I am always struck by the bold openness and love with which Amanda and Carmen approach the beggars on the street. One of the beggars we see today is a woman sitting on the sidewalk by a wall. Carmen reaches into Amanda’s bag, gets out a sandwich, and the both of them kneel on the ground to offer it to the woman. She is grateful, shakes their hands, but then holds up her plastic cup and then motions to her throat while saying something in Italian; Carmen gets out her pouch and puts in five euro. The girls introduce themselves and ask her for her name: “Lianna”. “From Italy?” “Romania,” she says, just like everyone else we’ve met: the man with dysfunctional limbs who begs on a skateboard, the woman in Trastevere with nine children. All this while I am standing beside Carmen and Amanda, too awkward and timid and afraid to say anything at all, too afraid I won’t understand anything Lianna says or won’t know how to communicate with her. But I have been very inspired by Carmen and Amanda these few days anyhow, and watching the way they interact with the people on the street has changed my perspective on how I can help people back in Singapore. The beggars do need money, but showing love is about so much more.
A group of Italians walk by: “No no no no no!” a woman shouts, wagging her finger at Amanda. From the few Italians I’ve talked to, they generally strongly dislike the Romanians in their land. “They’re either beggars or thieves,” said the woman who helped me speak to the police the day my valuables were stolen. She said the guys who stole my stuff were Romanians, too. My passport, laptop, money, all gone because of a clever trick.
We wait for the group to pass by, keeping our gaze down. “Do you want to pray with her?” Carmen asks Amanda when they leave, and Amanda holds both Lianna’s hands, bows her head in silent prayer. Lianna slowly begins to pray, quietly, with petition and sorrowful sincerity. It feels like a song, a beautiful trance almost, with its trembling crescendos and whispers. At last she says “amen”, and takes our hands, kissing them in turn. Amanda makes the sign of the cross on Lianna’s forehead with her thumb.
Another woman we meet on our way back is sitting by a lamppost. She looks up at each passer-by, raising her cupped right hand half-heartedly, a not-too-pleasant look on her face. “I have one more,” Carmen says, and puts down her bag to retrieve a sandwich wrapped in aluminium foil. She thanks Carmen as the girls kneel before her, raises her cup, asks for money. “I’m sorry, I have none,” Carmen says; the woman graciously smiles and puts her cup down. They ask her for her name. “Eleanor,” she says. We note among ourselves later that it sounds like Helena, mother of Constantine.
While we’re waiting for the tram to go back home, an older lady walks towards an empty seat. She is well-dressed and has obviously taken the effort to look beautiful, as Italian women are accustomed to dressing (note for anyone planning to come to Rome: don’t dress shabbily!), but her slow hobbling gives her age away. Another woman takes her seat, so I get up and offer her mine. A waterfall of words immediately burst forth; in the most energetic-yet-tender grandmotherly way, she basically says something to the effect of “no, don’t get up for me; there’s enough space, here, we can share”. I don’t understand a word but I guess from the way she makes space on the bench and the tinkling tone of her voice, so I squeeze on the bench between her and Amanda and smile. She continues speaking, though, a continuous gushing of friendly words. Her speech is a gentle cascading of jewels, glinting as they fall lightly into a stream, but I don’t have the slightest clue what she’s talking about. I’ve heard that the best thing to do in a situation like that is to smile, so I do, really widely. I don’t know what to say so I laugh. Eventually she comes to something that sounds like a question, and as she looks at me expectantly I am given away: “I’m… sorry… I don’t understand…” “No?” she says. She responds one last time in Italian. Later Carmen tells me that her last sentence was “Even though I cannot speak to you, I understand the language of your laughter.”
Jun 8, 2016
May 20, 2016
frustrating gender things (it's 2016 you'd think humanity would be in a better place now but no)
(disclaimer: it's late, my brain is so tired, i might not be v coherent, pardon any long strings of sentences / grammatical errors)
In one previous job, he heard his boss call female colleagues “old cows” and refer to a middle-aged job applicant as “Dame Edna” after she’d left an interview. “Evidently men say things like that to each other all the time,” he says. Other trans men say they’ve heard male co-workers sexualize female colleagues when no women are present. “There’s some crude humor, some crass humor,” says Cameron Combs, an IT consultant in Olympia, Washington. He says he’s heard male colleagues do “appraisals” of women in the office or observe how female co-workers used their “womanly wiles” to rise up the ladder, conversations he says he never would have heard when he was a woman. “When they saw me as female, it was kind of an automatic stop,” he says. “It’s a little less censored, the jokes I hear, the comments.”
“Being privy to the conversations that men have amongst themselves really does give me an indication of how they think about women,” he says. “And sometimes it can be really scary.”
So I read this article.
And I guess, y'know, I should evaluate it. Look at exactly how the survey was conducted, point out possible loopholes. Cultural factors, too - just because it's this way in one culture doesn't mean it's this way in mine.
Because I'm terrified. I'm terrified to imagine how guys think about girls or what guys say about girls when they're in groups, even just a regular female friend. I'm afraid that my gender matters. I'm afraid that my femaleness matters in my friendships with my friends that happen to be male. That there's a factor of sexuality or attractiveness because of it. That I am standing on a rung on a ladder of females and female expectations in a guy's eyes, simply by virtue of being a female. Regardless of where I am on that ladder. That I am put there on that ladder at all irks me. Why can't I just be...a person?
I believe that my guy friends are good people, nice people who don't objectify a girl (or me, anyway). And I trust that good, God-loving Christian guys understand that all people are God's own children and immensely cherished by Him, and that they strive to see women in that manner, to be respectful in their perception / consideration of them. I believe that with my close guy friends (regardless of whether they're Christian or not), those I trust and those I truly chill with, and especially in those friendships where both of us know we'll never get together, there's none of the sexual factor going on. We're past that. I believe that they consider me as a person, and define me by my soul, more than any sexual implications by virtue of the fact that I'm female. Like, my guy friends are my friends not because they're guys, but because we happen to click. Same for my female friends. Duh. If I felt suspicious about the way a guy's perceiving me as a person I probably wouldn't hang around him much. I am uncomfortable when I know that The Fact That I'm A Girl contributes to a friendship.
It makes me thankful that I'm very average-looking / flat-chested / that I blend into the background easily. When random male friends make any remark about my appearance, even if it's a positive one, it makes me want to fight against it. Once a friend said he preferred me with my glasses on. I was pretty pissed off, even though I find wearing glasses more convenient and I only wear contact lenses to look and feel better. I wanted to make it clear that I wouldn't deliberately look a certain way for him, for anyone, and my glasses were my business only. I felt uncomfortable knowing that the way I looked was being noticed at all. Someone else once said they liked that I was skinny, and just that bit skinnier would be perfect. I was irked by the statement then, and if they had said it now, I would have thrown a shoe. I eat what I want to, my body shape isn't anyone else's business, I don't care what you think about it. A guy I was once somewhat romantically close to showed me a chat with his friend; all it said was "goodness man, she looks good!" but I flipped. I was like, the heck, stop objectifying, that's just a picture, what does he know about me. I was legit pissed. Maybe I was overreacting. But I get uncomfortable with the fact that someone is considering my appearance at all (especially if it's because of my gender), and not just seeing past these to the heart, where souls and personalities interact. I realise that I actually am very happy when my guy friends don't notice when I've cut my hair or when I've got makeup on.
Once You Zhuan dropped by my school and I had just gotten back from something and I went to change into a random T-shirt and FBTs and he said "ah, you look a lot more comfortable" and I was thankful. Thankful that he had made no comment about whether I looked better or worse, but simply that I seemed more comfortable in what I was wearing. He wanted me simply to be comfortable. I realise that now I don't care at all how I look when I'm around him, because he doesn't seem to care or notice. (I guess it also helps that he doesn't care what the world thinks of him, what with his extreme social awkwardness and five knives and tattoos and ten-odd piercings.)
I'm thankful for Crescent, four years of no guys. (I actually had no male friends in those four years.) Never being concerned with how I looked in front of a guy or which girl had more male attention, never needing to navigate gender expectations and perceptions as an acne-ridden fourteen-year-old. I am thankful for the experience of the relative homogeneity of a girls' school, and I think it has shaped how I think significantly. They say you can tell a Crescentian from a mile away by the way she sits. Yeah, I'll sit like an uncle if I want to. Why should there be a gendered way of sitting? They say Crescentians are loud and can sometimes be quite coarse. Not very ladylike, y'know, talking a little too loudly, laughing a little crassly, sitting with their feet on the bench. I say that's how one grows up in a world free from gender expectations that don't actually matter. I am loving. I am gentle in spirit. I am generous.* As Jesus is. Why does it matter to you how I sit or eat or laugh?**
The prospect of my male friends thinking about girls, about potentially me, in a gendered way really bothers me. That a guy might look at a female friend with lust or with any sexual factor without her realising. And it's not just about sex. It's about how he sees her, perceives her as a person, subconsciously. How her person matters to him. There's a degree of objectification that I'm uncomfortable with. An attractive woman becomes an object of feasting, of satisfaction, and there's a whole power dynamic going on, okay. It's so much more. (Of course all these is not limited to the male person on the female person. Women do this to guys too. And I disagree with it for the same reasons.)
James Gardner is a newscaster in Victoria, Canada, who had been reading the news as Sheila Gardner for almost three decades before he transitioned at 54. As soon as he began hosting as a man, he stopped getting as many calls from men pointing out tiny errors. “It was always male callers to Sheila saying I had screwed up my grammar, correcting me,” he says. “I don’t get as many calls to James correcting me. I’m the same person, but the men are less critical of James.”
