18 May 2021

I like looking at metallic containers that are used to hold hard candies.

But it’s only recently after buying one from Daiso that I understood my compulsion to study and touch candy tins.

These keepers of sweetness remind me of my late maternal grandmother. In my childhood, she was my constant supplier of Morinaga candy in round tins.

Each evening when she returned from work at the ABC Brewery, I would help myself to her bag and search for my present.

Once in my childish impatience to shut the tin, I closed the cover on my fingers instead. Blood gushed and dripped freely where metal met flesh.

My grandma was traumatised, while I was more concerned about having blood on my candy.

After that blood letting episode, it would be a long time before I would see my beloved candies again.

My maternal grandparents raised 10 children on their meagre combined incomes. Money was always short, but they never made their children or grandchildren feel poor.

I remember one night when I was in primary 2, my grandma told me she would buy me a new box of colour pencils on her way home from work the next day.

Those words would become her last words to me. That night she woke up in the middle of sleep with a terrible headache, and passed on of stroke. She was only 50 years old.

Although I only knew my maternal grandma for just a few years, she is present in every candy & colour that I see these days.

So I believe regardless of our financial constraints or length of life span, every gesture performed in the spirit of love & generosity continues to live on, long after the giver is gone.

20-04-2021

Of all birthday observations, a sibling’s birthday is unique. Our brother or sister has been with us long before any BFFs, BFs, GFs, partners or spouses appear.

When I was younger, I saw my siblings through my parents’ eyes. Their disappointments or happiness in my brothers became mine.

Aging helps me to individuate, separate and differentiate, so that these days if I have any opinions or views on anyone, they are strictly mine. And as they’re ONLY my views from a limited mind, there’s no need to hold on to them so tightly.

Because my brother was not academically inclined, his childhood fascination with cars and all things mechanical & electronic were seen as purposeless and a waste of time.

Fortunately, cars have always been his first true love, so his dream of caring for cars in a workshop which he can be proud of didn’t die.

About 10 years ago, I bought a Ganesha figurine made of resin from the Tribuhavan Airport in Nepal.

It was love at first sight for my car mechanic brother when I placed the pot bellied elephant deity in his palm.

6 months after that, my brother would accompany me to carry medicines to street animals in Nepal. He also brought along his resin Ganesha on our trip to give thanks.

We stayed at Hotel Harati in Kathmandu where he met Ganesha in bronze, and Park Village in Budanilkhanta where we stopped to say hello to Ganesha in clay each morning.

Today this little brother who needed me to take him to Jurong Bird Park for a primary school art contest is now in his late 40s.

And on his birthday today, I wish him good health and peace to keep cars safe on the road.

May his reverence for Ganesha also make him wise and keep him grounded, even as he deals with speed & energy everyday. 🙏🌈🐾

22 March 2021

In my teaching days working with male students, I regularly got complaints from mothers that their sons often kept them in the dark about issues that they were facing.

Whether it was about learning challenges or relationships, these boys seem unable to share their burdens with those who loved them most.

Some parents wondered if there were special communication or questioning techniques they could use to help their sons share with ease.

But the reality for me was, boys probably told me stuff more easily because I did not have emotional attachment to them. This emotional distance allowed me to let them talk without offering solutions, or feeling the urge to “set things right,” for them.

See, if you are a boy or a girl, and, having a tough time in school, the last thing you need after telling someone at home about your trouble is having to manage their upset reactions. And even worse than a parent going to school to “solve your problem,” is being told that you should have done this or that, or that the problem you speak about is all in your head.

I’ve learnt not to offer unsolicited advice when a young person speaks to me.

Often times, like birds needing a temporary perch to stand and rest their tired wings, people just need a safe space to bring up what’s hurting them. That space enable them to call up all the hidden demons and laid them out in the light to rest. And we know Light brings clarity and healing.

So as our offspring, nieces and nephews enter Term 2 of the school year, and the older ones take on internships and industrial attachments or even a first job, may we have the wisdom and discipline to hold safe spaces at home for them to articulate the difficulties they meet outside, so that all the aspirations of benefits for themselves and others may take flight.

22 02 2021

Each year on the 9th Day of the Chinese New Year, old folks turn up at the temple to observe the birthday of the Heavenly Deity.

They come from the neighbouring housing estates. Like members of a spent army which has braved too many wars, these silver haired devotees trudge on unsteadily and sometimes painfully, to celebrate and to give thanks.

Their uncompromising grit inspires younger devotees to rush to their aid. Someone offers to steady a tottering grandpa, and another helps a granny too shrunken to reach the urn to place her incense sticks.

We are familiar with the adage that children are our future. However, it has to be the enduring presence of older folks who have lived through life’s every imaginable challenge and still remain thankful, that gives the younger generation guts to flourish in the future.