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this is a long piece I once wrote. Do tell what you think...chinese you will especially appreciate this. Others, maybe a lot less.
PS. it also had a lot to do with me moving away from home into uni. Some of those are about that.
Diaspora
========
prelude I: pushing the packet
For the first Chinese New Year ever I appreciate the joys of returning home, of being with friends, of immersing oneself in the familiar once again. These are joys that mature with age and the leaving of what one once called home. But angpows - well, those had been the pleasures of the Lunar festival ever since I knew what money meant.
So it brought back childish reminiscences to hide in my room, piling up the booty from relatives carefully pulled from those pretty red packets. Already there was a sizeable stash before me - well, just to be sure, I looked through each packet before adding them to the stack neatly arranged in order of size. Press on the sides just enough to pop the mouth open, check for white on the inside and not the color of some overlooked note (except for an exquisite HSBC packet, whose red was on the inside and whose outside was instead glossed a magnificently antique gold), add it to the stack of angpows that might later come in handy for craft or some other frivolous use.
A simple act suddenly opened up many intricate connections and facets of life.
Life itself is only going to show true beauty to those who look for it earnestly. "I wish I could get more out of life!" - what stops you? Very rarely do we lack the tools for living life, since we have food on the table, a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs and much more left over once these have been procured. More often we lack the direction, or even the zeal, to live - it is as if we have been given dynamite, but are content to make paperweights out of the explosive. We squander our strength on petty interests and transient pleasures when we could be building legacies.
Again, there come times when the Word will only show His true wisdom to those who press hard to reach it - like a sponge that looks dry but yields water to the one who squeezes. I don't specifically represent those who would have us "claim every promise He's promised in His Book!"; rather I wonder if we really get the most of what we read. We read of obscure happenings and words uttered centuries ago, but many a times we miss that little Voice whispering to us of how we should therefore live. If we believe that He has inspired every word the question that immediately follows is "what was each word inspired for?" and even if we don't, there are always incidents which will force us to scratch our heads and wish we could do a little editing. But perhaps the angpow looks a little funny because it hides an inordinately huge bundle of cash. And we have to press on towards the gift within, even if the angpow turns around and starts shooting pointed questions at us.
Finally, every event we come across could be an angpow: it may be hiding something of value, retrieved by those who search deeper. As writers this is our fuel. Why should you have anything to write about if you don't look for it, and why would your muse hang around if you don't use it or pay it? The little events that come our way - the noisy neighbor, the interesting newsclip, the quiet idea - we toss aside without perusal; thus we are deemed unworthy of the whoppers, for how can someone who mismanages the little be allowed to manage much? I sting myself most by that last rebuke. Many a time I have met ideas which seemed promising, which seemed explorable, which seemed rewarding; but as it became harder to push the packet I gave up. And the angpow floated out of my hands unopened, and it was that much easier for me to throw away the next one that came my way.
I must dwell on this. You will complain that your writing will feel so forced but I'd reply: "Yes, dear, because you do not force yourself often enough." Writing is a discipline like anything else in life that is worth anything at all (even the vices require discipline at first!). Perhaps the problem is that no-one is testing you; you must then test yourself. It is up to you to flip the angpow upside down and shake it hard with all you have, not letting go until the last cent of meaning and written art has fallen from it. No-one else will do it for you.
No-one else will do it for me: I will explore the diaspora, that strange mix of vagrancy and excitement in one living away from home. It may be a shallow exploration, and limited by the high dose of caffeine and the ungodly hour, but I will give it my best.
************
prelude II: there and back again
things are not supposed to be this way!
you must wait for my return
before resuming those silly games we play
games of words and gifts and
friendships' sweet nothings
with all the faraway land brings
why do I still imagine I've lost?
- lost all that has changed in my absence,
the familiar things we said and did
exchanged for new shared jokes
and new beats for whispered tunes
how dare you go away!
but how could you not when I have?
************
diaspora I: hybrid
"Gong hei fatt choy, uncle, auntie,"
served English teacups with Chinese tea
when cheongsam girl and black tie boy
sit to bowls of rice with forks and spoons
spiky hair bow to silver hair
gamble lucky money over poker
Dying dialects and Manglish
mingling like soup and Pepsi
some go sit before TV
Jackie Chan English movie on soon
keep red angpows in black leather purse
vacuum floor later - if sweep got curse
find Choy San with GPS
so that next year got bonus
I very confused lah.