Dana Delgardo is a family nurse practitioner and Air Force captain who transitioned three years ago. Since his transition, he’s noticed that his female patients are less open with him about their sexual behavior, but his bosses give him more responsibility. “All of a sudden, I’m the golden child,” he says. “I have been with this company for 6 years, no ever recommended me for management. Now I’m put into a managerial position where I could possibly be a regional director.”
“As a man, you’re assumed to be competent unless proven otherwise,” she says. “Whereas as a woman you’re presumed to be incompetent unless proven otherwise.”
Okay I was going to type more about this but I've been on this page for 2 hours now and I was supposed to be doing an assignment and now I just want to sleep. But okay. I've never known or experienced this sort of gender discrimination. Perhaps because I was in a girls' school (seriously, the girls' school experience is so beneficial, to a woman's confidence and identity-formation and just, it's good, ok). Perhaps because in ACJC the Students' Council president was a girl (and an incredible one too!) and I was the head of a subcommittee of ten. The four subcomm heads were equally split gender-wise, and both in the Executive Committee and in the entire Council itself, there were considerably more girls than guys. My class had more girls than guys. (It was also an arts class, but I never really interacted with the science classes.) And maybe it's convenient for me that the humanities and my future probable career path in teaching is extremely female-friendly. So no, I've never felt unfairly discriminated against because of my gender; I've never felt like my gender mattered for anything, even for (most of) my friendships, so, yeah, this article frightens me. As I was reading the article I felt like hiding in a hole with a few cats and ducks. I felt scared, suspicious of men (even though I do trust those I'm close to), wary of the future and Other Men and the corporate society that seems to hiss with unfriendliness towards females and the great big Working World where I'll have to dress nice and put on makeup and navigate a completely different social sphere.
ok i'm v tired i need to sleep goodnight
-
*Not always, of course. There are many times I am unloving and ungentle and ungenerous. Not the point. And I'm, y'know, being rhetorical / literary / ya just go with it k
**There are other instances in which being a woman differs from being a man in the biblical sense, when they come together in imitation of the relationship between Christ and the Church. I'm not going into those right now, and that's also far too deep and dense to go into on a space like this, and I also don't know enough as of yet to talk about it here. And that's very different from arbitrary cultural gender expectations, which I am discussing.
In one previous job, he heard his boss call female colleagues “old cows” and refer to a middle-aged job applicant as “Dame Edna” after she’d left an interview. “Evidently men say things like that to each other all the time,” he says. Other trans men say they’ve heard male co-workers sexualize female colleagues when no women are present. “There’s some crude humor, some crass humor,” says Cameron Combs, an IT consultant in Olympia, Washington. He says he’s heard male colleagues do “appraisals” of women in the office or observe how female co-workers used their “womanly wiles” to rise up the ladder, conversations he says he never would have heard when he was a woman. “When they saw me as female, it was kind of an automatic stop,” he says. “It’s a little less censored, the jokes I hear, the comments.”
“Being privy to the conversations that men have amongst themselves really does give me an indication of how they think about women,” he says. “And sometimes it can be really scary.”
So I read this article.
And I guess, y'know, I should evaluate it. Look at exactly how the survey was conducted, point out possible loopholes. Cultural factors, too - just because it's this way in one culture doesn't mean it's this way in mine.
Because I'm terrified. I'm terrified to imagine how guys think about girls or what guys say about girls when they're in groups, even just a regular female friend. I'm afraid that my gender matters. I'm afraid that my femaleness matters in my friendships with my friends that happen to be male. That there's a factor of sexuality or attractiveness because of it. That I am standing on a rung on a ladder of females and female expectations in a guy's eyes, simply by virtue of being a female. Regardless of where I am on that ladder. That I am put there on that ladder at all irks me. Why can't I just be...a person?
I believe that my guy friends are good people, nice people who don't objectify a girl (or me, anyway). And I trust that good, God-loving Christian guys understand that all people are God's own children and immensely cherished by Him, and that they strive to see women in that manner, to be respectful in their perception / consideration of them. I believe that with my close guy friends (regardless of whether they're Christian or not), those I trust and those I truly chill with, and especially in those friendships where both of us know we'll never get together, there's none of the sexual factor going on. We're past that. I believe that they consider me as a person, and define me by my soul, more than any sexual implications by virtue of the fact that I'm female. Like, my guy friends are my friends not because they're guys, but because we happen to click. Same for my female friends. Duh. If I felt suspicious about the way a guy's perceiving me as a person I probably wouldn't hang around him much. I am uncomfortable when I know that The Fact That I'm A Girl contributes to a friendship.
It makes me thankful that I'm very average-looking / flat-chested / that I blend into the background easily. When random male friends make any remark about my appearance, even if it's a positive one, it makes me want to fight against it. Once a friend said he preferred me with my glasses on. I was pretty pissed off, even though I find wearing glasses more convenient and I only wear contact lenses to look and feel better. I wanted to make it clear that I wouldn't deliberately look a certain way for him, for anyone, and my glasses were my business only. I felt uncomfortable knowing that the way I looked was being noticed at all. Someone else once said they liked that I was skinny, and just that bit skinnier would be perfect. I was irked by the statement then, and if they had said it now, I would have thrown a shoe. I eat what I want to, my body shape isn't anyone else's business, I don't care what you think about it. A guy I was once somewhat romantically close to showed me a chat with his friend; all it said was "goodness man, she looks good!" but I flipped. I was like, the heck, stop objectifying, that's just a picture, what does he know about me. I was legit pissed. Maybe I was overreacting. But I get uncomfortable with the fact that someone is considering my appearance at all (especially if it's because of my gender), and not just seeing past these to the heart, where souls and personalities interact. I realise that I actually am very happy when my guy friends don't notice when I've cut my hair or when I've got makeup on.
Once You Zhuan dropped by my school and I had just gotten back from something and I went to change into a random T-shirt and FBTs and he said "ah, you look a lot more comfortable" and I was thankful. Thankful that he had made no comment about whether I looked better or worse, but simply that I seemed more comfortable in what I was wearing. He wanted me simply to be comfortable. I realise that now I don't care at all how I look when I'm around him, because he doesn't seem to care or notice. (I guess it also helps that he doesn't care what the world thinks of him, what with his extreme social awkwardness and five knives and tattoos and ten-odd piercings.)
I'm thankful for Crescent, four years of no guys. (I actually had no male friends in those four years.) Never being concerned with how I looked in front of a guy or which girl had more male attention, never needing to navigate gender expectations and perceptions as an acne-ridden fourteen-year-old. I am thankful for the experience of the relative homogeneity of a girls' school, and I think it has shaped how I think significantly. They say you can tell a Crescentian from a mile away by the way she sits. Yeah, I'll sit like an uncle if I want to. Why should there be a gendered way of sitting? They say Crescentians are loud and can sometimes be quite coarse. Not very ladylike, y'know, talking a little too loudly, laughing a little crassly, sitting with their feet on the bench. I say that's how one grows up in a world free from gender expectations that don't actually matter. I am loving. I am gentle in spirit. I am generous.* As Jesus is. Why does it matter to you how I sit or eat or laugh?**
The prospect of my male friends thinking about girls, about potentially me, in a gendered way really bothers me. That a guy might look at a female friend with lust or with any sexual factor without her realising. And it's not just about sex. It's about how he sees her, perceives her as a person, subconsciously. How her person matters to him. There's a degree of objectification that I'm uncomfortable with. An attractive woman becomes an object of feasting, of satisfaction, and there's a whole power dynamic going on, okay. It's so much more. (Of course all these is not limited to the male person on the female person. Women do this to guys too. And I disagree with it for the same reasons.)
James Gardner is a newscaster in Victoria, Canada, who had been reading the news as Sheila Gardner for almost three decades before he transitioned at 54. As soon as he began hosting as a man, he stopped getting as many calls from men pointing out tiny errors. “It was always male callers to Sheila saying I had screwed up my grammar, correcting me,” he says. “I don’t get as many calls to James correcting me. I’m the same person, but the men are less critical of James.”
Dana Delgardo is a family nurse practitioner and Air Force captain who transitioned three years ago. Since his transition, he’s noticed that his female patients are less open with him about their sexual behavior, but his bosses give him more responsibility. “All of a sudden, I’m the golden child,” he says. “I have been with this company for 6 years, no ever recommended me for management. Now I’m put into a managerial position where I could possibly be a regional director.”
“As a man, you’re assumed to be competent unless proven otherwise,” she says. “Whereas as a woman you’re presumed to be incompetent unless proven otherwise.”
Okay I was going to type more about this but I've been on this page for 2 hours now and I was supposed to be doing an assignment and now I just want to sleep. But okay. I've never known or experienced this sort of gender discrimination. Perhaps because I was in a girls' school (seriously, the girls' school experience is so beneficial, to a woman's confidence and identity-formation and just, it's good, ok). Perhaps because in ACJC the Students' Council president was a girl (and an incredible one too!) and I was the head of a subcommittee of ten. The four subcomm heads were equally split gender-wise, and both in the Executive Committee and in the entire Council itself, there were considerably more girls than guys. My class had more girls than guys. (It was also an arts class, but I never really interacted with the science classes.) And maybe it's convenient for me that the humanities and my future probable career path in teaching is extremely female-friendly. So no, I've never felt unfairly discriminated against because of my gender; I've never felt like my gender mattered for anything, even for (most of) my friendships, so, yeah, this article frightens me. As I was reading the article I felt like hiding in a hole with a few cats and ducks. I felt scared, suspicious of men (even though I do trust those I'm close to), wary of the future and Other Men and the corporate society that seems to hiss with unfriendliness towards females and the great big Working World where I'll have to dress nice and put on makeup and navigate a completely different social sphere.
ok i'm v tired i need to sleep goodnight
-
*Not always, of course. There are many times I am unloving and ungentle and ungenerous. Not the point. And I'm, y'know, being rhetorical / literary / ya just go with it k
**There are other instances in which being a woman differs from being a man in the biblical sense, when they come together in imitation of the relationship between Christ and the Church. I'm not going into those right now, and that's also far too deep and dense to go into on a space like this, and I also don't know enough as of yet to talk about it here. And that's very different from arbitrary cultural gender expectations, which I am discussing.
