Fat Fingers

Allow me to propose my thesis - there is something called love.

Let me explain: I define love as an unconditional act. When I "love" someone, I go out of my way to do something for that person without expectations. That means, without expecting a reward in terms of money, favours, sex, whatever.

Another condition to prove love is that whatever you do for the other person must be inconvenient for you. It’s very easy if you buy something for someone with your spare change. You did not make any sacrifice. Anyone with the means to satisfy another person can claim it to be an act of "love".

Love is really a sacrifice. Love is when you give up something you have or want for somebody else’s sake, even though you feel the pinch. It can be your television programme, your hobby, your lifestyle, your career, even your life.

You can love both men and women (let us not talk about animals or objects or ideas) - there are no boundaries to love.

In a world that has become systematically pragmatic, it is very difficult to find examples of love. Why should I do something for you when you don’t do anything for me? Today, we think first of ourselves, then of others. This will have very dire consequences for society. Humans who do not look out for each other cannot weather crises.

There are many implications of not loving. Do you not consider the person behind you on the escalator, waiting to move while you hold hands with your partner? Do you not consider the driver waiting at the lights while you saunter across the road on a green man? Do you think that public transport may be better for the earth, or do you buy a car anyway for your own convenience?

Love is about the other at the expense of the self. It has nothing to do with romance, friendship, companionship, or barter. It is not about win-win situations. It is really about making the world a better place, a more human place - if that is what human means - to live in.

Of course we could say, "that’s not how our businesses were built, that’s not how our nation was founded." But of course, I am ever idealistic, and of course, there is always this thing called love.

Every time I walk past the new Supreme Court, I stare aghast at the garish patterns on the glass-panelled stone walls, and marvel at the idea of having a pseudo-modern building which in typical tasteless Singaporean fashion, is a motley collection of ideas that once put together, scream "Obiang".

Why on earth could they not have designed a court to look like a court - stately, majestic, solid and timeless?

One only has to look at the new Parliament House to see that even though it is a modern building, it retains the essence of decorum found in Colonial architecture, albeit in less elaborate form.

The Supreme Court, on the other hand, is a nightmare to behold. Perhaps justice is indeed found in the unlikeliest of places?

Have you ever wondered about how different religions are perceived?

Notice, how when we think of Muslims, we think - no pork. When we think of Catholics, we think - no condoms, no meat on Fridays. We think of Buddhists and we think - must respect life and vegetarian. Hindu - no beef.

Why is it that in a country where racial and religious harmony is promoted, we are still thinking in terms of the rules that differentiate us? And how strangely those bound by no religions look at us when we seem to be living life bound by rules that make little sense to those who are ‘liberated’?

Are we really suffering; is religion really a burden to life?

I don’t think so. Religion is a way of life. It is a whole experience, a discipline, a lifestyle, a testimony to those who have gone before us (marked with the sign of faith).

Unlike the traditions of old, when children were born into a practice and lived it without question, Generation Y is now able to choose their religion - discarding the difficult ones and picking the convenient ones, those that tell them what they want to hear, without limitations, without imposing guilt, with no strings attached.

Oh, you’re Muslim, cannot eat pork right (but I can and I know you drink alcohol in the pubs).

Oh, you’re Catholic, cannot use condoms right (but I can use them as much as I darn well please and you can either lie that you don’t, abstain from sex, or have twenty kids like your grandfather did).

Intercultural and inter-religious studies are a must for every student today, if we are to foster a truly multi-ethnic society in Singapore. There is no doubt that downplaying differences and education-by-segmentation has adversely affected societal perceptions of each race. We need to openly discuss and debate cross-cultural traditions and beliefs. Students of a First-World nation, today, are mature for such a curriculum.

The question now - is the State ready?

Today, I came out of Exam Hall E feeling rather stiff and numb. I pulled out my mobile and turned it on. I had two missed calls from someone I did not know.

I sent a message to the unknown number, "Hi sorry, I was in an exam just now. Who is this?" The reply:

"Mr Postman. I got 1 parcel 4 u".

Crikey. Do I get one parcel everyday of the year or something? More importantly, my postman is communicating with me through the mobile. What next?

While I was trying to dig-out-the-dirt on why recycling was not a lifestyle in Singapore yesterday afternoon, someone called my mobile. Now, people seldom call my mobile for two reasons. One, I’m not popular at all and two, it’s a very unfriendly guy who picks it up.

"Ya, ello." or "Wat’s up" or "Arh why?" or "Yah, what I’m busy!"

So I stiffened when I heard the unfamiliar male voice, like I always do when I don’t recognise the caller. Which is almost all the time, since I have no caller ID (Why can’t anyone begin with "Hello, this is Robert speaking…").

Was it the police, calling me about some suspicious parcel that had been seized at customs, someone from togo-lala-land calling about buying a bicycle part, or someone responding to my Panasonic bicycle want ad - bless his soul, or a wrong number?

It was the postman.

Wow. How often does the postman call you? I mean, how often does the postman call me? I know he’s my friendly neighbourhood postman, yes, but calling me in the afternoon to say hello? I was beginning to wonder if he was married when I heard the words:

"Hello? Is this Mister Alfonso?" So I say, "Uhm hello" - a sure sign of being unsure - "Yes, this is me." Duh. Of course it is me. It can’t be you, or anyone else.

Feeling a little silly, I hear the magic words, "You have a packet arh." Uh, okay, so I have a packet of what, chicken rice? So as a matter of formality, I say, "Ah! That’s nice!" and he says "… so what do you want me to do with it?"

