Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Rain is coming

It's past midnight and I lie here in bed, not sleeping yet,
drowsily drinking in the sounds of this city that never sleeps, only rests.
There's a faint purring of a generator somewhere near, but far away enough.
Cars go by in the night, their wild hoots echoing emptily around the construction site,
deserted and forlorn in the darkness.
The wooden blinds rattle suddenly against the open window frame as a gust of wind slips through, surprisingly chilly on my bare, humid-sticky skin.


Rain is coming.
I can smell it, scentless, the welcome moisture driving away a week's worth
of dust and dreariness.
I can feel it, formless, the saltiness of cool viscid air spilling through the openings into this undisturbed space.


I lie on my side, shoulder and hip sinking into the firm yielding of the mattress beneath, limbs draped around a bunched-up duvet like a bolster, a lover.
Around my face, tendrils of hair stir faintly in the milky darkness. I start
as the blinds clatter again, insistently this time, and
for a brief moment in the splintered silence it sounds like someone trying to climb in.


And then she comes, stealthily at first like a car sweeping past in the distance, and then
steadily, steadily, melding with the humming of the generator,
drowning out the sounds of the world outside.


I slip into a dreamless, watery sleep.

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Fugue

I'm sitting here lazily surfing the web, when suddenly a new window pops up, and it's you. It's been such a long time, but now when we talk, it's like all those years and all that water under the bridge has melted away.

How are you? What have you been doing? We skip those formalities, launching right in as if resuming a conversation from years ago without a break.

Over the past months, I looked at your photos on Facebook. You in your creamy, satiny wedding dress, serene next to the proud hubby, and I start dreaming of my own. Your unmarked skin slowly stretching under the expanding belly, and I remember those carefree weekends playing in the sunlight garden, when you used to wear those cut-off tees and low-slung jeans, baring your taut tawny midriff when I was still graduating from my uncool, awkward pre-teen years. I always wished I could be like you, inimitably sexy in your calculated insouciance, the embodiment of teenage rebellion to this impressionable bookworm desperately seeking her own niche.

You tell me of a concert you went to the other day, the orchestra from our old school. I start reminiscing about the old days, the old people, and then I remember. Of course, I'd forgotten you were never in the orchestra. Funny how our memories of a place and time merge into each other. But those two years, they were so full, and rarely a day passed where did we not see each other, talk to each other, that it really doesn't matter whether or not you were in the orchestra.

We gossip a little about old friends. They still use the ancient photos from our times on the school website and brochures, those fading moments of our extreme youth frozen for the world to see. I remember you were on one of those glossy leaves, caught unawares and pensive, a surprisingly content look on your face that we didn't use to see too often back then. I saw you in that beautiful photo even before I saw you in real life. I'm glad to see you with that same peaceful expression in all your photos now.

We talk a little about your little boy, the pregnancy. I'm so curious, wanting to know everything, wanting it to be like that time long ago when our lives were so closely intertwined that we knew so many things about what happened during our day, our week. You seem happy enough to tell me, offer up information, but really, how much am I allowed to ask before it's considered over-inquisitive? I'm so glad for you, that you've finally found something to anchor you down in life, that gives you the joy and stability you've wandered so far and long in search for. I look at the photos of the life you've given birth to, that sweet sleepy smile, and I start hankering for one of my own.

You ask me when I'll be coming to visit. I wonder how much of me you have remembered, how much of me you will recognise. In the photos, you look like a slightly older, contented, mellowed version, but otherwise the same you from the old days. I bloomed years after you did, ditched the glasses, grew out the hair, gained the curves and confidence of today. Perhaps you were early, perhaps I am late. Would you recognise me now, if we passed each other on a busy street?

If we could've known, those handful of years ago, the dramatic turns our lives would take away from each other, would we still have done anything differently?

And then it's the end of our conversation. Your laptop's running out of battery, you're sleepy, and you say, long day.. years ahead.

And I suddenly realise... yes, you're absolutely right. Indeed, only a short span of time has passed since we parted ways, and we still have long years ahead of us to catch up with each other.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

古典音乐

和流行音乐比起来,我更喜欢西方古典音乐,为什么呢?