I'm quite sure
I'm not pure
but am I boiled egg
or banana?
************
diaspora II: vagrant's return
"Pokey? What's he doing picking us up?"
"He meets my sister every day and drives her back all the time."
"Well any gentleman with a licence and a car would drive girls around. Anyway he memang nice with most girls - well, most pretty girls. Doesn't mean much."
"Nice, as in, buys her accessories, big teddy bear, talks a lot on the phone..."
"Oh? That I gotta see. Could be something."
Anna, Daniel and I continued talking a little while, but my thoughts wondered to how "Pokey" and Anna's sis were hitting it off, if they were at all. I hadn't seen either since the last day of the final exams nearly 2 months ago; there had been sparks, but flying from him in so many diverging directions that one wondered if he'd ever choose. Had he chosen? It would be interesting to see.
Soon he - they - arrived in a Wira. Absence cast the first indictment: there was none of that gingerly quality less acquainted couples have about each other in such proximity. She waved and I saw that she had changed: I could not recognize her - or was it that it was too far and too dark to see her face clearly and that her cute short stature was less obvious as she leaned back in the passenger seat? But she was still pretty as ever. I held the door open for the others and was the last one into the back seat. "Hi Shern Ren!" One, then another of my former form-mates exclaimed.
"It's been so long since I've seen you!" he was the first to say.
"Same here. What are you doing now?"
"AusMat, Sunway College." (So they were in the same course; seeing each other could surely have intensified things.) "I heard you got into that Petronas Uni? Where exactly is it?"
"It's in Tronoh. Quite middle-of-nowhere: 20 minutes to Batu Gajah or Ipoh, and 4 hours plus by bus back to KL."
"Oh I've heard that it's far too easy for you, eh?" the girl interjected mischieviously.
"IT leh. What to do?" But I chose not to elaborate too much. There was something interesting in the way I was absorbing the atmosphere.
We rambled on - I attached some significance to how they rambled effortlessly with each other. Of course the weighty alone talk, such as upon the significance of life or the joys of love or how he thought she looked great in the jeans she thought made her look fat, indicate firmly the blooming of romance. But such random talk as can only be executed by a couple which has become comfortable with each other often serves as a reliable sign and a good precursor. And they had it - seemed to have it? I knew I was horrible with emotions and dared not attach too much weight to such analysis besides a quiet chuckle. But I was growing uneasy.
Was it jealousy? But I didn't have a crush on her, though with a face and a disposition equally sunny I wouldn't have minded having one. Yet I was jealous of him - he was here!
And I had not been.
Suddenly I realized that I missed the air of the place - the geography that had brought them together. Who could tell me what I was missing out on, so far from home? What would it feel like being closer with the ones I had already spent half my youth with, and how much would my heart swell treading the same hallways as - well, at least as some of them? But those were homeless thoughts now - homeless like I was, neither here nor there.
How I envied them, though perhaps they envied my break into freedom. And so I quietly wished them the best in their lovely home soil. Then I banished the playful analyses from my mind - if they really were together all the best, and what did it matter to me if they weren't? It wasn't as if we were schoolmates any more.
Those times had passed. I tried to sweep those thoughts away. Instead came more small talk and general niceties and soon the LRT station over the horizon that was my destination.
************
diaspora III: seeing red
It didn't pay to have a Western liberal arts training in his field. Ah Boon would rather have been conventional like his colleague Ah Fook. The usual calligraphy embellished with cute Chinese-y whatnot like carp or gold nuggets often won him the coveted position of being The Designer of The Scarlet Letter Angpow Company's angpows, which were sold to the small companies that wanted their own angpows without their own design and production staff.
Ah Boon was different. A strangely Western training (though locally obtained) had given his designs an avant-garde taste. There was one year of the Bull, where he'd juxtaposed the Chinese word "luck" over the picture of a succulent steak flowing with juices, or when he'd drawn a Western dragon - bat-wings, fiery breath - guarding a hoard of gold for the Dragon's year. But not once had his designs earned him the coveted Designership he so desired.