May 19, 2016
homeless
(disclaimer: the following may sound insensitive to some. Please do give me your opinions if you find it insensitive or offensive, but know that I don't mean it that way; these are just my thoughts and questions being put out there in the open, of a Singaporean girl who comes from quite a comfortable background coming into contact with a country that has a lot of homeless people, something I don't see to this degree back home. There are many people in Singapore who are in need, in terms of finances and much more; but this, here, is in some ways a societal difference that I have yet to wrap my head around.)
cambridge day 2
I'm walking down Bridge Street, waiting to have dinner with Yixuan after she's done with her paper, when a woman stops me: "do you have any change, I'm homeless, I'm just looking to buy a cup of coffee, it was raining, I'm so cold" - at the reminder of the rain I get out my wallet and hand her two pounds. It was indeed raining the whole day. Not a Singapore thunderstorm, just light, rhythmic; but I had spent the afternoon rolling around in bed because of it, and she had to be out here. I would have rather just bought her coffee or soup, but there was no cafe or supermarket nearby.
There are so many homeless people around, and I've been feeling guilty at walking past them without giving them money, so I determined to give today. But it's just sort of odd to me, because many are also seemingly perfectly able-bodied, not old, capable of working. I wonder if a few of them prefer not to work, because they get unemployment benefits; I've heard this more cynical line of reasoning, with anecdotal evidence, from some people. And I personally don't see very many people in Singapore who ask for something for nothing; even a blind man busks; even a wheelchair-bound woman sells tissue packets. (This is also indicative of something terribly twisted and wrong in our own society, though, especially when you think about people who are forced to resort to prostitution or multiple jobs to support their family; I do think that unemployment benefits have a place, and better medical fee coverage / childcare support for those who need it.) They're doing what they can, as long as they're able to, for what you can give. Here...there are so many people just...sitting there, unashamed to ask others for change. I'm a student who earns $6-8 an hour from taking bubble tea orders and transcribing interviews late into the night. During the school term I sleep about 4 hours a night. My flight ticket here was the result of 3 months of part-timing at Koi. And even so I hate asking my parents for allowance when I need it - I'd rather skip meals, even though I know my parents will definitely give me if I ask - so I guess it is strange for me to enter a world where so many people who seem capable of working are sitting around and asking for money.
But then I live in a country with an unemployment rate of under 2% and the third-highest average working hours in the world. A country whose housing prices are sky-high so a large portion of us live with our parents until we're married and eligible for our own flat* (or even after we're married, too; or also forever if we remain single, like my aunt or a couple of my mum's friends). A country of sleepless, overworked, stressed-out individuals who are always chasing, always chasing. A country of people too obsessed with "saving face" to be comfortable with asking others for money. A country where the poor work far too hard, for far too little, just to earn enough to get by, because unlike the UK, we don't have unemployment benefits; if you're fired you don't have a system that will support you. Work is a matter of struggle or death. What do I know about this country and its culture that is different from mine?
Two minutes later I reach the end of the street and stop to look at the advertisement of an Italian restaurant. "Ey," I hear from behind me. I turn back. Two men are sitting on a bench. "You got change?"
I do, I have two more pounds; but I finally ask him the question that I've been too afraid to ask every person who has asked me for money: "why don't you work?"
He doesn't seem to understand me. "Something, you got change?"
"Do you have a job?"
"I'm homeless. See my sleeping bag."
"Why don't you have a job?" He finally understands, I think; he tells me he had an operation. He raises his pant leg to show me the skin graft on his shin, tells me it was from his elbow. The two pounds are his immediately; ah, it must suck, being out of a job and needing an operation like this. He wasn't conscious for four days, broke his ankle for the second time during a pizza delivery job he had previously. He tells me he was from Poland; came here sixteen years ago. "Why did you come here?" "You know Poland." My heart sinks. I come from a country that's all about economic growth, and I often forget how badly most of the EU is doing economically. When I was in Greece in freshman year, it was undergoing its sixth year of recession; youth unemployment rate was over 60%; you could have an MA and be working as a server at Subway; people were tired. For me, a well-educated Chinese from an upper-middle class background in Singapore, I can have a decent income as long as I put in the effort. The policies in my government and the workings of my society support me, don't marginalise me. The economy is doing well, and my parents have stable jobs. I am not discriminated against. There are so many others who try so much harder, but were born in circumstances that don't allow them to thrive.
Twice he invites me to sit on the bench, but I say it's alright; Yixuan's arriving at any minute, and while I'd love to hear more from him, my heart is also a little sad. The guy beside him shouts something presumably in Polish, and they converse loudly for a while; they're probably saying something bad about me, the weirdo Asian girl who's so hung up over a mere £2. Whatever. I'm a college kid; I'm broke, too. The other guy motions towards the Italian restaurant, suggests something in English about treating them to a meal there. "Aye, don't listen to my friend, he's a bit crazy." I smell hard liquor in his breath, and I hope he doesn't spend my money on alcohol. I wish there was a supermarket nearby so that I could get him one of those £3 meal deals. I had one of those yesterday, and the day before, and probably tomorrow... they're cheap, wholesome, and good. A full meal for £3, complete with a smoothie and yoghurt / fruit! I hope the £4 I've given away in the past five minutes will be put to good use. That's more than an hour's work at Koi. £4 is $8, and that's four lunches I can buy back home. (Ananas chicken rice, man. It's quite bad, but it's $2. Or tako balls, or economic bee hoon, or 菜贩 with two veggies and no meat, or lor mai kai. If you're like me, a brokeass college student, you'll know.)
"Buy some bread with the money," I suggest.
"Yes, I will buy something, chips maybe," he replies.
"But chips are not healthy. You can buy bread, or rice, something that will fill you up." I wish there was a Sainsbury's nearby. I'd just get him that meal deal. And, I mean, a baguette at Waitrose is £0.60. A bun at any supermarket's bakery section is less than £1. Come on. You can get a decent box of sushi for £3. Chips don't add any nutrition at all and they don't fill you up. They're a luxury, not something you get when you have nothing. The £3 meal deal is great and delicious, too, and you can find it all around. But he doesn't seem to understand me. "Yes, something. Thank you very much." Ah, forget it. I think when I'm in Rome later in the summer and I'll be buying groceries to cook and stuff, I'll bring around an extra sandwich, or maybe just carry around one of those supermarket meal deals if they have them, for times like these.
"Have a good day," he says in his casual loud tone.
"Thank you," I say softly, so that he doesn't hear. "It's my birthday." I let it quiver in the air, a little wisp of a word, before it vanishes with more of his casual words that roll past me. A ping on my phone: Yixuan has arrived. I fight back tears of frustration and settle my heart. Over dinner Yixuan tells me that she volunteers at a homeless shelter or something on Saturdays; I guess I'll go, too, if they'll let me, just to... just to know.
-
*I recognise that there's also a big problem in the HDB policy, regarding couples that are not considered to be married under Singapore law, single-parent families, etc., basically families that are not what Singapore considers to be the traditional nuclear family. I do feel that something needs to be done about this, but this is not my focus in this particular post sooo yupppp
cambridge day 2
I'm walking down Bridge Street, waiting to have dinner with Yixuan after she's done with her paper, when a woman stops me: "do you have any change, I'm homeless, I'm just looking to buy a cup of coffee, it was raining, I'm so cold" - at the reminder of the rain I get out my wallet and hand her two pounds. It was indeed raining the whole day. Not a Singapore thunderstorm, just light, rhythmic; but I had spent the afternoon rolling around in bed because of it, and she had to be out here. I would have rather just bought her coffee or soup, but there was no cafe or supermarket nearby.
There are so many homeless people around, and I've been feeling guilty at walking past them without giving them money, so I determined to give today. But it's just sort of odd to me, because many are also seemingly perfectly able-bodied, not old, capable of working. I wonder if a few of them prefer not to work, because they get unemployment benefits; I've heard this more cynical line of reasoning, with anecdotal evidence, from some people. And I personally don't see very many people in Singapore who ask for something for nothing; even a blind man busks; even a wheelchair-bound woman sells tissue packets. (This is also indicative of something terribly twisted and wrong in our own society, though, especially when you think about people who are forced to resort to prostitution or multiple jobs to support their family; I do think that unemployment benefits have a place, and better medical fee coverage / childcare support for those who need it.) They're doing what they can, as long as they're able to, for what you can give. Here...there are so many people just...sitting there, unashamed to ask others for change. I'm a student who earns $6-8 an hour from taking bubble tea orders and transcribing interviews late into the night. During the school term I sleep about 4 hours a night. My flight ticket here was the result of 3 months of part-timing at Koi. And even so I hate asking my parents for allowance when I need it - I'd rather skip meals, even though I know my parents will definitely give me if I ask - so I guess it is strange for me to enter a world where so many people who seem capable of working are sitting around and asking for money.
But then I live in a country with an unemployment rate of under 2% and the third-highest average working hours in the world. A country whose housing prices are sky-high so a large portion of us live with our parents until we're married and eligible for our own flat* (or even after we're married, too; or also forever if we remain single, like my aunt or a couple of my mum's friends). A country of sleepless, overworked, stressed-out individuals who are always chasing, always chasing. A country of people too obsessed with "saving face" to be comfortable with asking others for money. A country where the poor work far too hard, for far too little, just to earn enough to get by, because unlike the UK, we don't have unemployment benefits; if you're fired you don't have a system that will support you. Work is a matter of struggle or death. What do I know about this country and its culture that is different from mine?
