in case you were wondering

i meet people from home. how have you been? what did you do in the past six years? the subtext says, have you been bored? how did you tolerate it, not doing anything much? i perfect my sweet non-commital smile-cum-murmur and move on.

for the record, the six odd years have been a gift. i have been well. i can't tell you exactly what i have been doing. nothing economically profitable, i'm afraid. some non-economic activity, with some joy and satisfaction and perhaps profit there. i've been writing living epistles, by God's grace. i've been building a home.

song of love

i visit with an old couple. 

he is quiet. she is talkative. he is slow. she darts. he is deliberate. she finishes your sentences for you. he butters her bread for her breakfast. she cooks a full meal for just two. he clears the table. she shares her vegetables with him. be careful, they tell each other. the road is slippery. she nurses him without question in sickness. he falls apart when she falls ill.

love learns to be patient and kind after fifty years.

i have an idea

if they set the a/c thermostat at a number related to the outside temperature, say n - 5, or n - 6 C, then perhaps the malls in singapore would not be the freezing caverns they currently are and the energy bill would be smaller and we would not be contributing so much to the greenhouse gas total and most importantly, the hapless public would not need to be subjected to climate extremes simply because they want to go for a real-time shopping trip as opposed to an online one.

je me souviens

the people here say, i will remember. and they make every effort to. they fiercely guard their colonial heritage with all the linguistic and cultural baggage and they immortalize their former taskmasters with much affection and gratitude. there is gentleness and inefficiency that result when you respect your past.

this is so differemt from back east, i tell HOM. over there, our love affair sputtered to an ignominious disillusionment with the japanese occupation. we have not this engaging fondness for our sir's and mem's, although we retain a lingering obsequiousness. mostly we are brash and new and briskly vigorous. plenty of shine but we cut out the depth with independence and development.

rite of passage

we leave J2 at her dorm.

is this it? HOM asks me. is this the end of her childhood and our life as we have known it for two decades? will she not come back now except with her family after this? is this it?

if  it goes well, this is it, i tell him. she becomes an adult now. if it goes well, she grows into a mature beautiful adult. if it goes well, this is the good end to childhood and childish ways.

muddling through inelegantly

a national framework to guide rationing decisions ... may "result in insensitivity to the complexity of clinical care, to the rapidly changing character of medical knowledge, to the uncertainties of the care process, and to the wide range of situations, needs and preferences of patients".

d.j.hunter, bmj 1995 sep 23; 311(7008): 811

with our strong pragmatic bent and deep fondness for algorithms and model answers we would do well to heed this in the little red dot. in healthcare in education in anything perhaps where our first response to a question is what's the guideline on this?

rationing, hunter says, will always be messy. hey, life too. 

fairies and ghosts

what do you say to a nine year old kid who says she doesn't believe in Santa anymore, someone asks. i would say you're right, honey. my friend says it's important to let them believe so they have hope. i say Santa kinda scrapes the bottom of the hope chest.

an old man said, may the God of hope fill you with all joy  and peace in believing... Santa and fairies don't quite cut it.

sweet sorrow

comes a point beyond the milk feeds broken nights alphabets and sums adolescent awkwardness and teenage tempests when a parent realizes her child has become an independent self-determining persona quite unlike herself with differing tastes opinions and priorities. the fledgling seeks out his own tree. it is a natural part of growing up, the old bird tells herself, and a good thing too. she sought her own tree long ago with the same hunger. on the other side of the fierce hunger is pain. she only learns it now, on the other side.

growing pain 2

i see a photo of someone's twelve year old son. he's a skinny earnest-looking bespectacled fellow, eating at the table with his elbows propped up and his nose in a paperback. i had a little boy like that once, i think, with a sudden sharp pain that makes me gasp. he's older now. he reads differently. he thinks differently. wit sharpens. innocence darkens. i won't have the gift of that boy again, me with the hopefulness of young motherhood and he with the uncomplicatedness of childhood. 

what i have is older and more damaged. there are depths that you will not know if you do not plumb them in pain, i tell him over the years. i am older and more damaged too. that cheerful sun-drenched path leads unrelentingly to the land of shadows on the way to those depths.

memento mori

my friend talks to me about her blood pressure. there is much frustration and perplexity. that she has done so much, and still not enough.

i remember the first time i glimpse mortality's shadow. a door slides open, just a little, and the wedge widens over time. we bid farewell to our youth eventually, but i think this is when i begin.

perspectives

the cross and the resurrection - the most glorious demonstration of a most extravagant love by a most powerful deity.

easter church celebrations, with all the trappings, on the other hand, can be tiring.

idiot idealist

someone wants to use my photos. may i? she asks. how do you want to be credited? you can simply use the facebook shots without credit, i tell her. but i would like an attribution if you use my blog shots.

