The Week In Short.

It has been a week of change.

Chronologically, my dad, in a protest against Starhub, reduced our once highly ample cable platter to a meagre basic package, all in bid to show Starhub that being the only cable operators here doesn't mean they can get away with daylight robbery. He's been trying to persuade my relatives to do the same. And succeeding, I think. With any luck, the Han family could well rival the Lee family soon.

After a week of belly flopping, my fish passed on. I was a little bit sad. Washing the fish tank thrice in a week, risking my arm to scrub out every inch of the tank, toggling with stinky chemicals and late nights spent reading up on how to treat ill arowanas ( See, I *did* study, just not for the exams. I would call myself an autodidact fish doctor, if not for the fact that my fish died casts some suspicion on my skills) didn't work, I guess. I've never really been one to fuss over the fish (possibly the only one in my family) - fish were my dad's hobby. Over the 11 or 12 years, we've reared koi, guppies, goldfish, more koi, fish I don't recognize, an Australian Pearlback something, and this arowana. Plus, I've never really taken to pets that can't even complete the the most primitive standard of "eat and sl....". Especially if they feed on worms, and smell, well, fishy. So even I was pretty surprised when I took to cleaning out the tank personally, in the middle of the night, no less (thanks suhui). I am not sure what Fish thought about having the person who cared about it the least attend to it singlehandedly in its last week.

But Fish died anyway. My siblings called it Sparky, but everyone has a dog-cat-hamster-rabbit named Sparky - I like something a bit more original, so I secretly called it "Fish". In the nearly six years it swum around pretending to be house decor, I never fully appreciated how majestic it was until it was six inches from my scrunched-up nose, sponge and hose. And I couldn't help but marvel again, when we buried it last night. A foot long, red-tipped fins that fanned out like a rainbow shroud and a smooth silver body that was irridiscent with light. I wish I could have done more. So we buried Fish in the garden, between the shrubs so the cat wouldn't get it, and now the tank is empty like it hasn't been in six years.

Father's Day.

My parents' filial piety trumps mine every time, as we spend a good part of every Father's Day with my only surviving grandfather (and thus the whole family) at his annual Father's Day dinner.



Us kids go upstairs, as usual, to take my grandparents to the Zhi Char restaurant downstairs - the only place we ever eat together now that walking has become a problem for both of them. The hike upstairs never differs. It begins with my infant brother's grumpiness at having to perform the same chore over and over again, then speeds up to a race among the three of us to get to the gate. I've always marvelled at my grandparents' gate - it doesn't just keep uninvited guests locked out, it also arrests words. Our gleeful noise slams straight into the wrought metal and dies.



My halting Hainanese takes over, because not talking, obviously, is a bit of a hinderance. My recent attempts at loosening my dialect tongue has pleased the grandmothers on either side - although it must be confessed that their kindly smiles often freeze in incomprehension when I muddle my Hainanese with Teochew and my Teochew with Mandarin. But today my grandfather greets us at the door instead.



He is shaving, although the white strands on the sagging folds of his jowls never so much brush the blades. He starts at our arrival, then as we chirp our greeting, he laughs loudly and politely, the way Chinese always do with strangers.



I'm here to bring you downstairs

Eh! Good child, good child

His eyes glaze over, and goes back to shaving. I repeat myself with rigidly structured sentences only ineptness can accomplish.

For what?

To eat!

Oh. Eat.

Daddy's waiting downstairs. Go change your clothes

Oh. Tank - kew (Thank you)



The words "Thank you" have become his whole vocabulary when he speaks to us, English but for the enunciation, Hainanese but for the origin, language but for its lack of meaning. His grandchildren say hello, he says thank you. His grandchildren ask him a question, he says thank you. His grandchildren ask him to eat, he says thank you. His grandchildren say thank you, he says thank you. His grandchildren say goodbye, he says thank you. We are all named "Alan" - the name of his last grandson.


We guide his feet into his sandals as he fumbles around. He jerks away our grasps. He can't remember his own name, but he hasn't lost his sense of self. We bundle our grandmother into her wheelchair as she clings onto our hands long after she no longer needs them, squeezing our palms and takes every opportunity to count our teeth. We take twelve minutes to recover the land my siblings and I crossed in five.



We begin each dish with my father and his brother crossing my grandfather's plate, then my grandmother's. Then the dish makes its round and conversation begins. We talk about money, work, school, the newest purchase, the latest movie. The reason for our gathering fades into oblivion as he sucks happily on butter prawn heads.

Then my mom breaks the unspoken custom. "Does your father recognize your children?" She addresses my uncle. The table falls silent. We look at my grandfather. He wipes gravy from his chin with the back of his hand, with a kind of oblivion rivalled only by our earlier display. No need for an answer.