Two minutes later I reach the end of the street and stop to look at the advertisement of an Italian restaurant. "Ey," I hear from behind me. I turn back. Two men are sitting on a bench. "You got change?"
I do, I have two more pounds; but I finally ask him the question that I've been too afraid to ask every person who has asked me for money: "why don't you work?"
He doesn't seem to understand me. "Something, you got change?"
"Do you have a job?"
"I'm homeless. See my sleeping bag."
"Why don't you have a job?" He finally understands, I think; he tells me he had an operation. He raises his pant leg to show me the skin graft on his shin, tells me it was from his elbow. The two pounds are his immediately; ah, it must suck, being out of a job and needing an operation like this. He wasn't conscious for four days, broke his ankle for the second time during a pizza delivery job he had previously. He tells me he was from Poland; came here sixteen years ago. "Why did you come here?" "You know Poland." My heart sinks. I come from a country that's all about economic growth, and I often forget how badly most of the EU is doing economically. When I was in Greece in freshman year, it was undergoing its sixth year of recession; youth unemployment rate was over 60%; you could have an MA and be working as a server at Subway; people were tired. For me, a well-educated Chinese from an upper-middle class background in Singapore, I can have a decent income as long as I put in the effort. The policies in my government and the workings of my society support me, don't marginalise me. The economy is doing well, and my parents have stable jobs. I am not discriminated against. There are so many others who try so much harder, but were born in circumstances that don't allow them to thrive.
Twice he invites me to sit on the bench, but I say it's alright; Yixuan's arriving at any minute, and while I'd love to hear more from him, my heart is also a little sad. The guy beside him shouts something presumably in Polish, and they converse loudly for a while; they're probably saying something bad about me, the weirdo Asian girl who's so hung up over a mere £2. Whatever. I'm a college kid; I'm broke, too. The other guy motions towards the Italian restaurant, suggests something in English about treating them to a meal there. "Aye, don't listen to my friend, he's a bit crazy." I smell hard liquor in his breath, and I hope he doesn't spend my money on alcohol. I wish there was a supermarket nearby so that I could get him one of those £3 meal deals. I had one of those yesterday, and the day before, and probably tomorrow... they're cheap, wholesome, and good. A full meal for £3, complete with a smoothie and yoghurt / fruit! I hope the £4 I've given away in the past five minutes will be put to good use. That's more than an hour's work at Koi. £4 is $8, and that's four lunches I can buy back home. (Ananas chicken rice, man. It's quite bad, but it's $2. Or tako balls, or economic bee hoon, or 菜贩 with two veggies and no meat, or lor mai kai. If you're like me, a brokeass college student, you'll know.)
"Buy some bread with the money," I suggest.
"Yes, I will buy something, chips maybe," he replies.
"But chips are not healthy. You can buy bread, or rice, something that will fill you up." I wish there was a Sainsbury's nearby. I'd just get him that meal deal. And, I mean, a baguette at Waitrose is £0.60. A bun at any supermarket's bakery section is less than £1. Come on. You can get a decent box of sushi for £3. Chips don't add any nutrition at all and they don't fill you up. They're a luxury, not something you get when you have nothing. The £3 meal deal is great and delicious, too, and you can find it all around. But he doesn't seem to understand me. "Yes, something. Thank you very much." Ah, forget it. I think when I'm in Rome later in the summer and I'll be buying groceries to cook and stuff, I'll bring around an extra sandwich, or maybe just carry around one of those supermarket meal deals if they have them, for times like these.
"Have a good day," he says in his casual loud tone.
"Thank you," I say softly, so that he doesn't hear. "It's my birthday." I let it quiver in the air, a little wisp of a word, before it vanishes with more of his casual words that roll past me. A ping on my phone: Yixuan has arrived. I fight back tears of frustration and settle my heart. Over dinner Yixuan tells me that she volunteers at a homeless shelter or something on Saturdays; I guess I'll go, too, if they'll let me, just to... just to know.
-
*I recognise that there's also a big problem in the HDB policy, regarding couples that are not considered to be married under Singapore law, single-parent families, etc., basically families that are not what Singapore considers to be the traditional nuclear family. I do feel that something needs to be done about this, but this is not my focus in this particular post sooo yupppp
May 6, 2016
to hold one's depth
One night, over beer, we spoke of 'good days' and 'bad days'. You spoke with soft edges, with gentleness like cupped hands, like a quiet fireplace, surrounding, holding my being. On non-bad days, I realise, I don't even think about death. The notion of wanting to die is foreign to me, absurd, peculiarly pitiable. On bad days it is just too hard, life is a burden that is too much to bear, I just want the ache to end.
That's alright, you say. On bad days you cannot summon the particles of strength in the atoms in the fibers of your limbs to get out of bed. Bad days pass like blanks, like gaps in the continuous etching of life, and you have come to accept them.
He is a saucer, a little white porcelain saucer of light soya sauce, and as tenderly precious as he is both as a person and to me, he will not be able to hold my depth the way you do, the way she does, the way /he/ would have been able to, if he had a way to wrap around his own darkness in acceptance and redemption.
(She will hold his depth, though. She will embrace his being, cup around it like a healing balm, and they will make each other better.)
A few days ago, though, I was privileged to catch a glimpse into the saucer's special depth. The soya sauce does have a darker gradient as it approaches its slightly concave middle. He reminded me of someone else, someone who peeled off the exterior, just for me, to uncover his solid-rock foundation, maturity. He taught me a great deal about what it means to be honoured and respected, by others, by myself; and I am forever grateful.
That's alright, you say. On bad days you cannot summon the particles of strength in the atoms in the fibers of your limbs to get out of bed. Bad days pass like blanks, like gaps in the continuous etching of life, and you have come to accept them.
He is a saucer, a little white porcelain saucer of light soya sauce, and as tenderly precious as he is both as a person and to me, he will not be able to hold my depth the way you do, the way she does, the way /he/ would have been able to, if he had a way to wrap around his own darkness in acceptance and redemption.
(She will hold his depth, though. She will embrace his being, cup around it like a healing balm, and they will make each other better.)
A few days ago, though, I was privileged to catch a glimpse into the saucer's special depth. The soya sauce does have a darker gradient as it approaches its slightly concave middle. He reminded me of someone else, someone who peeled off the exterior, just for me, to uncover his solid-rock foundation, maturity. He taught me a great deal about what it means to be honoured and respected, by others, by myself; and I am forever grateful.
Apr 30, 2016
the ~real world~
In twelve months, all I've ever known will come to an end. You've translated the entire Funeral Oration of Pericles from Greek to English. You can write a ten-page paper about the religious practices and beliefs of the Qin dynasty. You could tell someone the distance in kilometres that their apple travelled to get to this supermarket, and how we could lessen our carbon footprint. No one cares. Suddenly it's all about employability. I come from a liberal arts college; I know nothing about marketing or business strategies or finance management... I can make a nice poster on PowerPoint? Point out the grammatical mistakes on a document? Make tea?
Suddenly you have to crawl out of this lovely hole of books and dead languages and ancient religions and... do something that matters to other people. I've been crawling around like a little toddler going to whatever caught my attention - a learning trip to Jerusalem! a course on Tamil poetry! a job at a bubble tea store! a video documentary project! - and now it's time to grow up and Be A Useful Citizen. Suddenly all I've known counts for naught. I've been getting by pretty easily, taking the subjects and courses I loved, studying when the time came and Getting Decent Grades, but it's time to be thrown to ground zero again. Luhong has been spending the past few days in my suite sending out résumé after résumé. Recent NUS Philosophy grad! Hire me! But why would a company care for a fresh grad when they can hire interns, who probably know as much and cost much less?
As I'm on the bus contemplating the lonely disorientation of a liberal arts History major in a capitalist world, a guy diagonally in front of me calls out to an older man in a heavy Chinese accent: "Hi prof! I took your class last semester." "Oh, are you staying in UTown?" "No, I'm in Eusoff." They then proceed to converse in Chinese - gosh, bilingualism fascinates me every time. And I realise - aha. There is yet another way. I could stay in this lovely bubble of books forever. I've always felt more inclined to teaching secondary school kids but, ah, I'm sure to feel suffocated by the system - but there's no way I'm getting a PhD, loljokes - maybe if I were to start my own creative writing school - but NO ONE CARES FOR CREATIVE WRITING BECAUSE IT'S IMPRACTICAL AND LOFTY LIKE THE LIBERAL ARTS ARE -
anw back to studying for my Greek exam i mean what is the point even -
Apr 24, 2016
memento mori
when i die, if you have a memory of me, would you take some time, reach into your heart to retrieve it, hold it in your hands and sit with it awhile? my wake could be in a garden, picnic mats and open mics; you could sing me a song, or recount a memory. i will permit sarah sharing about our childhood sleepovers, sumay sharing about the time i drove her around on her birthday and got us lost for two hours (and dropped her cupcakes), wei liang recalling my half-awake council camp mumbling, james telling everyone about the first time i tried to make indomie. but also, if there was a time i helped you through a thing, or provided comfort and support, or prayed with you, or sowed a good seed in you, would you remember that, too, and allow my death to renew your strength. if i sinned against you, as i have done to many, would you forgive me and cover the hurt with peace.
tuesday afternoon, i rush to scribble Psalm 23 on my notepad as we make our way to the ward. dad tells me to keep my paper, but i'm not done; they'll understand when they receive it.