基本上,流行音乐太简单了 - 很多现代作曲家只需要作曲一些简单的旋律,加上流行的节奏,这就是算已经写完了一首四五分钟的流行歌。虽然每节的歌词不同,但基本上每节的旋律通常是一抹一样的。
结果呢,流行音乐首先一听了几遍就听腻了。第二,很多歌曲是相同的结构的,因此很多歌都听起来很相似。第三,大多数的流行音乐都是关于爱情的,比如说,迷上了一个人,或者跟男女朋友分手。一真天只听关于爱情的幸福和痛苦,不觉得枯燥吗?而且,许多流行歌很容易过时,这就是说,它们显然都不是作曲质量好的音乐。

很多人错误地认为古典音乐是阳春白雪的艺术。古典音乐显得很抽象和难懂,但是我觉得这是因为这些人被吓坏了,所以不敢试一试。说实话,我们在每天的生活中会遇到一些古典式的音乐,例如电影,电视剧,广告,宾馆大厅里的背景音乐通常是古典音乐。


古典音乐的旋律和其他的要素都比流行音乐的复杂得多,所以全部的音乐实在能更好地表达人们的思想和感情。我们的推动力和反应都是很复杂,因此深奥的古典音乐能真实深深地打动我们的心。我很少听一首流行歌感动得哭起来,但有很多次听古典音乐的时候不知不觉地流着眼泪。此外,我一生听过最刺激,恐怖,生动和希奇古怪的音乐都是古典音乐。


在另外一方面下,我自从七岁以来在不同的音乐学院学会音乐理解和理论,而且靠着我弹钢琴和拉大提琴的能力在各种音乐会中表演了很多年。这对我说是一些非常宝贵的经验和记忆。我永远不会忘记这些表演过的歌曲,而且肯定继续支持古典音乐。因为如果没有遇到古典音乐的话,我就没机会欣赏那么优美的音乐,而且不会认识那么多和气和热情的好朋友。


总而言之,我觉得古典音乐是个高雅和强烈激情的艺术。

Monday, March 30, 2009

Servicing Service

When I first moved into my flat, I got to know that the previous occupant was an American who went back to the US in December. I didn't enquire too much of landlady's dealings with him, as he had left the flat in a clean and tidy shape, even leaving some household cleaning items that I could use.

Within a few days, I started getting calls to my landline, asking for some Fast Global Supplier company. After a while, it became clear that not only were these people not getting the wrong number, or that the telephone lines had crossed, but my number was actually the published contact on the Fast Global Supplier website, for their China Shanghai branch. One of their prospective clients was actually kind enough to email them notifying them of the invalidity of the number, and on top of that, phoning back to tell me he had done so.

So I Googled my own number. And came across their website. Filled in a contact form, and wrote them a beautifully polite request:
Hello, I'm the current resident of the apartment that is listed as your China Shanghai Branch. I'd like to remind you that your previous manager here in Shanghai has already returned to the States in December. Please remove my address and telephone number from your website listings as I have been getting a lot of mail and telephone calls looking for your company. Many thanks.

It's two days before I get a reply, wonderfully concise and pithy:
This number is all over the website. It is hard to remove this number. You must cancel this number or change to a different number with your phone company.

Can't say they left me with much choice but to reply thus:
Your company obviously thinks it is harder to remove a number from a website than for a foreigner to request for a change of telephone numbers in China. Please be aware, then, that whenever any of your prospective clients telephone my number, it is within my complete power and discretion to say what I wish about your company. Imagine what kind of image and reputation you are projecting, if your clients found out that your company was so lax about providing up-do-date information on your website. Also, you will be interested to note that I have been getting on average one phone call a day. That adds up to a considerable amount of clients, current and prospective. Current clients can become ex-clients, and prospective clients may remain forever prospective. Remember, word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool. Have a nice day.

How would you have dealt with the matter?

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Made in the big U.S. of A.

What is everywhere, on everybody's minds, instrumental in affecting the quality of of people all around the world, and Made in America?

Why, our current 经济危机 dung heap, of course.

Now that their once free-flowing coffers are bust and they are effectively living on borrowed time and money, the greedy, grasping eyes of the West turn to China and its $2 trillion of foreign reserves, like Bilbo's beleaguered dwarves slinking towards the Lonely Mountain and the dragon Smaug with his stupendous treasure trove and jewel-encrusted hide. Of course, the supreme irony of the situation is that just like how the denizens of Middle-Earth shunned Lonely Mountain for its desolate landscape and fearsome inhabitant, the West once sneered at China's primitive, unwieldy financial systems. Even now many Westerners and Western-centric Asians still look contemptuously at anything Chinese, disparaging them for being nothing more than just... Chinese. Now it is this backwardness inherent in many fledgling nations that have protected them from cutting edge folly.

All this, because of Greed, and that wonderful cornerstone of Western civilisation called Individual Rights. With a constitution that places individual rights and individual freedom above all else, the USA sold to the rest of the world that paragon of Western capitalism, the American Dream. And because humans are by nature greedy and selfish, that evocative call of the American Dream, complete with hot apple pies sitting in picturesque houses with white picket fences, became too seductive for many people to ignore. With the droves of people settling down in America over the decades, so grew the public conviction that everything belongs to them by right, and if they haven't got something, well, they could just sue somebody for it. With the intense drive to own everything that your neighbour has and more, the American household became the main source of capital for the US economy.

Think Singaporeans are the ultimate kiasu people? Think again.