My father slams his chopsticks down reproachfully, "You kids don't see him enough to remember you, that's why!" The unnecessary strength turns the tips of his chopsticks towards himself in an awkward display. I don't know if you know, but there's silent, then there's silent. We become the latter.

The dinner resumes, slowly but surely. You know the worst has happened when things go on as if it never happened. Dinner goes on as if it never happened.

The dinner ends. I walk up to my grandfather and help him out of his chair. He tenses.

I say, Let me hold you.

He looks at me curiously. He relaxes for a moment, then he goes "no need, no need".

My father takes over and my grandfather relegates responsibility for his being into the arms of his son. There is no need for a grandchild like me. In his memory that stops twenty, thirty, forty years ago, there is no need for grandchildren.

Things I Love

1. Reminding myself of the things I love.
2. Pretty hands tickling the piano.
3. The blue tin that comes with Danish Butter Cookies.
4. Revealing intimately weird things about myself to people I don't know, and won't ever know.
5. The looks on their faces when I do 4.

6. Apple scent.
7. Daddy's smell when he comes home from work.
8. Baking cookies without any mishaps.
9. The sound the keyboard makes when my fingers fly across it.
10. Singing like nobody's listening.

Victory Wiggle

I think I have earned myself a victory wiggle today.

You see, I have this neighbour who lives three storeys above me. He was the tall, basketball guy of the Blue House - my House. He was quiet, I was loud. We took the same school bus, but never so much as looked at each other. Except one time, which I still chronicle as Most Embarrassing Moment No.134. Mr Tall, Silent Basketballer came down with dengue fever, and creative, generous and stupendously stupid 11 year old me decided, upon learning that Dengue fever could be fatal, decided to put my creativity to good use and made him a Get Well Soon card. Bad news doesn't at all spread too fast, I can assure you, because by the time I got my card ready, Mr Tall, Silent, Dengue Fever Patient was already recovered and waiting for the school bus. I don't know WHAT possessed me - actually I do, I think it was the ego that refused to have made a card for nothing - I gave a Get Well Soon Card, to the perfectly healthy neighbour. Of course, he stared. And stared. And I ran away.

But yes, conversation never came easily. Or rather, never came.

He went to SJI, I to NYGH, with an amazing coincidence of bus routes. When we met every so occassionally, we waved and exchanged perfunctory greetings. Then he would sprint in the opposite direction, while I looked for a convenient hole to disappear into.


Then in yet another amazing coincidence (Why can't Fate be this accurate with Johnny Depp and me??), we both got Direct School Admission to this college. And got into the same faculty. So Mr Tall, Silent Basketballer became Mr Tall, Silent Canoeist, but nothing beyond the last descriptive changed. I guess things warmed up, we began talking a little bit more. Conversations averaged about 20 words - a huge difference from the previous three. ("Hi." "Oh, Hi." or "Hi, okay bye!")

But today, AHAHAHA today, we met at the bus stop, talked through a gruelling 10 minute wait for the bus, then whizzed through a 25 minute bus ride! My social skills amaze me. Actually, his social skills amaze me.

So anyway, I was really glad and ran home to tell Mom and Dad.

"Is that supposed to be a success? I mean, for all you know, it could be that he couldn't stand you previously."

I expostulated, of course. But now that I'm sitting here thinking about it, maybe they were right. After all, if someone doesn't talk to you for ten whole years, it must mean something, musn't it? Hmmm.

But anyhoo, that won't stop me from wiggling victoriously. If anything, that means he dislikes me a less now right? (:

A whiter shade of pale

Sometimes, shit happens.

Everybody knows shit isn't nice to clean up. It stinks, for one, and it always has to freaking smear. If you're lucky, you can walk away from it. You don't quite ever forget it, but you know, the memory fades and you almost forget the stink.

But if you're unlucky like me, the shit grows a pair of legs and dances right back up to your face and pretends to be a muffin. Yeah, sure as hell I'm going to let you back into my digestive system.

(Trauma, obviously, does something to my language)

Please, please, please stay out of my life. Truth be told, it's not that I hate you, but that if you do come back, my broken heart might just give in again, without either of us ever intending it.

I like the emptiness in my chest. And I'm going to keep it. So your face, at first just ghostly, has to turn a whiter shade of pale.

Garnet for Gravel.

There was a time in Ancient Rome when the granaries were fat and the vaults were bursting, when Romans could sail for miles and still be home. The people wore gold around their necks and silver around their arms. Another city bath was built. And another. And another. Fresh cut flowers were strewn where footsteps were dropped. Perfume sprinkled down like rain from ceilings. Precious stones of all shapes and sizes, of all hues and intensities paved the floors.

And as their heels made dents in the rainbow gravel, and clear diamonds wedged themselves in their leather sandals and cooled the skin between their toes, they stopped and asked themselves why.