Allow & Accept

16 Dec 2025

November & December are pensive times for me. This is because the big move from one place to another & settling in with my cats & dog happened during these times.

Accepting what’s given in the Bowl of Life with the help of Wisdom.

I had lots of anxieties over my animals’ safety because of high floor living and worries over neighbours’ reactions if they made noise. Thankfully, my fears were unfounded.

My dog passed in 2014. The last of my cats passed in 2023.

It took me a few years to discard my dog’s health supplements because his name was on the label. I had to finally accept that he was never coming back.

Only last month, I decided to let my cats’ pain meds & insulin go. Their names were also on the labels.

Oliver, the last of 12 cats to leave me.

Only last month I decided to allow the tattered sofa which had hosted many human celebrations & animal passings to leave. Its base was disintegrating.

As soon as my mind stopped clinging to what couldn’t be fixed, it became open to new possibilities. A set of furniture with dimensions suited to my needs & with aesthetics far beyond my imagination was gifted to me. 🙏

In the blessed corner where my animals sat, played & passed on is now this beautiful antique chair & red cherries.

And last night, the TV that had refused to work since 2023, was finally replaced.

Ganesha mantra to consecrate the new tv.

I was the last on the delivery man’s route and the rain had caused further delays.

Despite his fatigue, the TV installation worker asked me to relax, while he checked if the old bracket could hold the new TV. It turned out everything had to be new.

He helped me get started on google tv, and assured me that I could follow the prompts.

After taking a sip of the drinking water I offered him, the deliverer of television added, “Don’t worry. Just Allow and Accept.”

Looking back, had I allowed & accepted my limp & its ensuing struggles earlier in my youth, I might have been more articulate about them and be less anxious in my adult life.

So by the power of my unnecessary suffering, may I wish all sentient beings the discernment & trust to allow & accept when needed, so that we don’t have to live in fear & sadness. 🙏🪷😊

Swinging with Time

1 Dec 2025

Swinging gently under a beautiful tree on Penang Lane. (20 Nov 2025)

Being somewhat ritualistic about the passage of Time, I try to do something different to mark the start or beginning of a month, and other significant days.

In my working days, I used to mark the beginning of each school holiday by visiting the Kwan Imm Temple in Middle Rd with my mom, followed by shopping.

My Mom making water offering to Lord Ganesha in one of our outings.

On each payday, the first item I bought would be meatballs for my dog, Shoya.

My dog, Shoya in our old place. I used to be able to take him for long walks. He passed on in 2014 at age 15. He loved meatballs & dimsum.

For a number of Decembers past, I would ride Bus 143 with my mom from Jurong East all the way to Toa Payoh & back, just to see the Christmas Lights! 😄

Over the years I find myself becoming less critical of the designs of our festive lightings.

When I stopped benchmarking our Christmas lightings against that of other countries’ I started to notice the smiling locals, migrant workers & tourists posing under them.

Wefie below Christmas Lights along 313 Somerset Rd this year.

Towards the eves of New Year & Christmas, I would catch up with feeders of street animals I had befriended. It was my way of thanking them for doing on a daily basis what I couldn’t.

As I age & our city gets more crowded, some of the activities mentioned above require more effort & planning.

And because I no longer have the stamina to walk under the Christmas Lights from Tanglin Mall to Plaza Singapura, any corner that shines now gives me immense joy. 🙏🙂

Any corner that shines gives me immense joy.

As we welcome the final month of 2025, may we swing along with Time & accept what cannot be changed, to make way for the guidance ahead. ♥️

New Moon Reflection

20-11-25

Sweet elephant gift from India & butter lamps to welcome the New Moon.

May the observation of the New Moon assure all sentient beings that endings are also new beginnings.

15 years ago, this pendant was sold at a discount, having lost its competition among the trendier & newer trinkets in the shop.

Recently, this “casualty” of a merchant’s stock clearing exercise was chosen to accompany a person on an important trip to India.

As a result, this humble pendant of inexpensive stones became a witness to many priceless acts of spirituality & charity as it sits close to the wearer’s heart.

Like this pendant, we may lose favour as circumstances change, or even be discarded as the world hurries on. However, if our essential nature is one of stability & kindness, we cannot be defeated. 😊

A blessed new moon to all sentient beings.

The humble pendant of inexpensive white jade & adventurine also brought me these sandalwood gifts from India.

Blessed Rain

13-11-25

Yesterday the drizzle turned into a downpour as I stood below the awning of OG Albert Complex to wait for my brother.

He had gone to Fu Lu Shou Complex to pick up my favourite incense. To reach any of the shops in it, there were a number of steps to climb.

By the time we were ready to head home, the cab fare had spiked.

While waiting for the fare to drop we decided to have our evening meal at Albert Food Centre.

My brother spoke enthusiastically of the stalls he had patronised. After hearing his heartfelt praise of the 嘛坡卤面 (Muar braised noodle) I lost all interest in the other food options. 😊

He found us a table & scurried off for the dish which by now had reached legendary status in my imagination.