So all was hale and hearty until 1999, when the American household quietly upturned from being lenders to borrowers, and foreign capital became the only source of money for the USA. But even so, this was all rather hush-hush, and with the distraction of Sept. 11 and Iraq, nobody really paid attention to the fact that the whole of America was starting to survive solely on credit.

But even so, the greed and covetousness kept on escalating into the 21st century, and even though foreign investors were silently buying up low-risk investments and American debt, the influx of capital and borrowed affluence were not enough. Hotshot bankers and financiers who knew too much for their own good but not enough for everybody else's good started playing around with their magic numbers and spreadsheets so that everybody could get their American Dream for a dollar, minus the fine print of course. And because no sane foreign investor was willing to pick up the high-risk investments, they swapped dicey financial products amongst themselves like a game of high-stakes mahjong, where everybody picks up someone else's unwanted stuff until the whole system is interreliant and there's no more accountability.

And we all know what happened after that.

2008 has been the worst year to graduate in so far, and 2009 might turn out even worse. From a solid track record all the way until university, and a formerly bright future wherever I chose to go, I'm now saddled with no substantial work experience and unemployment rates soaring higher and faster than the Burj Dubai everywhere I go. This was supposed to be a year where a management graduate from one the world's top business schools could pick and choose and negotiate any job she wanted, and all I'm left with is mounting debt and new furrows on my forehead and that perpetual sinking feeling in my solar plexus that I'm sure most of you enjoy too. And statistics have shown time and again that people who graduate into a downturn do distinctively worse over their entire lifetime than their peers who graduate when the economy is stable.

Why such bitterness, you ask?

Well, when one really takes a step back and looks at the overall picture, there seems to be pointed lack of anger and blame in the world towards the USA for ruining everybody's lives for at least a few years. Indeed, the USA has indirectly caused people to die who otherwise wouldn't have, had this crisis never come about. Whereas when the rest of the world does something the US doesn't agree with, there's a massive outcry, a public upheaval, and the US will use all its financial leverage and political clout to get its way. The US has always appointed herself upholder of the world's ethics and morals precisely and only when it suits her, insisting that other nations apologise when they appear to slight the US or contravene with her so-called values. But now when the shit has hit the fan, and we all know where the shit came from, the culprit escapes blame once again.

Japan's humiliating defeat at the end of WWII left an indelible stain on the national psyche of the Japanese that has lasted until this day. Their contrition at having caused such a global catastrophe is etched forever within their society's subconsciousness and manifested in their taking extreme responsibility for mistakes large, small, and imagined, and a rigid unwillingness to inconvenience anybody.

Japan has her honour, and because of her greed for territory more than half a century ago, Japan and the Japanese are still apologising to this day.

America has no honour, and not a single American has apologised. Will it take half a century for America, once the golden land of opportunity, to say sorry?

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Shanghai Crib

So, it's been just over a month since I moved into my Shanghainese home sweet home. It's in a sizeable gated community called "锦苑" ( Jin3 Yuan4 roughly translates into "Brocade Park"), which maintains a rather prestigious-sounding epithet of "文明小区" ie "Model Quarter", presumably awarded by the Shanghai municipal council for err.. being a model example of a housing community.

I'm at the 56th block which indicates I have to (yes, you guessed it) walk rather far from the entrance to actually reach the block. The good thing is it is relatively quiet in my corner, and less polluted. Less dusty = less housework to do! Anyway it's 6 flights of stairs for me everyday, resulting in some nice toned thighs and bum. After months of inactivity due to my foot surgery, my posterior looked more like a deflated water balloon than a grope-worthy ass, but with having to climb those stairs at least once a day, I am now the relieved owner of une derriere par excellence. Hehe.

So here are some photos of my flat, taken after some frantic cleaning up and surreptitious chucking of clothes into the cupboards. They'll have to do for now until I bother to actually take some better angle-adjusted ones.

The central dining room area, first thing you see when you step in through the front door. Basically there are 2 doors on either side. On the left, the nearest door is to the kitchen, the farthest one to the bathroom. On the right, the first door to the sitting room, the second to the bedroom.
Better angle of the furnishings and bathroom door.
From left: front door, kitchen, bathroom.
Small drawer and water dispenser on the left.
This one's taken standing in the bathroom. You can see the doors leading to the bedroom on the left and sitting room on the right.
Kitchen from the outside. Having a convention cooker at home, it's been simply years since I last used a gas stove.
And from within. Rather sparsely furnished thanks to my incredibly generous landlady, who couldn't even bother to provide a microwave oven. She said the microwave would be too heavy for her to carry. And obviously she thinks it wouldn't be a problem for me, heh.
Bathroom, with toilet, washing machine, shower and sink. According to TingTing, this is considered quite sizeable for Shanghainese standards.
Sitting room. I'm currently living entirely in here at the moment, with the sofabed opened up. When I first moved in it was still pretty cold and this was the room with the best heating.
From another angle. It can be a bit of a squeeze getting in between the bed and TV, but when you're my size, small is nothing.
Closed balcony, great light for studying by during daytime.
Bedroom, uninhabited at the moment. Note the spare mattress leaning against the wall.
You can't see it, but there's plenty of wardrobe space for clothes. =D