"you aren't scared, seeing her like that?" her mum asks. why would i be? she smiles, slightly surprised, and nods. as i leave she is opening my letter.
that night i am scheduled to lead a worship meeting in school. once i reach back, though, i head first to the hammock. give my heart space to check itself, give it room to breathe, feed it a few hymns, re-center. it is well, it is well with my soul. at that moment something in my heart clicks. but i know that whatever awaits her is far greater than what this earth could ever hold for her.
wednesday: i wake up to the news that she was struggling to breathe, and then breathed no longer.
friday at the wake, her mum says "thank you for the psalm. it was her favourite."
joel is at the table and my family is engaging him in a conversation about - of all things - army rifles and career prospects in pharmacy. my skin crawls with impatience. as soon as there is a break in the conversation i whisper can i pray for you? an awkward silence at the table. the two of us shuffle towards the front, near the coffin. i curl up in my seat. i breathe, and i pray, at peace, holding the hand of God.
"how are you?" i ask. he pauses. "actually, i'm quite okay." he chuckles. "God has been preparing me for this. It's just that now it's a different season. First it was without the cancer, then with the cancer, and now without Joanna." we talk about our families and campus ministry (turns out he leads NUS Nav?? how did i not know this before) and about God and what it means to shine for Him. he motions to Joanna from time to time.
It's good that I'm more level-headed now, someone's got to be the rational one in the family. It used to be Joanna. Joanna was the one who brought our family close together.
I think it makes a difference when you're able to be that beacon of light for your family. See Joanna, she always made an effort to interact with the older ones. She was always talking to the aunties. And if she didn't make that effort she wouldn't be able to speak into their lives. I think you can do more as a beacon of light where you are, too.
saturday, again, a table of peanuts and smartphones and mindless chatter. jonathan takes a seat, alone, a table away. i am the first one over.
"how are you?"
he says that before the service, his mum was just busy, busy, busy rushing around and doing things. he forcibly took her away from the hall, led her down a path into the woods, and made her have her dinner there. she needed that space, he says. both joel and jonathan echo concern for their mum.
today, just before they put the coffin in the hearse, the family stands by it one more time. joanna's mum is bent over, her fingers tracing the glass, her husband struggling to hold her together.
at the viewing hall her mum is crying. someone says "it's okay, it's okay." but it isn't. it will be okay, but it is not now, and that's okay.
as we leave with hugs i give her mum psalm 91:1. he who dwells in the shelter of the Most High shall rest in the shadow of the Almighty. "Yes," she nods. "You're right. You're very good at memorizing verses eh. When I was a teenager I used to do that. It helps, you know. Comes back to you from time to time, when you don't realise. But it's okay to grieve also, because Jesus wept."
tuesday afternoon, i rush to scribble Psalm 23 on my notepad as we make our way to the ward. dad tells me to keep my paper, but i'm not done; they'll understand when they receive it.
"you aren't scared, seeing her like that?" her mum asks. why would i be? she smiles, slightly surprised, and nods. as i leave she is opening my letter.
that night i am scheduled to lead a worship meeting in school. once i reach back, though, i head first to the hammock. give my heart space to check itself, give it room to breathe, feed it a few hymns, re-center. it is well, it is well with my soul. at that moment something in my heart clicks. but i know that whatever awaits her is far greater than what this earth could ever hold for her.
wednesday: i wake up to the news that she was struggling to breathe, and then breathed no longer.
friday at the wake, her mum says "thank you for the psalm. it was her favourite."
joel is at the table and my family is engaging him in a conversation about - of all things - army rifles and career prospects in pharmacy. my skin crawls with impatience. as soon as there is a break in the conversation i whisper can i pray for you? an awkward silence at the table. the two of us shuffle towards the front, near the coffin. i curl up in my seat. i breathe, and i pray, at peace, holding the hand of God.
"how are you?" i ask. he pauses. "actually, i'm quite okay." he chuckles. "God has been preparing me for this. It's just that now it's a different season. First it was without the cancer, then with the cancer, and now without Joanna." we talk about our families and campus ministry (turns out he leads NUS Nav?? how did i not know this before) and about God and what it means to shine for Him. he motions to Joanna from time to time.
It's good that I'm more level-headed now, someone's got to be the rational one in the family. It used to be Joanna. Joanna was the one who brought our family close together.
I think it makes a difference when you're able to be that beacon of light for your family. See Joanna, she always made an effort to interact with the older ones. She was always talking to the aunties. And if she didn't make that effort she wouldn't be able to speak into their lives. I think you can do more as a beacon of light where you are, too.
saturday, again, a table of peanuts and smartphones and mindless chatter. jonathan takes a seat, alone, a table away. i am the first one over.
"how are you?"
he says that before the service, his mum was just busy, busy, busy rushing around and doing things. he forcibly took her away from the hall, led her down a path into the woods, and made her have her dinner there. she needed that space, he says. both joel and jonathan echo concern for their mum.
today, just before they put the coffin in the hearse, the family stands by it one more time. joanna's mum is bent over, her fingers tracing the glass, her husband struggling to hold her together.
at the viewing hall her mum is crying. someone says "it's okay, it's okay." but it isn't. it will be okay, but it is not now, and that's okay.
as we leave with hugs i give her mum psalm 91:1. he who dwells in the shelter of the Most High shall rest in the shadow of the Almighty. "Yes," she nods. "You're right. You're very good at memorizing verses eh. When I was a teenager I used to do that. It helps, you know. Comes back to you from time to time, when you don't realise. But it's okay to grieve also, because Jesus wept."
Apr 21, 2016
the pit
This is what it looks like.
You find that within you there is a vast, endlessly deep dark pit. It's damp and the starkness of the black makes your skin crawl. You are afraid of yourself. You are too much for yourself to handle, and you believe that no one else would be able to take you, either. You notice others who similarly carry that deep hole within them. You see it, and it makes you turn the other way in fear because you know what depth it is and you cannot deal with one more. Similar poles repel and two negatives attempt to navigate their magnetic fields around one another but the repulsion is overbearing, and you flee. And it makes you want to hide from others, too. You see positivity and you are drawn to it in an instant, but no, oh no, they will never understand, and you hate how your heart has zoomed ahead of you to cling to that light. You cannot do it. Now you have to reach out into that open space to grab your heart and bring it back. It leaves a rip; the heart wasn't ready to let go. But the light is too bright, it will always be uncomfortable on your eyes. Yet the darkness will consume you. You don't like who you are, you don't like that pit, but it is growing and soon the little rational man in your head will be unable to sidestep the hole. You are terrified by who you are becoming and you avoid those who are like you and you also believe no one will like what they see if you show yourself. It is easier to avoid human interaction altogether. It gets cold but you can wrap your arms around your shins and convince yourself it is sufficient.
You find that within you there is a vast, endlessly deep dark pit. It's damp and the starkness of the black makes your skin crawl. You are afraid of yourself. You are too much for yourself to handle, and you believe that no one else would be able to take you, either. You notice others who similarly carry that deep hole within them. You see it, and it makes you turn the other way in fear because you know what depth it is and you cannot deal with one more. Similar poles repel and two negatives attempt to navigate their magnetic fields around one another but the repulsion is overbearing, and you flee. And it makes you want to hide from others, too. You see positivity and you are drawn to it in an instant, but no, oh no, they will never understand, and you hate how your heart has zoomed ahead of you to cling to that light. You cannot do it. Now you have to reach out into that open space to grab your heart and bring it back. It leaves a rip; the heart wasn't ready to let go. But the light is too bright, it will always be uncomfortable on your eyes. Yet the darkness will consume you. You don't like who you are, you don't like that pit, but it is growing and soon the little rational man in your head will be unable to sidestep the hole. You are terrified by who you are becoming and you avoid those who are like you and you also believe no one will like what they see if you show yourself. It is easier to avoid human interaction altogether. It gets cold but you can wrap your arms around your shins and convince yourself it is sufficient.
what a curse
we are drawn to love, and hence to pain. what a curse it is to be born into blood relations and inevitably placed into social settings, to be tied to so many people. if each relation were a string, we are all a messy web of connections, all tied to one another, and we are tugged at from all sides because each loved one's pain is yours, too. what a curse it is to be unable to hurt yourself without hurting others. what a curse to live, and die, and hurt those around you simply because you have come into the world and will have to leave it. humans cannot help but love, and are doomed to have that love ripped from us.
what a desire we possess to hurt ourselves when we draw near in heart to other people. we give them the permission to hurt us, even by doing nothing at all. we look for hands to shove our hearts into, and they will not hold you.
what a desire we possess to hurt ourselves when we draw near in heart to other people. we give them the permission to hurt us, even by doing nothing at all. we look for hands to shove our hearts into, and they will not hold you.
Apr 20, 2016
joanna
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
may legions of angels bear you up
and carry you away to a place that is so much richer in glory, peace, joy, love, and beauty
than this world could ever offer
may legions of angels bear you up
and carry you away to a place that is so much richer in glory, peace, joy, love, and beauty
than this world could ever offer
Apr 17, 2016
no more shame
"Marvellous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well."
Year 1 Sem 1. There was one night in Greece, the bunch of us came to a road-or-pathway, threw all our bags aside, and lay on the ground to marvel at the stars. We were all a mess of legs and arms and heads staring agape in wonder. It was a night of silence, punctuated with the occasional excitement of having seen a shooting star or the scramble to get off the road-or-pathway when we saw headlights round the bend. One of the first comments that were made as soon as we lay down was by Teck Yuke: "wah, must really thank God leh." A comment made with a sigh of awe, gratitude at the beauty of creation, all the greatness of the work of the Creator who also cares for you and me.
"Mm," I quickly and curtly replied, and that was all. I actually felt almost ashamed, like I had to shush a little child, don't say that in front of other people, don't say that here. Why was I ashamed? I had no reason to be: I was there with Yixuan and Baoyun, and other Christians were there too, and... and it was just us, in the dark of night, and we all knew and loved one another.