A while later and under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the bustling food centre, an aged younger brother carried a bowl of noodles & walked carefully towards his crippled older sister, just like he used to when they were kids.

The Rain might have caused delays & fare hikes, but it has quenched the thirst of animals & plants, and given 2 siblings an uninterrupted catchup.

On our way home, we even stopped by a makeshift shrine outside Bencoolen Centre to give Ganesha a bath!

Facing our Mountain

10-11-25

“You were not born to be perfect.

You were not born to be happy all of the time.

But if you commit yourself each day to doing the work of being fully human and feeling even when you are afraid, you can transcend in a way that is truly beautiful.” – “The Mountain is You,” by Brianna Wiest.

I think when we allow ourselves to be sad over the inevitables, and give thanks for what used to be, we can find some sort of peace with the present.

Grace Across Time & Space.

10-10-25

A loose screw that causes great distress.

Two days ago a screw from my brace (Knee-Ankle-Foot Orthotics) came loose. I didn’t realise it till the metal bars came apart & grazed my skin.

I panicked. Without the brace, walking is painful. I panicked because my brace was customised overseas. The company that handled my case has since changed hands. Any replacement parts if they still exist will take time to source & order.

Meanwhile, a trip downstairs to retrace my steps & see if I could locate the lost screw was urgently needed.

But I couldn’t do so with a broken brace.

In my anxiety, a memory from years ago of an unkempt but cheerful man outside the Ganesh temple along Keong Siak Road floated up in my mind like a movie.

Sri Layan Sithi Vinayagar Temple. (Keong Siak Rd, Singapore)

Even though the man didn’t look like he was all there, he had the sense to hold up his oversized pants by passing a rafia string through the belt loops around his waist.

Palms together, the homeless looking person would greet just about anyone passing by or entering the temple dedicated to Ganesh, the elephant-headed deity of Wisdom & Resourcefulness.

Inspired by the memory of his resourcefulness, I lost my fear. As calm descended, a space in me opened up to see if cable ties could hold up my brace.

And the ties worked!

With my brace secured by these plastic wonders, I painlessly & confidently sallied forth & found the missing screw lying on the walkway down my block.

I now have 2 pieces of cable ties in my wallet, just in case. And it humbles me deeply to see that a vagabond is also a channel of divine guidance. 🙏

The memory of the vagabond’s resourcefulness led me to these plastic miracles.

Once Ganesh encountered a snake about to strike him. He picked it up & turned the snake into a belt by tying it around his waist, turning an adversary into an accessory. 😄

Thankful Thursday: To Blend or To Trend?

14-8-25

Putting my best foot forward for my first ever black & white photograph in my adult life by Mr Do Huu Phuoc.

To wish for what one cannot change or become is suffering indeed.

In my youth, I admired my peers for being able to prance about in their heels and slingbacks, and spin gracefully on their ankles to express joy.

In my youth I often placed my legs one against the other hoping they would look more normal. (June 2000, Beijing, China)

These were devices of discomfort and shame for a young girl who badly wanted to look and walk like normal people.

So instead of being grateful for the grounding support of my metal brace & laced up boots, I resented them for being constant reminders of my physical impairment.

As soon as I stopped fighting the brace at 60, the burden of hiding my deformity since I was 7 lifted .

Thankfully in the past couple of years, a series of pain episodes have shown me “resistance is futile,” especially at my age.

So early this year at the physiotherapist’s office, I cuddled & prayed over the plaster mold of my leg she made before sending it out to the brace maker.

Blessing my mold before it was sent to the brace maker in USA.

I even apologised to the likes of the boots I rejected in my youth. In my desperate attempts to blend, I was blind to the possibility of starting what could have been a trend.

Last month at Red Wing, as the lace of my boots tightened, and the leather sides aligned to meet my ankle, I felt a shift from dread to peace.

It was like coming home to myself. No more wishing to be someone else, no more apologising for my limp & no more fear of rejection.

As I thought about how wonderful it would be if someone could capture my moment of acceptance, a photographer happened to drop by.

I wish for someone to document my acceptance moment & a photographer decided to drop by the shoe shop I was in. 🙏

Even though he felt the lighting was not ideal for the photograph he had in mind, he would still like to take some pictures to help me remember.

Mr Do Huu Phuoc did not ask me to lose my cane or stand in a particular way. He photographed me when I was feeling my best.

I gladly accepted his offer. And this time for my first black & white shot of my adult life & for the first time in my whole life, I made zero effort to hide my leg, but happily put my best foot forward. 😄

A Father’s Influence 4-8-25

My Dad would have been 87 today.

In his lifetime he took on all sorts of work to make ends meet. He welded, sold coconut juice, ran stalls , picked fruits, and traded in discarded items. No job was too lowly for the man on his trusty Vespa.