This year would be different, he vowed. He'd worked very hard on a tangram-like representation of the rooster that resembled the word "gold" from just the right angle. It had taken him months of fretted thinking to envision it and many sleepless nights to flesh it out on paper. This time he would be The Designer.
And with such expectations he woke to face the day before the reunion dinner. It was the second last day of the lunar year, and his boss would distribute angpows to the office. It was a momentous day because the angpows were produced in-house - they would bear the signature of The Designer. Ah Boon hoped with all his heart that he'd get what he deserved this year.
Boss went around the office with the angpows stacked in his hand, dispensing them at the cubicles of his workers. Ah Boon listened hard for the murmur of disquiet that would spread had he dethroned Ah Fook: there was none. Boss finally wended his way to Ah Boon's table with the last angpow in his hands, and it was apparent that he had plotted his course through the maze of cubicles so that it would end just that way. He placed the red packet on the table without ceremony: simply "Gong xi fatt chai" and he walked away into his office.
Ah Boon stared. It was just a rooster scratching out the word "luck" from the sand, and it looked like it had been copied from an old Chinese calendar. But that didn't matter so much as the fact that his design had been displaced yet again; all he saw was that scrawl on the bottom right corner, the signature of Ah Fook the Designer.
"NOOOOO!!!" Suddenly he ripped it to pieces. But then he noticed that the angpow was a lot thicker than normal, and he repaid five seconds' folly with an afternoon of cellophane tape.
Boss had stuck a note to the back: "Dear Ah Boon: I know that you've never been The Designer, and I'm just as angry as you are. Every year I do my best to angkat you before the senior management, but when Ah Fook has his design I'm duty bound to hand it in and it always gets approved. I want you to know that I really love your work and I can't keep quiet about it any more. All your originals are filed neatly in an album in my office, and when I have the money to spend I print a small consignment to give to my relatives - though of course I can only use the official company one for employees. Stupid loyalty thing. Anyway here's a reward for you. I know you may think your work is useless but it's not, to me anyway."
Alas, no amount of sticky tape can remake a shredded RM50 bill. And it was the only angpow in the office that could have been shredded: the others had those plastic RM5 bills in them that cannot be damaged by anything less than organic solvents or a really sharp pair of scissors.
PS. it also had a lot to do with me moving away from home into uni. Some of those are about that.
Diaspora
========
prelude I: pushing the packet
For the first Chinese New Year ever I appreciate the joys of returning home, of being with friends, of immersing oneself in the familiar once again. These are joys that mature with age and the leaving of what one once called home. But angpows - well, those had been the pleasures of the Lunar festival ever since I knew what money meant.
So it brought back childish reminiscences to hide in my room, piling up the booty from relatives carefully pulled from those pretty red packets. Already there was a sizeable stash before me - well, just to be sure, I looked through each packet before adding them to the stack neatly arranged in order of size. Press on the sides just enough to pop the mouth open, check for white on the inside and not the color of some overlooked note (except for an exquisite HSBC packet, whose red was on the inside and whose outside was instead glossed a magnificently antique gold), add it to the stack of angpows that might later come in handy for craft or some other frivolous use.
A simple act suddenly opened up many intricate connections and facets of life.
Life itself is only going to show true beauty to those who look for it earnestly. "I wish I could get more out of life!" - what stops you? Very rarely do we lack the tools for living life, since we have food on the table, a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs and much more left over once these have been procured. More often we lack the direction, or even the zeal, to live - it is as if we have been given dynamite, but are content to make paperweights out of the explosive. We squander our strength on petty interests and transient pleasures when we could be building legacies.
Again, there come times when the Word will only show His true wisdom to those who press hard to reach it - like a sponge that looks dry but yields water to the one who squeezes. I don't specifically represent those who would have us "claim every promise He's promised in His Book!"; rather I wonder if we really get the most of what we read. We read of obscure happenings and words uttered centuries ago, but many a times we miss that little Voice whispering to us of how we should therefore live. If we believe that He has inspired every word the question that immediately follows is "what was each word inspired for?" and even if we don't, there are always incidents which will force us to scratch our heads and wish we could do a little editing. But perhaps the angpow looks a little funny because it hides an inordinately huge bundle of cash. And we have to press on towards the gift within, even if the angpow turns around and starts shooting pointed questions at us.