I realise that I'm totally comfortable with talking about God or praying in a big space when the situation is meant for it, like at a Christian Fellowship gathering or at cell group or when I'm supposed to advertise a CF thing. But I cannot pray in a park, or find peace with God at an open space, or talk openly about God in a random situation, caught off-guard. I never talk about God with my family. I would never randomly say "praise God" in a gathering. I cannot pray in my room or read the Bible in peace unless my door is closed. And I've just been wondering why that is.
If He is God of all, I have no reason to be ashamed.
And so maybe I'll start crawling out of this strange shell by being more intentional about telling people what I want to tell them, praying for / with them and speaking words of love in any situation, and being more comfortable in my own skin.
They say that the thing you see when you look in the mirror is your insecurity. It used to be my Christian identity, a label people put on me, "the CF girl", and it used to make me want to fight against that, "I am more, I am more". One day Yixuan said "but isn't it such a privilege to be representing God?" Now, as I continue to slip up and represent my God badly at times, I want to be His ambassador out of gratitude, out of the knowledge that He is who I belong to, He is all there is of me; His name is the song of every atom of my body and every aspect of my personality, which was crafted by Him.
Apr 2, 2016
Thinking Racially
(Was planning to post about this a long time ago, but a psych study my friend was doing reminded me about it today so here I am finally posting it, when I should be doing my assignment that was due at midnight)
In lower primary my best friend was a girl from China. We would talk on the phone every day. "What are you eating?" "fruit loops! You want some?" "Yes send it over!" *pretends to push fruit loop through the receiver* "Did you get it?" "yes, it's yummy!" We'd go over to each other's houses and play some snowman math game on the computer; her mother would speak in English to my mum, and my mum would reply in Chinese, each sharpening the other.
In Primary 4 I hung out with the cool kids. There was Sharani, Rupini, Aruna, Mardiana, Syazwani, and me. I was the only Chinese in a clique with three Indians and two Malays - I couldn't hang out with the other Chinese kids because... they all spoke Chinese, and I didn't. So I got to hang out with the cool kids. Later on all the Chinese girls also wanted to hang with them, but it got too much, and the original cool kids slunk away - "we're leaving the clique, together" - and the Chinese girls wanted to leave with them, too, but it doesn't work that way, hun.
I never really thought racially when I was young - it was never a thing for me, and no one ever talked about it: not my parents, obviously not my friends. I mean, it was fun to point out our multiracial clique when the topic of racial harmony came out in social studies or whatever, but it didn't really mean anything to me. These people were simply my friends lah. Race didn't mean much, other than the fact that I got to eat yummy chicken at Aruna's house on Deepavali, and that I got green packets on Hari Raya and marvel at Wani's maisonette. We didn't define ourselves by our ethnicities, anyway; we were defined by Hilary Duff and Avril Lavigne and Myuk pencil cases. In Primary 5 Nazeem was all the cool stuff. He rewrote Michael Jackson's Black And White for a National Day song competition in school ("they print our birthday message on the sun / I had to tell them we ate cake durian") and we got first prize!
When racial discourse became a big thing at Yale-NUS, I really didn't get the point of it. I was like, they're megaphoning about a problem that either isn't there, or to an audience that already agrees with them. But then, yknow, I have to check my Chinese Privilege. As a Chinese person I wouldn't see what my other friends might see. So I just took their word for it, and sympathised with the (quite ludicrous and shocking) instances of racism in Singapore that my friends brought up from time to time; and then I started to notice when people around me made passing racist (or prejudiced in any other way) remarks, and it really irked me, and I wished my friends wouldn't say those things, but then I'd be too timid to bring it up. But I hadn't noticed these things before. I guess being in this school allowed me to develop a sensitivity to it.
But then I also realise that because of this discourse, I have begun to think racially. I work at an F&B place, and when a Malay or Indian (or non-English-speaking Chinese, or non-Asian) person comes up to the counter, I notice it. I mean, I don't think anything less; I just notice it. If it's a Malay customer I instinctively try to guess the order, and then I try to stop myself, but I'm usually right anyway. And at first I didn't like how I was thinking racially. No, no, these things didn't even matter to me before. Why are they standing out now? They shouldn't be. If I have always been colour blind then it's a bad thing that because of the racial discourse that has been happening in my school, I have developed colour vision. I don't want to. I want to remain oblivious to colour.
When I was talking about this to a visiting Yalie - "I'm not sure if this is a good thing" - she said "I think it is." And then I started to give it more thought. I recalled the time I gave a Muslim friend Percy Pigs - "everyone likes Percy Pigs!" - it didn't even occur to me that (i) they were gummy pigs, and (ii) they contained gelatin. She pointed it out to me a year later, and I was like, OMG. I AM SO SORRY. And - well - yeah. Being racially aware means you're also being sensitive - unfortunately, it takes being cognisant of one's ethnicity to be able to be considerate towards that person, too. You don't want to forget the Halal needs of a Muslim friend who's coming over, or jio a Hindu friend out for steak, or jio a Muslim friend out for beer. That's just not being sensitive. Like how I do appreciate people being respectful of my religion around me and not swearing with Jesus' name or saying 'omfg' or mocking the Church. Like how early on in freshmen year (perhaps during orientation??) when the school was planning to hold a mandatory event on a Sunday morning, the Christians voiced out their request that the school be sensitive to their religious obligations. Like how all the toilets in Singaporean public schools have bidets for the cultural needs of the Muslims, and how public schools end classes early on Fridays so that the Muslim boys can go for prayer. (sigh, and why can't our school get this right??)
I still hate talking about things racially; writing the first few paragraphs of this post the way I did was quite unnatural and counter-intuitive; even as I was doing my friend's psychology study, I got quite irked at the frequent mention of race. And I don't like seeing people that way, putting a label. But being aware doesn't mean putting it at the forefront, but just knowing to be considerate in that area, and remembering. Imagine - if we were colour blind, we run the risk of assuming everyone is like us.
I realised that as I began to think racially at my F&B job, I also began to make a conscious effort to receive and return money with my right hand when I served Malay customers. It might also have been because of my time in Aceh. But I guess that's an example of where thinking racially does good. Once I gave change with my left hand to a Malay customer and felt quite bad about it. I wanted to be sensitive, I wanted them to know that it mattered to me.
Anw random thought vomit over time to do my overdue essay
In lower primary my best friend was a girl from China. We would talk on the phone every day. "What are you eating?" "fruit loops! You want some?" "Yes send it over!" *pretends to push fruit loop through the receiver* "Did you get it?" "yes, it's yummy!" We'd go over to each other's houses and play some snowman math game on the computer; her mother would speak in English to my mum, and my mum would reply in Chinese, each sharpening the other.
In Primary 4 I hung out with the cool kids. There was Sharani, Rupini, Aruna, Mardiana, Syazwani, and me. I was the only Chinese in a clique with three Indians and two Malays - I couldn't hang out with the other Chinese kids because... they all spoke Chinese, and I didn't. So I got to hang out with the cool kids. Later on all the Chinese girls also wanted to hang with them, but it got too much, and the original cool kids slunk away - "we're leaving the clique, together" - and the Chinese girls wanted to leave with them, too, but it doesn't work that way, hun.
I never really thought racially when I was young - it was never a thing for me, and no one ever talked about it: not my parents, obviously not my friends. I mean, it was fun to point out our multiracial clique when the topic of racial harmony came out in social studies or whatever, but it didn't really mean anything to me. These people were simply my friends lah. Race didn't mean much, other than the fact that I got to eat yummy chicken at Aruna's house on Deepavali, and that I got green packets on Hari Raya and marvel at Wani's maisonette. We didn't define ourselves by our ethnicities, anyway; we were defined by Hilary Duff and Avril Lavigne and Myuk pencil cases. In Primary 5 Nazeem was all the cool stuff. He rewrote Michael Jackson's Black And White for a National Day song competition in school ("they print our birthday message on the sun / I had to tell them we ate cake durian") and we got first prize!
When racial discourse became a big thing at Yale-NUS, I really didn't get the point of it. I was like, they're megaphoning about a problem that either isn't there, or to an audience that already agrees with them. But then, yknow, I have to check my Chinese Privilege. As a Chinese person I wouldn't see what my other friends might see. So I just took their word for it, and sympathised with the (quite ludicrous and shocking) instances of racism in Singapore that my friends brought up from time to time; and then I started to notice when people around me made passing racist (or prejudiced in any other way) remarks, and it really irked me, and I wished my friends wouldn't say those things, but then I'd be too timid to bring it up. But I hadn't noticed these things before. I guess being in this school allowed me to develop a sensitivity to it.
But then I also realise that because of this discourse, I have begun to think racially. I work at an F&B place, and when a Malay or Indian (or non-English-speaking Chinese, or non-Asian) person comes up to the counter, I notice it. I mean, I don't think anything less; I just notice it. If it's a Malay customer I instinctively try to guess the order, and then I try to stop myself, but I'm usually right anyway. And at first I didn't like how I was thinking racially. No, no, these things didn't even matter to me before. Why are they standing out now? They shouldn't be. If I have always been colour blind then it's a bad thing that because of the racial discourse that has been happening in my school, I have developed colour vision. I don't want to. I want to remain oblivious to colour.
When I was talking about this to a visiting Yalie - "I'm not sure if this is a good thing" - she said "I think it is." And then I started to give it more thought. I recalled the time I gave a Muslim friend Percy Pigs - "everyone likes Percy Pigs!" - it didn't even occur to me that (i) they were gummy pigs, and (ii) they contained gelatin. She pointed it out to me a year later, and I was like, OMG. I AM SO SORRY. And - well - yeah. Being racially aware means you're also being sensitive - unfortunately, it takes being cognisant of one's ethnicity to be able to be considerate towards that person, too. You don't want to forget the Halal needs of a Muslim friend who's coming over, or jio a Hindu friend out for steak, or jio a Muslim friend out for beer. That's just not being sensitive. Like how I do appreciate people being respectful of my religion around me and not swearing with Jesus' name or saying 'omfg' or mocking the Church. Like how early on in freshmen year (perhaps during orientation??) when the school was planning to hold a mandatory event on a Sunday morning, the Christians voiced out their request that the school be sensitive to their religious obligations. Like how all the toilets in Singaporean public schools have bidets for the cultural needs of the Muslims, and how public schools end classes early on Fridays so that the Muslim boys can go for prayer. (sigh, and why can't our school get this right??)