Being of limited education he had to endure all kinds of job instability. Not wanting to cause alarm or appear incapable, he kept his hardship to himself.

My Dad in his youth wearing a borrowed uniform. When he was still a baby, his Dad passed away. Perhaps donning a uniform was my Dad’s subconscious aspiration for some kind of security in his growing up years.

There was even once he spent days on the beach during working hours so that we wouldn’t know he had lost his job.

Growing up, my dad’s explosive rage & harsh words hurt me. Yet he was also the one who modelled sustained silent reading, and piqued my interest in national geographic, movies, art, music & non-chinese foods.

This man who chain smoked to the detriment of his own lungs also picked herbs and killed & cooked wildgame to feed me in hope of restoring my leg.

One day I gathered the courage to tell him I didn’t mind limping so he didn’t have to kill anything anymore. That was the end of my dad’s dabbling with innocent lives to mend mine.

My dad would have been 87 years old today. And as I age, I draw strength from his willingness to accept all things, so that nothing can cause us to lose our footing. 🪷🙏

My Dad always smiles for the camera. In all my dreams my Dad is always smiling. I hope wherever he is, he lacks nothing.

远方的乡愁 (Homesickness)

13 March 2025

How could you miss a place you hadn’t visited? I could. Through my grandmother.

My cat, Oliver, on map of Kinmen Island.

My grandmother was born in city of Houpu on Kinmen Island in 1914. It was 3 years after the fall of the Ching Dynasty and the start of World War 1.

When she was 7 years old, turbulent times forced her to leave Kinmen for Singapore. She never set foot on her birth place nor saw her parents ever again.

This yearning for Kinmen would manifest in the constant repetition of her family name, her language group, her city of birth, and in her cooking & aesthetics.

In 2019, when I arrived in Kinmen for the first time and saw her family name written in gold characters, I felt a surge of awe! So this is the character that my grandma was so concerned about throughout her whole life!

An ancestral shrine bearing the family name of my grandmother.

She taught me how her family name, 翁 “ongg” should be pronounced using the first tone in Kinmen language. It was not to be mistaken for 王 “ong” which was using the second tone.

My grandmother was the only person I know who had nostalgic feelings for words.

When I walked the lanes of her birth place, I felt a sense of homecoming & reunion on her behalf. The red lanterns hanging about bearing the city’s name “后浦” may appear ordinary to the locals & tourists. But for me who had heard my grandmother speak it for years, I finally understood 后浦 is real, and not a figment of an old woman’s imagination.

Houpu, my grandmother’s beloved city of birth.

My grandma could have passed by & even touched this ancient tree in her birth city.

Outside a temple where an ancient banyan tree of more than a 100 years old stood, I touched its trunk reverently. My grandmother could have touched the same tree too.

Apart from words, my grandmother also kept Kinmen alive through her cooking. Her spring rolls, longevity noodles面线, glutinous rice油饭, leek 大蒜& yam dishes were quintessentially Kinmenese.

Strands of noodles swaying in the Kinmen breeze & sun taught me why my grandmother was ever so joyful when she cooked bowls of “mee sua” for us. The ever delicate longevity noodles was probably one of her few tangible links to memories of her Kinmen home.

My grandma always cooked “Mee Sua” or longevity noodles with joy.

In the news the narratives surrounding Kinmen Island tend to focus on geopolitical issues & what Kinmen can offer in terms of enjoyment & entertainment. But for folks like me, this little island has done more than its share of giving, sheltering & loving. It now deserves to be revered, cherished & protected.

I’m honoured to have visited this magical island that my grandmother pined for till her demise. I wish Kinmen everlasting peace & prosperity for the benefit of everyone, regardless of their beliefs.

The Way of the Chiku Tree

29 January 2025

The Chiku Tree is all decked up with red banner & pineapple hangings on Chinese New Year of the Snake. (29-1-25)

The wind rose and sent the tree branches dancing as I approached the temple on the morning of Chinese New Year.

I stood on the steps to savour the rustling of leaves & greeted the Chiku Tree. Planted by my dad when we were kids, this tree being has been tended to by kinsmen, kinswomen & friends with rudimentary plant knowledge.

Over the years my brother has picked up our dad’s interest in cultivating Desert Roses. When a plant needs healing, he hangs it on the Chiku Tree to let it rest.

Each season the Chiku Tree brings forth sweet & succulent fruits that feed birds and are given freely to whoever asks.

I arrived just in time to see my Mom picking up a Pineapple decoration which the Wind had sent her from the Chiku Tree. Pineapples are symbols of abundance among ethnic Chinese.

Quietly, she bears witness to all temple festivities, performances & feasts. Banquet cooks & street opera singers catch their breaths under her loving auspices. Our late temple cats filed their nails on her trunks.

With each passing year, my admiration for the Chiku Tree grows. She brings sweetness, provides refuge & inspires trust with minimum fuss.

How auspicious it will be, if we could age The Way of the Chiku Tree! 😄🙏