In short, this space is my home away from home until August. With most of my day spent at ACLS, most of my time in here is taken up with doing homework and sleep. Kinda seems a waste of space and rental when the flat could easily accommodate another person. In comparison with some of the cupboards I lived out of during boarding school, this is like a mansion! Heehee.. actually boarding school wasn't that bad. Anyway when the weather is a bit more accommodating I will take the camera out and get some photos of the main entrance, and the downright ugly housing buildings here in Shanghai.

On another note, now that Spring is creeping in, some residents here have taken to walking their little trophy dogs in the mornings. So far on the way to ACLS I've seen: a Pomeranian with a massive fluffy winter coat, a pair of grizzled Schnauzers looking very much like Tramp from Lady and the Tramp, another large brown dog, and cutest little terrier puppy with a pink ponytail! Oh man, how I miss Muffin. Mum, if you dare give her away before I get back to KL, I shall be eternally upset with you! And never cook for you again, ha!


Muffin says, see, I have my own crib too!
Says, because you see, she's much too refined and proper to actually bark that.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Shanghaied into Shanghai

I woke up this morning to a faint sound, something I must've heard dozens of times before, but rather bizarre and baffling in this setting of thousands of Shanghainese crammed into their sardine tin apartment blocks.

It was a cockerel, crowing lustily into the dazzling sunshine of a crisp Shanghainese morning.

I guess someone's having some rather good chicken soup for dinner this week.

So anyway I get out of bed, and it is the most gorgeous, brilliant spring day since I arrived in the midst of bleak and dreary post-CNY Shanghai. Birds everywhere are crooning the spring buds into waking, the city is rubbing its sleep-heavy eyelids, and that cockerel is loud enough to raise up anyone and anything still in hibernation, including my photography bug. Outside, the sudden proliferation of pink, white, and red blossoms infuse the lanes and paths and spaces with an invisible mist of exultation. The sunlight glistens off every surface as the city shrugs off its winter mantle, and the very air is evocative of magic and the promise of life.


After the initial weeks of settling-in stress, homesickness, loneliness, acclimatising, and
cold, it is transcendent moments like this that make all that difficulty and discomfort so worthwhile.

La dolce vita, entirely in Chinese of course.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

One Week to Go

After being cut off from the WWW for the 3 whole weeks I've been here, it's time to resuscitate the bloggy. I dug up from the various drafts languishing on the Blogger Dashboard this post which I'd started just over a month ago. Understandably enough, this post has become even more relevant to me now that I'm actually here, as well as the number of times I've been asked that question that occurs a short way into the post. It would take a whole day of writing if I were to completely lay out my reasons for leaving England, but here are a few that relates to living in England in general. Sometimes the grass really isn't greener on the other side, but sadly enough life requires us to lose some things before we can truly appreciate them.

*****

It's one more week 'till I take off to Shanghai, the lustrous pearl of China, the land from whence my ancestors came from. I've never been there, even though a couple of my cousins were fortunate enough to be around to follow my maternal grandfather back to his hometown, where, a long time ago, his 7-yr-old self was the treasured youngest grandson of the local village bigwig. Where once that pampered little boy was even carried across the mansion's courtyards so his would not be dirtied by the earth, now stands a sprawling derelict ruin that nobody has claimed.

But such far-off origins, however interesting, carry only sentimental, wishful value to us. These places that we might return to visit are too changed, the long-lost relatives too foreign, to stir up any real deep-seated attachment other than those that arise from our own idealistic, romantic longings of our ancient heritage. Such is the fate of an Overseas Chinese. Our roots were cast too far away, partially severed by the journey undertaken by those ancestors who chose to seek new fortunes, and the lineage now far too imbedded in this adopted land to resurrect any dormant recognition of the past toils and triumphs from just a few generations ago.

Far more potent to our cultural identity is, of course, our own more immediate origins, the places and times that shaped us to what we are today. Over the last 6 months, many people have asked me why I chose not to stay on in England, despite (or perhaps, because of) having already committed 7 years to that country. They ask with undeniable interest and sometimes incredulity, as if by not remaining there I am somehow "wasting" all that time, by giving up on some benefit or opportunity that must have been my goal at the start of the 7-year commitment.

In the last post, I wrote about the places that have been my home for a while, of the nostalgia that arises every time I recall the feel and sensation of those spaces. Now my thoughts have moved from wondering about the physical place I am going to, to the people and culture I will encounter, and of course reflecting on my experiences from the past.

