiar scents to crowd my senses, the trappings to pull me deeper and tighter into the place - understanding dawns. In truth, no matter where we are, home dwells within the spaces we choose to make our own.

The Caucasian man finishes his coffee and paper, and leaves. I offer to take a photograph for the three leather-clad Arabs, but in the end, they don’t understand English and the picture is never taken. Within five minutes I will have forgotten their faces, and they will be hard-pressed to recall the small Chinese girl who spoke to them in a foreign tongue in a familiar airport.

But I suppose in such chance encounters lies the magic of the waiting lounge. For in these places of bewildering humanity, I’ve discovered that perhaps life isn’t meant to be lived as a straight and narrow path towards a solitary destination, and that waiting lounges are, after all, also shelters to catch one’s breath between adventures. Besides, wasn’t it by chance that our paths intersected, so long ago, in a waiting lounge just like this one?

Home for CNY at long last

Weather: 6°C, wind North at 9 km/h, humidity 72%. Melancholic end to a beautiful, rare day of clear skies. Not that I was awake long enough to enjoy it hehe.

Soundtrack: Non allegro from Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances. Alternating between the Liverpool Phil's lush orchestral version and that fiery and lyrical piano duo of Ashkenazy and Previn. Sublime.

State of mind: wine-infused.

Outfit: oversized Esso "Save the Tiger" T-Shirt

Random thought of the day: my keyboard's sticky with fruit juice! eww...

The past few months have seen me retreat into a terribly introverted frame of mind and I realise I've completely lost the incentive to blog. Saying I'll extensively update the bloggy soon is just deceiving myself, n'est pas? So to clear the vicious cycle of procrastination, here's the key features of 2nd year in uni so far:

Study: classes have been mostly good, my choice of modules, on the whole engaging lecturers and seminar leaders. Babs and whassername from Marketing F&A highly snooze-inducing; Jonathan Swift of Consumer Behaviour the highlight of 1st term. No proper assessment until January's 2 exams and 1-and-a-half essays, which was kinda worrying, but overall they went pretty well. MLP group quite a fun bunch. 9am triples have been very taxing on ye ordinary student who does not normally emerge before 10am as a rule.

Wimslow Park has been a great place to live in. The Times did a feature on university students living in luxury accommodation and slotted in a photo of three smug young blokes relaxing in a spa complete with bubbles. Ooh yes you guessed it, our very own Momentum Leisure Health Club, conveninelty situation 20 seconds away from my front door. Had a quite a bit of excitement and stress organising my final year accommodation, but in the end I'm staying on, same room, 2 floors above.

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Am now continuing this post from my dear ole room in 795, Jalan 17/24, PJ, Malaysia! Wheeee... arrived back yesterday noon (KL time Thursday) and thoroughly enjoying the rest, company and food, but certainly not the heat. Thankfully it's rained the past couple of days, and my hair's already been trimmed so it's not terribly sweltering. Still retaining my "bak zham kai" (steamed chicken) pale skin hehe.

Been on the People Society's committee as Communications Officer since November. On the whole a fascinating experience, and because just about everybody on the communications team quit or was asked to step down, I've had full control of the whole comms and publicity works even though I'm still vaguely feeling my way around this job. We have weekly Monday meetings which usually last 2 hrs - Mon evenings are busy times writing the committee email (which I created) and the weekly members' email. So far I've helped publicise the annual Badminton Tournament and taken lots of photos of all the leng zhais competing against each other =P, and we're gearing up to the big Charity Day on 12th March.

December hols saw a fantastic trip with Emma (Stubbs) to her father's place in Gutersloher (near Dortmund), Germany. Weather was freezing, house was lovely, Christmas markets were almost as amazing as her family. Unfortunately I got stranded in London on Christmas Eve with no transport back to Manc as the flights were delayed from the terrible fog. Should really have taken up their offer to stay on until the 27th, but in the end I stay with Teng Huang on Xmas Eve night, and Mum's ex-classmate Aunty Ai Tee picked me up on Xmas morning. Managed to catch the earliest coach to Manc on the 26th - what a horrible ending to my brilliant holiday! Photos up once I clear some capacity on my hd.

Anyways this will be my first Chinese New Year in Malaysia after a 5-yr abscence. Be back in Manc 6am on Monday the 26th. Have a lovely week, everybody!