I still hate talking about things racially; writing the first few paragraphs of this post the way I did was quite unnatural and counter-intuitive; even as I was doing my friend's psychology study, I got quite irked at the frequent mention of race. And I don't like seeing people that way, putting a label. But being aware doesn't mean putting it at the forefront, but just knowing to be considerate in that area, and remembering. Imagine - if we were colour blind, we run the risk of assuming everyone is like us.
I realised that as I began to think racially at my F&B job, I also began to make a conscious effort to receive and return money with my right hand when I served Malay customers. It might also have been because of my time in Aceh. But I guess that's an example of where thinking racially does good. Once I gave change with my left hand to a Malay customer and felt quite bad about it. I wanted to be sensitive, I wanted them to know that it mattered to me.
Anw random thought vomit over time to do my overdue essay
Mar 17, 2016
siren
she takes a deep breath and reenters the forest. older, wiser, she can do it this time. she views the white petals from a distance. it sings of tenderness that would melt your heart. golden honey drips from within. delicate, it calls out to you, would you be beautiful with me, would you hold me. she edges closer, reaches out to grab its stem-
again, the thorns draw crimson; she flees, never again. years of shoebox rooms to come.
again, the thorns draw crimson; she flees, never again. years of shoebox rooms to come.
Mar 14, 2016
Professor Bate
Do you see how the little flame rushes over the wick, a sliver of blue and dancing yellow? I do not have the eloquence.
As they gave the eulogies I thought to myself, what does it mean that he is gone? Perhaps it was hard for me to comprehend because I didn't see him around much after freshman year; and every time I watch a video of him or simply picture in my mind his exclamations of wonder, his eyes gleaming in fascination, he is alive. I took a class with him, but didn't interact closely with him after that; what would be different now?
The vigil ends and I walk over to the steps, away from the people hugging and crying, and sit down with my candle. The wind is strong now; it threatens, it threatens, and the flame's dance is no longer calm and free. It is fierce. I try and shield the flame but the wind is too strong and the flame is amok and it shouts it thrashes and it's gone.
In that instance I understand.
As the sliver of smoke disappears I walk back to the circle of Class of 2017ers. There is a special peace within our circle, and President Lewis comes over to join us. Linh's flame goes out too; a gasp; she bursts into tears.
Kavya walks past me and I am reminded of why I love her name. I encountered the word in his An Anthropology of Literary Culture class. The first day I met Kavya I exclaimed "I know what that means! Kavya means song!" - well, I guess more of 'sonnet', or poetry - but Barney Bate lives in her name for me; every time I think of the name it is wrapped in beauty.
A couple of days ago when the news broke, as I prayed for him on the train, I got this image of a lively procession, vibrant saris and blaring instruments, the atmosphere filled with much colour and life as he had, a celebratory farewell. He was a man larger than life, and his contagious energy transcends regions, transcends time; in every remembrance of him there is gratitude and joy.
Jan 1, 2016
healing
"the light will find its way through your cracks."
there are red knife slit marks down our arms, split to reveal raw shiny flesh. but there is a ball of light slowly growing within us, and it finds it snaky way through the cuts, slowly spills out like trickles of blood. the light will seep through the slits and cover our wounds like a warm healing balm. as i kneel before the Lord empty and dry may His light wrap around all of me.
there are red knife slit marks down our arms, split to reveal raw shiny flesh. but there is a ball of light slowly growing within us, and it finds it snaky way through the cuts, slowly spills out like trickles of blood. the light will seep through the slits and cover our wounds like a warm healing balm. as i kneel before the Lord empty and dry may His light wrap around all of me.
headlights
we are a city, zooming, swinging, chasing every car. we are every atom and every cirrus cloud, skyscrapers and fruit trees, our touch is the electricity that runs through the thick black wires and powers the entire grid. your hand is the heart-stopping beat, your voice is song, and i am all the stars in your eyes.
we are duvets by fireplaces, the stitches in the fabric. bookshelves, nietzsche and rousseau, greek and the little prince and dante alighieri. two girls would be nice (”you sexist!”), bethel and aleithia. ‘house of God’, ‘the truth’: what we are, and what our lives are to radiate.
when your sneakers leave their tracks on the off-white tiles and you leave behind a trail of empty, words are all i have left.
i love words. i want to curl up in them and hold them close to my chest. i want to run my fingers over each one, memorise them, breathe them in. how mysterious it is that a little phrase makes one tremble.
your voice is a melody, your voice is warm and it wraps around me and a part of me detests that.
a summer drive away from dying; a broken heart, nothing to lose
i know it hurts so bad just trying to please the ones you hate to love
and i wrote this note about someone i used to know
so i’d remember how life can be so short when you’re left alone to wonder
how it is someone opens and shuts the door
i know you’re cold, but come home
it’s a shame how short we all have come
you set your mind on cruise control; knuckles grip the wheel in fear to let it go
love is empty, love is cruel, love it blindly breaks the rules
how could you have been a fool? it’s something all of us go through
you choke back tears and swallow lies but those wiper blades won’t fix your eyes
count on having clouded vision for at least a little while
we are duvets by fireplaces, the stitches in the fabric. bookshelves, nietzsche and rousseau, greek and the little prince and dante alighieri. two girls would be nice (”you sexist!”), bethel and aleithia. ‘house of God’, ‘the truth’: what we are, and what our lives are to radiate.
when your sneakers leave their tracks on the off-white tiles and you leave behind a trail of empty, words are all i have left.
i love words. i want to curl up in them and hold them close to my chest. i want to run my fingers over each one, memorise them, breathe them in. how mysterious it is that a little phrase makes one tremble.
your voice is a melody, your voice is warm and it wraps around me and a part of me detests that.
a summer drive away from dying; a broken heart, nothing to lose
i know it hurts so bad just trying to please the ones you hate to love
and i wrote this note about someone i used to know
so i’d remember how life can be so short when you’re left alone to wonder
how it is someone opens and shuts the door
i know you’re cold, but come home
it’s a shame how short we all have come
you set your mind on cruise control; knuckles grip the wheel in fear to let it go
love is empty, love is cruel, love it blindly breaks the rules
how could you have been a fool? it’s something all of us go through
you choke back tears and swallow lies but those wiper blades won’t fix your eyes
count on having clouded vision for at least a little while
Dec 16, 2015
giving up a person
28 nov, in response to drew
“you don’t want things hard enough.” that is true; also I am very pessimistic with regard to any sort of interpersonal relations. And the way you pursued her was remarkable, bordering on crazy. Years of despair, that long letter you pleaded with me to help you write that we never finished. You never wanted to give up hoping. I thought you were being stupid. Kept telling you to just get over it, since she already had.
but I don’t think it’s a bad thing, either, that I, through tears and days of lying in bed, can find it in myself to give things up. God gives; God takes away; may the name of the Lord be praised. It might not even have to do with God, or be because of Him. Regardless, He will carry me through every season, and not disregard the life and plans that I put in His hands. Ultimately it is not only about the journey between me and another person; there is no husband or wife in heaven; as Carmen says, marriage is an icon, a window into the divine union between Christ and the Church. What do I lose if I lose a person romantically? Ultimately the journey is about Christ, and He doesn’t leave. We don't bring our earthly marriage with us into eternity, but we bring the holiness that the spouse has helped to develop in us.
What about the pain? Can I forgive?
I have gotten to know some very beautiful people these few years, beautiful for the richness of the lives that they have revealed to me. I am thankful to have known them; that is all. I leave their lives, and mine, in Your hands; no future can go wrong there.
“you don’t want things hard enough.” that is true; also I am very pessimistic with regard to any sort of interpersonal relations. And the way you pursued her was remarkable, bordering on crazy. Years of despair, that long letter you pleaded with me to help you write that we never finished. You never wanted to give up hoping. I thought you were being stupid. Kept telling you to just get over it, since she already had.
but I don’t think it’s a bad thing, either, that I, through tears and days of lying in bed, can find it in myself to give things up. God gives; God takes away; may the name of the Lord be praised. It might not even have to do with God, or be because of Him. Regardless, He will carry me through every season, and not disregard the life and plans that I put in His hands. Ultimately it is not only about the journey between me and another person; there is no husband or wife in heaven; as Carmen says, marriage is an icon, a window into the divine union between Christ and the Church. What do I lose if I lose a person romantically? Ultimately the journey is about Christ, and He doesn’t leave. We don't bring our earthly marriage with us into eternity, but we bring the holiness that the spouse has helped to develop in us.
What about the pain? Can I forgive?
I have gotten to know some very beautiful people these few years, beautiful for the richness of the lives that they have revealed to me. I am thankful to have known them; that is all. I leave their lives, and mine, in Your hands; no future can go wrong there.
Nov 30, 2015
Nov 29, 2015
Suicide
I received this text at midnight today, and my heart swelled with relief, gratitude, joy. Love, I remember the night before it happened, I was at the lift lobby in school and you called me crying and I was like what and you said I really want to die....the sky looks so beautiful....... and I was like do you want me to come to your house and I remember very distinctly that you quickly went no, no, you're having your exams, I want to sleep now, I'm going to hang up, goodnight. and I thought, what if you were to die, and I hadn't done what I could.