In the 7 years I have spent there, the UK, and Western society in general, has markedly changed from a culture that was a paragon of modern civilisation, to an environment that is unfriendly, self-serving, irresponsible, and makes one feel sick in the heart.

It has become a "surveillance state", where CCTVs follow your every move, and you can be held liable for actions you never realised were being recorded. It has become a nation obsessed with tests and rankings, much like the way Singapore is, and adopted much of the same kiasu mentality in that often the most important factors in making decisions, especially those pertaining to education and career, are test scores and league rankings. It has become a state bordering on socialism in certain aspects, and one so terribly afraid of offending, insulting or unintentionally discriminating against anybody and everybody. These two factors are invariably a hugely problematic combination, especially when needy or unscrupulous individuals can easily claim 'offense' if they are not given certain special rights or benefits from the state.

Prevalent among the worst of those living in Britain is the opportunistic, chip-on-my shoulder, denial-prone mentality that drives the individual to act only if there's something in it for them, and claiming indefinite inability to function due to some past, played-up mistake committed by somebody else. It's never their own fault, everybody owes it to them, and it is their prerogative, ie, "right" to be accorded special treatment even though they couldn't possibly deserve it in the first place.

Even worse is the now-rampant celebration of trash culture and anti-intellectualism, which has found its fullest expression in TV shows like Little Britain. This, coupled with the British nonchalance for a surveillance state, first gave rise to the "reality TV" of Big Brother, and now culminates in the very public dying of Big Brother's favourite prodigal daughter, Jade Goody. That a culture could denigrate so far, so low, that a sizeable chunk of its people will devote time to follow, in various forms of media, what should be a very private, dignified last act of a person says enough of the current and future state of this civilisation.

England was a place I called my "home away from home" for 7 full years, and never again will I call it "home" unless something happens, change extreme enough to divert this country away from its inexorable path to intellectual and spiritual destruction.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Akan Datang

Awaiting connection of internet to my flat. More updates forthcoming. Bleeping cold over here. Having an not-bad time though. Needing some human company, especially in the cleaning department!

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Shanghai Crib

Ooh, so I just got off the phone with Kow Foo, who had spoken to his friend in Shanghai. At any rate I don't get to rent a room in their swanky unoccupied pad in central Shanghai, but that friend (thank you, thank you, whoever you are) with all his leisurely time went to check out ACLS and the surrounding area, and even scooped out some potential places for me!

- The 2000RMB one, which is about 10 minutes' walk from ACLS, in a slightly older quarter, a slightly older building
- The 2500RMB one which is just about completing renovation, a decent 6-7 minutes from ACLS
- The 2200RMB one, relatively new, and RIGHT NEXT TO the academy!
- And apparently another one in the nearby JingAn expat area, also nearly completing renovation.

They're are the open-concept single-person type units, and I guess decent places to live in for 6 months. We're gonna check it out some more, but at any rate I'm kinda grinning at the possibility of waking up just 5 minutes before class, pulling on my clothes and dashing next door! Heh, lazy me. Things are looking a little more exciting now, what with firming up my visa and travel plans.

So initially I was planning to fly on the 8th, maybe take the 9am flight with Auntie Ivy's son Jason who's working there. He'll be back for CNY, and it'll be nice to have someone to travel to SH with, who can at least help me a little in the airport. The original plan was to check into a youth hostel for a few nights and hunt around for suitable accommodation with the estate agents in the area. But then Mum's reminded me that Poh Poh's death anniversary falls on the 17th day after CNY, which for this year is the 12th of February. Might decide to fly late 12th or early 13th instead, depending on what flight with what airlines are available.

(Be warned, from here onwards the post changes tone and direction considerably, which is not all surprising since I wrote this in two parts. Feel free to skim over the graphic, grandmother-story descriptions and jump from introduction to conclusion.)

So for this new year, it'll be a new country, a new city, a new place to call my temporary home. I wonder now, how things will look like in a mere few weeks' time; 6 months from now, I will remember how I felt this moment, and ask myself whether it was as I expected, and what things I would do differently, if I could do it all over again.

6 months ago, when, for the final time (for now), I stepped off the plane from England, into the enveloping familiarity of my blue-brown room, the knowledge that I will not budge from this place for a while was like a sigh of relief and finality. That time, before I made the decision to uproot yet again, I finally did something that was the culmination of a 10-year habit.

Without fail, everytime I said goodbye to a place I had lived in, I would sit upright in the middle of the bed, close my eyes, and slowly visualise the peculiar nooks and crannies of the space I had to call Home for a while. That night 6 months ago, I sat cross-legged on my bed and closed my eyes in that darkened bedroom, and slowly brought to the surface of my mind those visualisations I'd etched deep in my memories. Minutely savouring the countours, objects and sensations of those spaces, it felt as if I was really there again, inhabiting that place, that time, that younger self.