HOM laughs at me. you do know that the licence you publish under carries no legal weight, don't you? well yes, as a matter of fact i know that. but i am doing my bit for something i believe in. there is intellectual property that is protected, and i honor that. let us share what we can, if we wish, and let us honor that too.

is this familiar?

he had been instructed only in that innocent and ineffectual way by which the Catholic priests teach the aborigines, by which the pupil is never educated to the degree of consciousness, but only to the degree of trust  and reverence, and a child is not made a man, but kept a child.   

- walden, visitors, thoreau

authoritarianism in a nutshell.

au revoir

i visit my old friend in hospital. some friendships go back years and transcend logicalities. some friendships are built upon deep fellowship in addition to laughter. some friends you lose touch with completely and never truly re-connect with again.

she was such a friend and ours was such a friendship. she taught me how to memorize the books of the bible. G, E, P, C. we laughed hard and we prayed together. we drifted completely asunder.

she died yesterday. it is well for her to rest now.

precious in the sight of the lord is the death of his saints.

poorly made in china - paul midler (2009)

the author is an american representing american companies working with chinese factories in south china. how much can an outsider write that is to the mark, i wonder?

pretty much, it turns out. even after allowing for cultural obtuseness (!) he makes unpleasant points that are painfully consistent with our observation of and experience with china, chinese, and china made goods.

there are two china's today. the exotic inscrutable middle kingdom built upon centuries of proud refinement sits in our fond imaginations and wars with the brash brazen reality in aggressive survival mode.

all i say is, disagreeable but not unexpected. also, as i've said for years, better not buy made-in-china, if you have a choice, which is not often. and finally, i say, it's sad, and i don't see how it will improve in the short to medium term, and i'm chinese.

visiting hours

i visit my friend in hospital. he is one day post surgery, and looks ready enough to talk, so i stay.

but i think, seriously, if i were in hospital, i would decidedly not be ready to talk, and certainly not at all hours of the day that they allow visitors in these days. 

i would like, i think, not to have any visitors, if i were admitted to hospital, apart from HOM and J1 and J2. and it would be nice not to talk or be talked unto, unless the occasion called for it. i would instead like lots of books to read.

six great ideas - mortimer j adler (1981)

truth   goodness   beauty

liberty   equality   justice

you could subtitle this book how to think 101 and make it required reading for aspiring activists and budding politicians, if only to introduce the glimmerings of a nuance to the blood-pumping rhetoric they tend to produce.

this is a humbling book because he takes six words that i like to toss around and shows me there are concepts underlying them. it is an encouraging book because he has this nice uncondescending style so i think, hey i'm reading philosophy! and understanding it! mostly! and it is an interesting book that finally answers the question for me, what is great art?*

*the answer, if you are interested, lies in the difference between admirableness and enjoyableness.

national day

my facebook page is full of patriotically aspirational posts by all sorts of people today. very inspiring. it makes me want to sing the anthem from chess: long before nations' lines were drawn/ when no flags flew when no armies stood/ my land was born/ i cross over borders but i'm still there now.

except of course i am of a race as old as time but from a nation floundering to develop a persona. we simply don't do impassioned, principled angst.

the sands of time

we cheer a couple of games at central park.

they bring back memories of J1's baseball playing days.

here is a painfully true cliché - children grow up very quickly.

one moment they are chubby angels then they are awkward teens 

and then it only gets bittersweet from there.

heritage

i want to do this and that, the young man says, so that i can have great things to tell my son.

you are a blessed man, i tell his father, that your son would leave a legacy for his son.