Deliver it of course, that’s what I want you to do with it. But of course I don’t say that; it might be something expensive. "How big is the packet?" I ask, never once considering that he might interpret "the packet" as "your packet". I’m beginning to wonder if I should have asked how big his packet was.

"Oh, it’s a small one", he replies. Ah ha, that’s because you’ve been sitting on your cutesy little motor scooter for more than half the day, every day but Sunday. Of course it’s gone smaller. But of course, I say nothing about that because thoughts of recycling and the Sarimbun dumping ground are still running around in my head.

"Can you put it in my mailbox?" Now this is really starting to sound funny. I’m asking him if he can put his packet into my mailbox. "Let me see if it is small enough." I wait, tensely. "Yah, I think can, if I don’t kena the dog." Thoughts of cats, Muslim postmen, dogs and big and small packets are now floating around with the trash in my mind (my postman is a Muslim, you see, and dogs are a strict no-no for them - Muslims I mean, not postmen).

"Thanks man", I say.

I think the Dura Ace Eight Speed shifters and Paul’s Thumbies have arrived. I can’t wait to get my hands on them when I book out of this godforsaken camp, where there is no reveille, no 5BX, no life.

I’m definitely looking forward to tomorrow afternoon, when I can start to plan, full steam ahead, how to build up the mixte, the Litespeed, laser engrave the M900 XTR cranks and swap the M730 cranks on to the CB-1. Ho boy *rubs hands in glee* it’s going to be one helluva term break - if they don’t kick me out of school at the end of it.

but for yourselves and your children.

Of the funeral services I have witnessed, the saddest, most tragic, are those where one loses a husband or wife.

When a married man loses a child or a parent, there is the wife to share the loss. Together, they can carry on, each supporting the other. To lose a partner is to lose your hopes and dreams; the person you chose to be your life companion.

To face an uncertain future without your dearly beloved by your side is a notion that is hard to accept. Of these partings I have witnessed two, and will remember them always.

When Uncle T lost his wife many years ago, the sound of his anguished voice calling out, as her coffin was rolled into the furnace; the grief on his face, will forever be imprinted in my memory.

Today, I watched the passing of another friend, and the husband she left behind. His parting words to her at the pulpit left not a dry eye in the church. This time, I could not bear to witness the bare sorrow of a man’s final moments at the crematorium. Surrounded by many, supported by all, yet utterly alone.

It is true that when we cry, we cry not for the one who has gone before us, but for the ones who are left behind.

so The Raffles Hotel tagline goes.

Closing my eyes as I lean back in the old barber’s chair, I feel the thick waves of heat engulf me as a gust blows from the west. Leaves, loose papers and dirt swirl around my feet and are swept down the cemented corridor, the floor polished by years of feet passing over it, some sticking to pools of oil under the parked motorcycles, while survivors are blown out on to the road to be whipped up by passing cars. Beads of sweat well up under my shirt and above my lips. Falling hair quickly sticks to it, like a badly applied moustache.

There is a hum of hawkers cooking and people eating in the coffeeshop behind, punctuated by sharp metallic clangs of the pilers, their diesels purring loudly next door. A motorcycle throbs past, and all of a sudden, it feels overwhelmingly like India, or perhaps Singapore in the fifties - not that I will have ever known it, for I am a younger man visiting a barber’s shop by the roadside not three hundred meters from where I live. The year is 2006, but the two of us are framed in an age gone by, if only for the next fifteen minutes.

His clientele are old men, men who have seen the war, and possibly both wars at that. Men whose faces are mottled with the scars of time, whose limbs are wrapped in a shrunken web of skin. A man sits in the chair next to mine, his feet bulging as though full of water, the cracked skin pulled taut, like a wine skin about to split. Another comes along, parks his umbrella behind a stool, reaches under the table for the newspaper, sits down and glances briefly at my red Bridgestone glinting in the sunlight. I sneeze.

"Xin lai de" - a new customer. We talk of old times and a new term in school. He tells me that Channel U recently did a show on him. He laments the delay at receiving his VCD. I look at my haircut in the mirror, and cannot help but remember Kenny’s haircut in that same chair, which turned out like a badly worn toupee, much to his dismay and the amusement of all his friends. I burst out laughing.

I remember our film and the filming - a distant memory of the good old times. Someday, my barber like the ones before him, will pass on. I wonder if yet another will take his place at the helm, trimming the nose hairs of all the old men in the neighbourhood, shaving their faces and towelling them dry in the noon day heat, as the four before him have done for decades past.

Or will these men mourn the loss of yet another of their time, and turn resignedly to the modern shops with cooled air and metronomed music, or will they travel in search of yet another roadside barber, the last of their kind in a modern world?

The wind changes direction, and sweeps more leaves under the table. It blows the hair off my cloth gown and into the faces of the waiting customers. They sit back, unfazed, gazing serenly at the world passing by. Each day, each moment a blessing, for their time is over, and the world we live in, their creation.

How do you know what you do not know until you know it?

I saw this quote on my friend’s MSN tagline today, and found it very familiar. Of course I found it familiar - I approximated it last week in class when we were discussing press controls. So now, the quote is:

How do you know what you do not know until you know it? (Chern, 2006)

Another term I coined today after hearing about a friend’s separation with the boy-boy was Single Again Sia (SAS), as in "Hey, you SAS!"

Caution: not to be used when the party concerned is grieving over the split. Only suitable for happy break-ups and long-desired ones.

I realised some time ago, that I was not so much a thinker as a doer. Perhaps there is some truth to the class differentiation that used to exist between different strata in societies, and that which still exists today (You Bourgeois, Me Proletariat).

This poem by Kipling truly sums up the way I feel about my existence - an part of me that will never change.

It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock.

-The Sons of Martha