First I visited my 11-year-old self, some 10 years ago. My divan bed had a worn cotton quilt with a patchwork of dolphins leaping up from the sea. The wall immediately to the right had a cantilevered double bookshelf, the upper level stacked with books that I'd somewhat outgrown. Behind was a raised cabinet storing various soft toys that took their turns on the bed, and in front was a sliding-door double wardrobe with a recessed, fluted pattern. The desk ran parallel on the left, filling up half the length of the room, its large window overlooking the fountains, bridge, and covered walkway. The floor was of the typical brown parquet you'd find in these mid-range condominiums. Even with a small oscillating fan on the wall, the afternoon heat usually drove me to the greater shade of the dining room to do the homework, but evenings were spent sprawled on the bed, zooming through my Enid Blyton and early fantasy books, and later on the rhythmic croaking of bullfrogs lulled me to sleep.

Next it was that chilly single bed in my quite-bare room in Gardenville, Singapore. A loan from the real estate agency until we bought our furnishings, that rented bed was the only item of furniture in the largest bedroom I'd had until then. Essentially a generous-sized rectangle with amazingly high ceilings, built-in airconditioning, a big wardrobe along one end, the room had floor-to-ceiling length glass windows with the most fantastic view over the lushly forested gardens of the Shangri-La Hotel. That first night, I switched off the lights and sat awake in bed for a long while, drinking in the softly spilling light from the moon and the trees that seemed to be waving a leafy welcome. It was also the first time I'd attempted to pull on a large duvet cover over my new goose-down duvet - needless to say I got tangled up inside the sheets!

That room, that apartment, was wonderful, and I absolutely loved it. Shortly later, I got a lovely, high loft bed from Ikea, a queen-sized manifestation of every child's dream with a workstation and shelves underneath, and most importantly, a real 6-foot ladder to climb into bed with. As expected, whatever books we had brought over from Malaysia lined the shelves; a framed photo of Mum with an infant me hung on the wall, and I even had a "chicken carpet" underneath my very own swivel chair. Luxury indeed, and Mum's complaints whenever she had to climb up to change the sheets was somewhat tempered by the fact that it was ridiculously easy to clean under the bed, for once.

Alas, my enjoyment of that bed and room didn't last terribly long, and it was onto a vastly different scene when I came to England at 14 years. Imagine how an only child feels, when you've always had a room of your own, and the only time you've had to share was with your nanny/maid during toddler-hood, upon realising you've somehow got to survive in a old English house and share the room with 3 other girls! But Wells saw some fun times, some great memories that I wouldn't replace with anything in the world. As I'd arrived there first, I got to take my pick of the 4 study-cum-bed units and of course chose one by the window and heater. The unit was one of those peculiar things that is hard to picture unless you've seen them before. the bottom layer consists of an incredibly deep desk, the inner half of which is covered lengthwise by a single bed about 2 feet above. To the right is a deep, broad drawer, and underneath a cupboard with 2 shelves. Below the desk is a pair of lockable doors which led to the empty space underneath the inner half of the bed. Designed for boarders to store all their belongings in-between terms, that back storage portion was actually open, but there wasn't much fear of vandalism or theft as the heavy units were pushed up against the wall. To the side there were 3 cubby holes where we would put our shoes, and a separate wardrobe for each of us. Boarders were allowed to stick things over any surface we chose, as long as it wasn't offensive or in the way of the cleaners. In my year, the wall shared between Emma and me were plastered with various posters, magazine cut-outs and print-outs of the Lord of the Rings movie and especially Elijah Wood (Emma's) and Orlando Bloom (mine). Eleanor had a large poster listing the reasons why a man was better than a dog, and Emily had one of those "Chocoholic" posters with a dancing purple berry in the middle. Along the headboard around the bed I'd stuck various cards from family and friends, Claire's sketch of a feisty Shetland pony (supposedly me), a newspaper clipping of an exposed Afghan woman's face in a sea of veiled heads, another clipping of a Picasso sketch, and a shiny red-and-gold ang pao. Funny, the things one can recall across the years.

Year 11 saw me sharing a much smaller room with Eleanor. Again, I chose the bed nearest to the window and heater, coincidentally directly above my bed from the year before. This was one of the prized dorms everybody fought to be allocated to, for it had its own sink (a luxury so you didn't have to stand in the cold bathroom brushing your teeth), and a mirrored alcove with its own built-in bench seat, in which generations of Plumptre girls would hide the damning evidence of outlawed vaguely-alcoholic drinks sneaked into the boarding house in soft drink bottles. Ah, the shenanigans of 16-year-old girls!

