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
If you think _______ is bad, wait till you go to school!
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Sounds wierd? Sure.
Sounds childish? Definitely.
All you guys in the Army think I’m nuts? I think the Army was a lot more fun.
All you people out there slogging your asses off twenty hours a day at your bosses’ beck and call; getting peanuts; worrying about the social ladder, paying for a new car, flat and wedding dinner; getting backstabbed; breathing in cigarette smoke; rushing to meet deadlines so that the news comes out on time, think that I’m crazy? Uh, I don’t think I wanna do all that, but hey, I’m sure you don’t like school either!
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Okay, enough nonsense.
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Last week, the Nitto rack arrived; today, the Brooks saddle arrived. Works of art, both - beautiful yet functional. Every day is like Christmas! Yippee-do-dah-yay! I have another parcel coming my way - a Jitensha-studio-designed-Nitto-made flat handlebar with curves. Say c u r v e s. Ooo. Curvy is good. Curvy is classic. Curvy is pleasing to the eye.
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I know just what to do with the Cilo Mixte (did I mention that I bought it?) - bring it to Sulaiman to have the frame sanded, braze on the eyelets and hourglasses, paint it a nice, dark colour, maybe British Racing Green, Maroon, Deep Blue, or Dark Red, with a cream panel in between the headtube lugs.
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Oh the lugs! Every Tom, Dick and Harry bicycle in Italy has lugs, and they’re nice lugs too. Here, we don’t see them so often anymore, so anything that has lugs is a wonder to behold. After so many years, I finally have something with lugs.
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On my side, I’m looking forward to a few good weeks of sanding and polishing the parts. Coarse emery cloth, fine emery cloth, metal polisher, and a good buff with a soft cloth to bring out the deep, dark shine. Nothing beats the smell of grease and polish and oil. Nothing beats having hands stained a deep blue with Autosol. This is a what a man should be doing in his free time. Oops. That didn’t sound quite right.
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With a total of six (6) bicycles on hand now, I think I need to rent some parking space. Does anyone have a room to let? Will play piano for floor space!
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Lo and behold, someone listed a 42cm Bridgestone XO-1 in deep purple today. Oh me, oh my, what a bicycle! I asked my god-brother if he wanted it. It would be really nice to have one of those in the family.
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Eh, lim peh ai bike si AXE OH ONE leh. Mai sng hor. What bike you liding? Taiwan welded one arh? Har har har har, mai hor wa chior la. Har har har. Wa aye AXE OH ONE si LUGGED eh hor. Ler kwar hor seh, L-U-G-G-E-D eh, si bei sui hor.
I attended a service at a Christian non-sectarian church and was very impressed with the whole set-up - perfect synchronisation between preacher and visual aids, clean music lines for each musician, good sound balance, air-conditioning, smartly dressed ushers and ministers, good use of wit and humour to keep the people satisfied.
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The pastor made a very important point during his sermon. He was talking about bread. For one whole hour, he expounded on the merits of bread. He linked it and compared it and likened it to Christ and his sufferings. And then the message came. It was so obvious that it seemed like I had attended the whole session for a single purpose; to hear him say this: "My dream has come true. We have full-time musicians. They spend their working hours practicing and writing songs."
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It was patently obvious to me that their full-time musicians were a success. The band was well-equipped, they were well trained, they sounded good together, and the music was of the highest quality. They sounded like a good pop or rock band. As I always say: you get what you pay for.
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On the other hand, the church (collectively) I attend has a long way to go. Our leaders should attend at some of these other churches and see just how the people’s money should be spent - on things that really overwhelm the senses. Right now, we’re underwhelmed.
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I was walking around Thieves Market today and noticed a few rather interesting bicycles. A pale green Kuwahara lugged steel bicycle parked against a fence; a 1995 GT Avalanche with assorted Shimano parts, including a M900 XTR rear derailleur; a Parkpre steel bicycle (that’s quite rare here); and finally, a Cilo Mixte in candy pink! Oh goodness gracious me. The Cilo really took the cake. This beauty is a made-in-Switzerland gem-of-a-bicycle. I wonder who owns it.
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I picked up some odd spare parts - a Dura Ace AX crankset and a 600 AX crank and pedals. These have proprietary pedal threads and spindle diameters, so they are unique. In this day and age, they are not just unique - they are useless! But hell, these were the top-of-the-line parts in the eighties, so it might be good to have them lying around, just in case.
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Picked up some toys for her kids too - a duck fishing set, an art box filled with stores and a soft toy tortoise with a baby tortoise trailing behind, all for just ten dollars. Cheap enough I’d say. At least those toys would make some kids happy, unlike selfish-old-me who’d rather buy a menacing piece of cold-forged aluminium that looks like a pizza cutter and could well serve as a weapon in a bank hold-up.
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Hands up! I say HANDS UP! Get on the floor, the whole lot of you. Stop looking at me. Shut up, I say. This is a lethal weapon and I won’t hesistate to use it on you. Slice the innards out of you if you move an inch. This is the old Dura Ace crank with fifty three teeth, razor sharp all of them. Powering the Tour-de-France peloton for decades…Now stop staring at me and get that cash into those sacks.
"To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." 1 Corinthians 9:22
All Things to All Men.
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This sounds like a very noble aspiration. But think carefully about it. How can a person be all things to all men?
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It could mean you are a social chameleon, able to fit in anywhere, pleasing everyone.
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It could also mean that you have no foundation, no mind of your own. You go where the wind blows, saying "yes" to everyone and everything. You dare not stand up for what you perceive to be the right thing to do. You are afraid of offending someone, who might later make life difficult for you.
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An All Things to All Men person might be good in the short term, to fill a vacancy, to occupy a position, to keep things under control while a leader is chosen.
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But if a leader were to be all things to all men, he would probably fail in achieving anything great. Such a leader might not achieve anything at all, for that matter.
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Better to focus on one area and hold on to it.