The next day you texted me to say that you were going to the hospital because you wanted to die and you thanked me for being a friend. My first thought was "thank God you're going to the hospital; they won't let you do anything to yourself." But you refused to pick up my calls and answer my texts when I asked which hospital you were going to. I even tried a different number, used Peiyun's phone. Peiyun said you were probably going to Alexandra Hospital. I was getting ready to set off, and then thank goodness you replied to say that Alexandra was indeed where you were headed.
I walked in, I saw you sitting in a chair from a distance. Your expression was blank, calm. I held your hand. You started to cry.
I stood with you, hugged you, grasped your hand, prayed with you, waited a long while before the ambulance arrived. I sent an email to my professors from my phone asking for essay deadline extensions. Even took a sombre photo in the ambulance as proof for my profs, lol. We spent the next week at the Institute of Mental Health.
Because we arrived at 10pm, I couldn't stay for long, since visiting hours were over. But even then the atmosphere was overbearing, toxic. When I got back to school I just felt like there was so much poison in me. I went to Daryl's room, sat on his floor and cried and prayed with him. I needed to detox. Let all the terrible energy seep into the floor, leave the stream of my soul, leave through the pores on my skin. Thank God I could even leave the place; I was merely a visitor. You had to stay there, every twenty-four-hour day, day in, day out. How could anyone keep sane in that place. There were double-grills on the windows. It wasn't a place to heal; it was merely a place to prevent people from killing themselves. You said the first time they brought you up from the basement to Level 1, you cried at the sight of trees. I remember the day they allowed me to take you out of the ward for an hour, you were so excited, so excited, the open space and air was life to you. You were released the day your dad returned from Nepal - on your 21st birthday.
I love you, you are so dear to me, and I'm glad that you've become so much better this year. I can't believe it's been a year. You are so much healthier now, you have learnt to appreciate the simple pleasures, to love good food and stuffed animals, to know that you are loved too, just in different ways from what you might expect. You've begun to experiment with makeup, and I'm glad that it boosts your self-confidence, and I'm glad that you also know that you don't need it. You exercise regularly now. You go for swims and bicycle rides. Your new job still has annoying people, but it's tolerable, and you like what you do, you like Chemistry, you like seeing the colours swirl. The day you renovated your room, replaced the too-big bed and got a swing chair, I was so proud of you. You did a thing for yourself, it was good, it was healthy, it was something you were proud of.
To you who are reading this, whoever you are, please don't keep it all in. The black emotions stored within will only make you a pressure cooker and the tension will have to be released somehow - you may release what's within through the blade on flesh, or through thrills that should never have been, or through purging, or through other means of defiling your body that is beautiful, pure, sacred, holy, created in the image of God, worthy of all respect and honour and dignity. These things will not heal your soul. Or maybe you find everything meaningless, in light of so much pain and the gaping hole within - maybe suicide is what you are considering, because this life is not worth saving, only to endure decades more of agony. Please, just talk to somebody, let somebody be there. You might not see the worth in an unhappy life but you don't know what's up ahead until you get there, and with death there is no turning back, never.
My friend here was at the point of death this day last year, and look, since then she has found the beauty all around her and taken delight in things that are healthy. Sometime half a year ago I too wished for death; I think it was pressure on all sides weighing in on me, but things just hurt so much, I just wanted it all to end. But then the summer came, and things got so much better, and I read books about the problem of pain and about the beauty of solitude and the Christian hope, hope in eternity and eventual justice and the Greatest Love, that gives us an unshakeable joy even in the saddest of times. Joy that this is not the end; that we know Love and justice have the final victory.
To you who are reading this, please, talk to somebody, allow someone to keep you company. And I, also, am just a text or Facebook message or door knock away.
Nov 14, 2015
Crescent Dance SYF 2007
(Wrote this thing for an informal ten-minute descriptive writing exercise sometime this year, happened to come across the file today, thought I might as well put it up.)
(Ngh, was contemplating not putting the video here because the quality's so bad, but haaayyy gold with honours HAHA. My heart still races just watching it, remembering all the practices in the school hall, watching the amazing seniors practice the really difficult and tiring and beautiful sections again and again.)
Pitch black. The emcee announces the name
of our school, our anthem of pride, a legion of beautiful and courteous young
women, the mark of dignity and grace. We rush out to the stage, small nimble feet, each girl carrying a white box with bold red flames painted on two
sides. We don't need the stage lights or markings on the floor to know where to
stand – we have rehearsed this a million times, etched it on the back of our
minds. Our bodies know the number of strides to make, the number
of seconds it would take. We run, smooth and graceful as swans, our red skirts
trailing behind us. Gather in formation, groups of four across the dark stage.
I can’t see my little circle of four, but I know where they are. We stack our boxes without
making a sound. Lie down, curled around the boxes in a loose fetal
position, my head on someone’s thighs, someone else’s head on mine. Anticipate.
It’s actually quite a comfortable position.
We’ve done it several times during nap breaks at dance camps, our thighs serving as one
another’s pillows. It’s always a curious sight, girls giggling as they sleep in circles. You all have to lie down at the same time, or someone’s head
will end up without a pillow. It makes for a cute picture; it speaks of family.
Silence now, and a deep breath. It is still dark. My makeup is heavy on my untrained, fourteen-year-old skin. The floor is
cold; my spine trembles. I cannot help but grin for the world: it has begun. The music
comes on, a slow drumming beat, the tinkling of metal beads. It makes one think
of the rainforest, of dewy green leaves and magical lights. A girl begins to
sing, and the spotlight comes on. I am facing the back of the stage, but there,
curled on the floor, I know that the lead dancer is beginning to rise. Her hands are cupped
as if in anticipation of fire, and she is swaying dramatically according to the
beat and the eerie song. I lie there, soaking in the energy of the music. My
time is now.
(Ngh, was contemplating not putting the video here because the quality's so bad, but haaayyy gold with honours HAHA. My heart still races just watching it, remembering all the practices in the school hall, watching the amazing seniors practice the really difficult and tiring and beautiful sections again and again.)
Places
We never really leave a place, or a person. A bit of an exchange goes on - it leaves its imprint with us, and we leave a bit of our souls there. Labrador Park is full of memories for me: it's where I go when I need to escape the confines of school. Most recently I was there past midnight, the lights from the ships shrouded in haze, a guitar's melody blending with the crash of the sturdy waves. We were lying on the ground, my thoughts and tears going to a special person I once knew, a person I hope to meet again. The Esplanade waterfront is my favourite hangout spot in Singapore. I brought HY there - him getting all excited at drinking beer underage, asking for a picture and all - and Sabri, and Max before he went back to Germany. The Kallang River is where James and I played with sparklers last week. A beautiful, peaceful place I've never been to before. Every time I walk past Red Dot Traffic Museum I desire to go in and walk through the corridors where OB Music Forest used to be. Music classes there used to be the best part of my week, goofing around and singing acappella and squealing over JJ with the best companions. Those were beautiful years, when we foolish teenagers were unapologetically, unashamedly, absolutely hilariously ourselves. I also lost my first kiss in that lift.
I was only in Krakow, Poland for a week, but how I love that place, how many beautiful memories were made there because of friends I made on the free walking tours. The day Isaac and I decided to brave the thunderstorm to get to the Schindler's Factory with my flimsy umbrella, we got fantastically lost and ended up in a place so dull they had put an advertisement over it on the map. Bar-hopping with Isaac and Jack, roaming around the square on my own, going on all those amazingly insightful tours. My current phone wallpaper was taken in Krakow. It's a stencil mural in the Jewish quarter - the Jews in Krakow witnessed terrors of an unimaginable scale, with Auschwitz being just a short distance away, and only a tiny remnant of them remains. The mural is of a timid Jewish boy, made afraid by the atrocities of only a few decades ago, who must remember his identity: he wears the headdress of the lion of Judah. Remember who God has called you to be. Put on the identity of your destiny; be courageous and strong, for He is Jehovah Nissi, the God our Banner.
Even places that you're not too fond of also stick to you. I didn't exactly love my Banda Aceh internship, and I did not enjoy bathing with a pail or not having a toilet flush, but bits of Banda Aceh still feel like home to me - the coconut juice corner and the egg murtabak man and the incredible avocado juice, the supermarket, riding on the backseat of a scooter with a spoilt helmet. Watching the kids do simple English exercises on the floor of the porch, the afternoon light casting its yellow veil. I was only there for five weeks, but part of it feels like home, strangely, somehow.
I think what sparked this post was my thoughts about the Paris incident. This morning we awoke to shocking news, terrible news. It is currently 7.30am in Paris. The city is shrouded in blue morning chill, but the silence today does not speak of peace. The silence this morning is of terror, fear, mourning. I don't know many people from France, and I've never been there, but we live in an age without borders. Many many terrible things have been happening all around the world, and what can one do but ask for God to give us hearts of compassion, to keep ourselves bowed in prayer; to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly.
Even places that you're not too fond of also stick to you. I didn't exactly love my Banda Aceh internship, and I did not enjoy bathing with a pail or not having a toilet flush, but bits of Banda Aceh still feel like home to me - the coconut juice corner and the egg murtabak man and the incredible avocado juice, the supermarket, riding on the backseat of a scooter with a spoilt helmet. Watching the kids do simple English exercises on the floor of the porch, the afternoon light casting its yellow veil. I was only there for five weeks, but part of it feels like home, strangely, somehow.
I think what sparked this post was my thoughts about the Paris incident. This morning we awoke to shocking news, terrible news. It is currently 7.30am in Paris. The city is shrouded in blue morning chill, but the silence today does not speak of peace. The silence this morning is of terror, fear, mourning. I don't know many people from France, and I've never been there, but we live in an age without borders. Many many terrible things have been happening all around the world, and what can one do but ask for God to give us hearts of compassion, to keep ourselves bowed in prayer; to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly.
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