In these two years I grew resilient to the winter cold of the English countryside that is so different from the cold of airconditioning - the sensation of slipping from warm silk bathrobes and fluffy ducky slipppers into freezing cold sheets, and later on learning to run the hot air of a hairdryer underneath beforehand. Initially accustomed to the deep, complete silence and darkness of my Singapore room, I learnt to fall asleep to the comforting sound of occasional cars zooming along Liberty Road, their headlights through the thin curtains throwing slanted rays across the cracked plaster ceilings.

Even now, I still miss the gnarled character of that old English house, that inimitable sensory experience of patchy paintwork, the not-quite-straight lines, those chilly drafts sneaking through windows that cannot or will not close properly, and the clear, crisp sunlight streaming through old rippled glass panes. Sherborne's character was never quite in the same vein of quaint oldness.

Lower Six in Sherborne saw me bundled into Wingfield House, packed into a longgggggg, partitioned room with 5 other 6 Formers on the 3rd storey. My "room" was positioned to the far right of the dorm, directly facing the entrance. Furnished with a basic 3-ft bed with drawers underneath, wardrobe, tiiiiny study desk, our cubicles didn't have proper doors, only some mottled green-blue curtains that barely stretched the length of the entrance, and the partitions ended some 4-5 feet short of the ceiling - all this contributing to the lack of aural insulation, and a thin veneer of physical privacy. Luckily enough, my corner lot provided me with a nice bay window that overlooked the tennis courts and main school building.

My neighbours were, in order of proximity, Tamara, Cindy (Ting), Cherrie, and Lizzie, the only British girl in our dorm. Tamara and I, and occasionally Cindy, used to curl up in the toasty laundry room just behind our dorm, especially when winter gave its all. I missed the frequency of that companionship when I was made Vice Head of House, and subsequently Head of House later in the year, and given a room all to myself on the top floor. Nevertheless, that proper room gave me the privacy I've learnt to treasure, a place that was warmer and cosier that anybody else had the fortune to have, and my favourite bit of English houses: slanted ceilings with exposed rafters.

All the Upper 6 moved into Mulliner House for our final year, some 70-odd stressed, playful, loud, moody, vain, hormone-charged females under one roof. Again, my real estate luck held up, and I absolutely loved the single room I was given on the top floor, along the quietest corridor in the whole building, with the least-visited toilet, and overlooking one of the more tranquil spots of the school grounds. Everything about the furnishings they gave us was simply... generous. From the 3 1/2 foot bed, the large wardrobe and ample drawers, the full-length mirror (always very important), to the broad and deep desk and wide window, there was just so much space in Mulliner. It was, very simply, the best place anyone could be in, for having the optimum personal space for studying or just simply sleeping through a rainy winter afternoon, snuggled under an airy, warm duvet, unfinished knitting on the table and some music playing softly in the background.

My remembrance of Derby House, Whitworth Park, during my first year in Manchester is tinted by a strong wash of the colour orange and a stomach-churning waft of cooking oil. Having chosen one of the cheapest accommodation Halls due to its proximity to the business school, I had the misfortune of being placed into the most dilapidated of the housing blocks, the one that was next-in-line for rennovation and refurbishment. Though comely enough from afar, the make-up of Whitworth Park was a throwback to the architecture of the dread '70s, and Derby House was the worst of the lot. My room was perhaps the tiniest I ever had the misfortune to stay in, the rickety furniture and mottled orange curtains long deserving of the nearest garbage heap, the insulation and heating a laughable affair, and worst of all, situated above the window was the opening of the kitchen extraction pipe. I shall not bore you all with detailed descriptions of the stench, not commiserate at length on the narrow and so-thin-you-can-feel-the-springs mattress among other things, but suffice to say, my final visualisation of the place was not the best.

Thankfully, the final two years of my tertiary education saw me considerably upgrading my housing conditions, taking the D room in the H block of Wilmslow Park, originally intended as Manchester's poshest student accommodation. The carpet was noticeably thicker, the carpentry far superior in design and build.. well, everything was just miles better. But more importantly, the super twin bed saw me finally making my transition from the 3-foot bed of Derby House back to the original Asian (ie. larger than Western) Queen size of the bed at home. My room had more storage space than a student could wish for: besides and above the bed frame, cubby holes behind the door, a decent-sized wardrobe, small coffee table, bookshelf on the wall, standalone 3-tiered bookcase, drawers below the desk, a shelf and ledge inside the bathroom. The desk ran the breadth of the room, giving plenty of space to be messy, and the easy access to the electric heater somewhat made up for the relatively smaller size of the restricted window.

It was a great place, with great times. Cook-out sessions in the decent-sized kitchen, packed pot-luck parties, some intense society meetings, crazy drunken poker/chor dai di matches. Intimate one-to-one talks, heated discussions and hilarious imitations, and studying, sleeping, frantic essaying. The drama of 2 years played out to a striking backdrop of another hundred students doing the same things, across an airy, quadrangle courtyard.