Finally, every event we come across could be an angpow: it may be hiding something of value, retrieved by those who search deeper. As writers this is our fuel. Why should you have anything to write about if you don't look for it, and why would your muse hang around if you don't use it or pay it? The little events that come our way - the noisy neighbor, the interesting newsclip, the quiet idea - we toss aside without perusal; thus we are deemed unworthy of the whoppers, for how can someone who mismanages the little be allowed to manage much? I sting myself most by that last rebuke. Many a time I have met ideas which seemed promising, which seemed explorable, which seemed rewarding; but as it became harder to push the packet I gave up. And the angpow floated out of my hands unopened, and it was that much easier for me to throw away the next one that came my way.
I must dwell on this. You will complain that your writing will feel so forced but I'd reply: "Yes, dear, because you do not force yourself often enough." Writing is a discipline like anything else in life that is worth anything at all (even the vices require discipline at first!). Perhaps the problem is that no-one is testing you; you must then test yourself. It is up to you to flip the angpow upside down and shake it hard with all you have, not letting go until the last cent of meaning and written art has fallen from it. No-one else will do it for you.
No-one else will do it for me: I will explore the diaspora, that strange mix of vagrancy and excitement in one living away from home. It may be a shallow exploration, and limited by the high dose of caffeine and the ungodly hour, but I will give it my best.
************
prelude II: there and back again
things are not supposed to be this way!
you must wait for my return
before resuming those silly games we play
games of words and gifts and
friendships' sweet nothings
with all the faraway land brings
why do I still imagine I've lost?
- lost all that has changed in my absence,
the familiar things we said and did
exchanged for new shared jokes
and new beats for whispered tunes
how dare you go away!
but how could you not when I have?
************
diaspora I: hybrid
"Gong hei fatt choy, uncle, auntie,"
served English teacups with Chinese tea
when cheongsam girl and black tie boy
sit to bowls of rice with forks and spoons
spiky hair bow to silver hair
gamble lucky money over poker
Dying dialects and Manglish
mingling like soup and Pepsi
some go sit before TV
Jackie Chan English movie on soon
keep red angpows in black leather purse
vacuum floor later - if sweep got curse
find Choy San with GPS
so that next year got bonus
I very confused lah.
I'm quite sure
I'm not pure
but am I boiled egg
or banana?
************
diaspora II: vagrant's return
"Pokey? What's he doing picking us up?"
"He meets my sister every day and drives her back all the time."
"Well any gentleman with a licence and a car would drive girls around. Anyway he memang nice with most girls - well, most pretty girls. Doesn't mean much."
"Nice, as in, buys her accessories, big teddy bear, talks a lot on the phone..."
"Oh? That I gotta see. Could be something."
Anna, Daniel and I continued talking a little while, but my thoughts wondered to how "Pokey" and Anna's sis were hitting it off, if they were at all. I hadn't seen either since the last day of the final exams nearly 2 months ago; there had been sparks, but flying from him in so many diverging directions that one wondered if he'd ever choose. Had he chosen? It would be interesting to see.
Soon he - they - arrived in a Wira. Absence cast the first indictment: there was none of that gingerly quality less acquainted couples have about each other in such proximity. She waved and I saw that she had changed: I could not recognize her - or was it that it was too far and too dark to see her face clearly and that her cute short stature was less obvious as she leaned back in the passenger seat? But she was still pretty as ever. I held the door open for the others and was the last one into the back seat. "Hi Shern Ren!" One, then another of my former form-mates exclaimed.
"It's been so long since I've seen you!" he was the first to say.
"Same here. What are you doing now?"
"AusMat, Sunway College." (So they were in the same course; seeing each other could surely have intensified things.) "I heard you got into that Petronas Uni? Where exactly is it?"
"It's in Tronoh. Quite middle-of-nowhere: 20 minutes to Batu Gajah or Ipoh, and 4 hours plus by bus back to KL."
"Oh I've heard that it's far too easy for you, eh?" the girl interjected mischieviously.
"IT leh. What to do?" But I chose not to elaborate too much. There was something interesting in the way I was absorbing the atmosphere.
We rambled on - I attached some significance to how they rambled effortlessly with each other. Of course the weighty alone talk, such as upon the significance of life or the joys of love or how he thought she looked great in the jeans she thought made her look fat, indicate firmly the blooming of romance. But such random talk as can only be executed by a couple which has become comfortable with each other often serves as a reliable sign and a good precursor. And they had it - seemed to have it? I knew I was horrible with emotions and dared not attach too much weight to such analysis besides a quiet chuckle. But I was growing uneasy.
Was it jealousy? But I didn't have a crush on her, though with a face and a disposition equally sunny I wouldn't have minded having one. Yet I was jealous of him - he was here!
And I had not been.
Suddenly I realized that I missed the air of the place - the geography that had brought them together. Who could tell me what I was missing out on, so far from home? What would it feel like being closer with the ones I had already spent half my youth with, and how much would my heart swell treading the same hallways as - well, at least as some of them? But those were homeless thoughts now - homeless like I was, neither here nor there.
How I envied them, though perhaps they envied my break into freedom. And so I quietly wished them the best in their lovely home soil. Then I banished the playful analyses from my mind - if they really were together all the best, and what did it matter to me if they weren't? It wasn't as if we were schoolmates any more.
Those times had passed. I tried to sweep those thoughts away. Instead came more small talk and general niceties and soon the LRT station over the horizon that was my destination.
************
diaspora III: seeing red
It didn't pay to have a Western liberal arts training in his field. Ah Boon would rather have been conventional like his colleague Ah Fook. The usual calligraphy embellished with cute Chinese-y whatnot like carp or gold nuggets often won him the coveted position of being The Designer of The Scarlet Letter Angpow Company's angpows, which were sold to the small companies that wanted their own angpows without their own design and production staff.
Ah Boon was different. A strangely Western training (though locally obtained) had given his designs an avant-garde taste. There was one year of the Bull, where he'd juxtaposed the Chinese word "luck" over the picture of a succulent steak flowing with juices, or when he'd drawn a Western dragon - bat-wings, fiery breath - guarding a hoard of gold for the Dragon's year. But not once had his designs earned him the coveted Designership he so desired.
This year would be different, he vowed. He'd worked very hard on a tangram-like representation of the rooster that resembled the word "gold" from just the right angle. It had taken him months of fretted thinking to envision it and many sleepless nights to flesh it out on paper. This time he would be The Designer.
And with such expectations he woke to face the day before the reunion dinner. It was the second last day of the lunar year, and his boss would distribute angpows to the office. It was a momentous day because the angpows were produced in-house - they would bear the signature of The Designer. Ah Boon hoped with all his heart that he'd get what he deserved this year.
Boss went around the office with the angpows stacked in his hand, dispensing them at the cubicles of his workers. Ah Boon listened hard for the murmur of disquiet that would spread had he dethroned Ah Fook: there was none. Boss finally wended his way to Ah Boon's table with the last angpow in his hands, and it was apparent that he had plotted his course through the maze of cubicles so that it would end just that way. He placed the red packet on the table without ceremony: simply "Gong xi fatt chai" and he walked away into his office.
Ah Boon stared. It was just a rooster scratching out the word "luck" from the sand, and it looked like it had been copied from an old Chinese calendar. But that didn't matter so much as the fact that his design had been displaced yet again; all he saw was that scrawl on the bottom right corner, the signature of Ah Fook the Designer.
"NOOOOO!!!" Suddenly he ripped it to pieces. But then he noticed that the angpow was a lot thicker than normal, and he repaid five seconds' folly with an afternoon of cellophane tape.
Boss had stuck a note to the back: "Dear Ah Boon: I know that you've never been The Designer, and I'm just as angry as you are. Every year I do my best to angkat you before the senior management, but when Ah Fook has his design I'm duty bound to hand it in and it always gets approved. I want you to know that I really love your work and I can't keep quiet about it any more. All your originals are filed neatly in an album in my office, and when I have the money to spend I print a small consignment to give to my relatives - though of course I can only use the official company one for employees. Stupid loyalty thing. Anyway here's a reward for you. I know you may think your work is useless but it's not, to me anyway."
Alas, no amount of sticky tape can remake a shredded RM50 bill. And it was the only angpow in the office that could have been shredded: the others had those plastic RM5 bills in them that cannot be damaged by anything less than organic solvents or a really sharp pair of scissors.