And now it's a complete circle, and I'm back in my room, in a space that is finally mine, in a home that is truly our own. In my darkened room, cross-legged on the bed, I skim across remnants of the past, through times tumultuous and calm, and wonder what new adventures will come about soon enough.

Do you ever get nostalgic for the places you've lived in before? Do you, like me, try to preserve something of that familiar, illusive place within your memories, an essence of those spaces you breathed life into that can never be captured in a photograph?

Thursday, January 08, 2009

One Month To Go

And thus begins the final month countdown to take-off day. Just another one of those days, when, after some rest and respite in No.795, I take that 45 minute drive to KLIA, check in, pop my bags on the carousel, and say my goodbyes all over again. After 7 years of living away, each one with at least one or two of those days, it's gonna be an over-familiar feeling, tinged with a hint of alien-ness, and a different flavour of trepidation this time around.

It will be a little strange, this imminent journey. I've flown off so many times in that north-east direction, bisecting the globe diagonally through the Andaman spice route, over India's booming cities of Hyderabad and Ahmadabad, across the tumultuous Middle-Eastern lands of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, onto the blooming cultures of Europe, and then finally landing on that vaguely triangular-shaped island. The place that started it all, a land of bangers and mash, custard and crumble, the rhubarb and Yorkshire puddings that saw me through my formative years on a smug, rotund belly.

It's been rather nostalgic recently, picturing myself again in Manchester, perhaps braving the unusually biting winter cold with an army of jumpers, fleeces and my dad's infamous sheepskin underwear. (No, not literally!) Malaysia's monsoon this year has been on the chilly side, albeit nothing like South/North-East England this year.
In that sense, I am looking forward to spending the last part of this winter in a different country, a different place. They say that Shanghai's winter isn't rationally that cold, but the omnipresent chilling wetness that spreads to your bones makes it as formidable a winter city as any.

Despite feeling relatively gung-ho about the impending winter, I'll easily admit that I'm a little scared of this new adventure I'm plunging head-first into. Just a little. Because for me, that small sink-hole of fear and foreboding in the pit of your stomach that materialises with the looming take-off, could be, more often than not, attributed to a guilty lack of preparations for forthcoming exams. This time, essays and exams are (for now) a distant thing of the past, but venturing into the unknown future alone is still somewhat daunting.

Suddenly, it's like I'm going away to boarding school again for the first time, just that I don't have my parents beside me, don't know anyone there, coming to grips with an unfamiliar language, and the school of 600 is now a swirling, pulsing city 10 times the size and density of KL. I'm buoyed up with the same irrepressible confidence that my 14-year-old self had, that by hook or by crook, I will get through it all, and have a jolly good time to boot. Coming along in the luggage are the same niggling doubts from 7-plus years ago: what if I don't fit in, what if I can't cope, what if I've pushed my extraordinary luck too far and something really bad happens this time around...?

During countless occasions when that sickening, sinking feeling of nerves made a timely appearance for my entrance on-stage, I'd stride out on the high of the adrenalin rush and the audience's adulation, and deliver one heck of a performance. It's like swinging your way across mountain tops, suspended 100 feet off the ground with no visible means of support. High time to reclaim my place out there. Stay tuned for one helluva ride.


p.s. How d'ya like the new bloggy template for the new year?

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Endings

With at least half the world ending 2008 on a decidedly low note, replete with dollops of bitching on and on how crap their year was, and the uncomfortably gloomy tidings of the year to come, I decide to - surprise! - blog about things decidedly less Gormenghast-esque for the first post of the new year.

Hello 2009!


So dad and I have been gearing up for our amazing event to start the year - a surprise 30th wedding anniversary for my mum! (Goes without saying that I'll be publishing this blog post a few days' later.) It's been a pretty busy, stressed couple of weeks, us having to plan and tiptoe around her all the while having secret conferences and making phonecalls/decisions when we're out of the house. It really doesn't help that she's a stay-at-home person, and the house is single-storeyed and relatively small...
Anyway more about our secret bash later.

I guess with this new year, it's a timely reminder for me to come out of my hibernation-reclusive break. What with my feet nearly healed from the operation (what operation, you say? Just ask.) and the event-organsing nearly done, I don't quite have much excuse any longer to remain in my Hermitage. With my departure for Shanghai looming imminently in a month's time, it's really time to finally get off my butt and out there again. No new year's resolutions, as usual. Perhaps reviving this blog would be good, a sort of chronicle of my Shanghai adventures, but then again, I won't commit to more than 1 or 2 posts a week. Max. Can't be spending much time writing on here, when so much needs to be sorted and done, can I? Just writing from time to time will get them brain juices flowing again, a prelude to all the mental labouring I'll have to do once the Mandarin lessons begin. So here's to an exhilarating year off-the-beaten track, with plenty of opportunities to grab, places to see, and people to love!