It is probably hard for people to understand what I mean exactly by the above statement. But people who live it will know. It reaches the stage where you live in a house, but you feel like a tenant. Just another guy renting a room at the back, with the door bolted shut so people just leave you the hell alone.
Of all the troubles you can have, living in a turbulent family is the worst. It is the only one you cannot run from. It is also the one people are least able to understand, because every family is different.
It just becomes tiring dealing with all the shit you have to deal with every day before you leave the house, so that before you're out of the gates, you're already half the person you are. And that much more ready to snap. It becomes so much easier to deal with people outside, because first of all, they aren't that unreasonable, and secondly, you only see them for so long every day, even if they are.
And you dread going home, because you know the shit is just going to continue. I would rent a room but I'm not drawing pay. I would live with my friends but sooner or later they would not be my friends any more.
One day I will be free from all this.
C'est en faisant n'importe quoi qu'on devient n'importe qui
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
I am a Hong Kong Girl with 公主病 (Gung Jyuh Behng) - Cantonese Word of the Week!
Freaking hilarious. Must watch.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
The FYP
I hear this three letter word being bandied around too much these days. And it is often accompanied by a cacophony of groans, whines and mellifluous bodily noises. The last mainly because some were so busy doing FYP they actually forgot to eat. Very common.
Now, an FYP is an absolute crapshoot. You know all those horror stories your seniors told you about it? They were being merciful, bless their souls, because what they said was simply the tip of the iceberg. Some things, words will not suffice. In fact, nothing in the known world can express it. It is like a black hole that sucks in your time and energy, giving you nothing but an inky blackness in return, so that when you look at it, you can't help but wonder where all that effort went.
Somehow the teachers have also figured that FYPs are best done with other school commitments as well, their reasoning being that you have a whole year to do it. Or actually, just eight months. But here's the thing. Do you realise most of them have never done an FYP? Ah-ha! They can't possibly even know what it really entails.
At the end of it, if you're lucky, it will be the best thing you did all four years, the magnum opus of your training at WKWSCI. An illustrated feature story, a film that challenges you to think, or a successful event. You will be one of those smiling people wearing their convocation robes in polaroids, where the robes simply obscure the fact that really, "nobody knows the trouble I've seen."
Or, it could be just shit, so that you'd rather forget it ever happened. Or mindnumbingly average, destined to be consigned into the dark depths somewhere in the annals of the ACRC, to be unearthed by an archaeological team someday like the Italians did with Pompeii of Mount Vesuvius. The only difference is, even then they might decide that your report is better used as firewood.
"Yo Monty, check this out. It's a school report."
(flips through contents)
"On the other hand, let's just pretend we didn't see it."
It starts out normally like any other school project, and then it morphs into something else entirely. Beginning as an amorphous blob, it soon grows arms and legs in all directions and before you know it, it is a thirty foot monster with a hundred arms and even more legs. Heck, it even grows manparts and ladyparts, so it can constantly reproduce itself.
And the worst thing about the FYP is really how it just hangs around, like a case of someone farting in the lift. Even after the offending source is gone, a toxic cloud of it lingers, getting caught up in the air circulation.
The FYP. As pleasant as someone letting it rip.
I've had friends complaining about how they live, breathe and dream about it. But you know, breathing in bad air has a tendency to affect your general wellbeing, so you start becoming irritable and highly strung. You become one of those people that always go "Don't talk to me about FYP!" and five minutes later, voila, you bring it up again, because you can't help it. It has a vicegrip on your mind, your life, and everything in between.
And you know how they always say that shit happens? Well, in FYPs, shit is the building block, it is literally the foundation of all FYPs. Shit doesn't just happen, you can be sure that at every step of the way you will be overwhelmed by it. And when you take a microscope and zoom into each block, you can be sure that each block of shit is really composed of granules of even more... you guessed it - shit.
A lot of it comes from being a student and being expected to produce a work of professional quality. Most of the time, people don't even give you a chance, simply because you are a student. You had no problems at all in internship producing the work, because people trusted your organisation. As a student, you can be the very same person, but people just don't trust you so it is hard to get anything done without being exploited or conveniently ignored.
And it is often the things that you think are going fine that end up becoming the shittiest. After all, nothing screws up your day more than thinking you settled something, only to have a call come in just five minutes before H-Hour telling you that the roof is on fire, the firemen are all drunk in some strip club somewhere, and a dog just chewed on all the fire hoses so they all leak. If I were an employer, I would hire the fixers in FYP groups, simply because they tend to be the most adept problem solvers.
It is like wearing fur boots into a cow pasture, experiencing the kind of feeling you get from watching it stick onto the boots and getting entangled in the millions of minuscule fibres, over and over, knowing that you will never get it off in this life. The shit that happens doesn't just happen, it stays with you, gnawing away at your sanity. Soon you will be chewing bark and pontificating to random people, if it doesn't kill you first.
I think the best measure of just how shitty an FYP really is would be this. If you were to put a gun to me and say "Your life, or you do FYP", I'd take the gun and do the shooting myself.
Now, an FYP is an absolute crapshoot. You know all those horror stories your seniors told you about it? They were being merciful, bless their souls, because what they said was simply the tip of the iceberg. Some things, words will not suffice. In fact, nothing in the known world can express it. It is like a black hole that sucks in your time and energy, giving you nothing but an inky blackness in return, so that when you look at it, you can't help but wonder where all that effort went.
Somehow the teachers have also figured that FYPs are best done with other school commitments as well, their reasoning being that you have a whole year to do it. Or actually, just eight months. But here's the thing. Do you realise most of them have never done an FYP? Ah-ha! They can't possibly even know what it really entails.
At the end of it, if you're lucky, it will be the best thing you did all four years, the magnum opus of your training at WKWSCI. An illustrated feature story, a film that challenges you to think, or a successful event. You will be one of those smiling people wearing their convocation robes in polaroids, where the robes simply obscure the fact that really, "nobody knows the trouble I've seen."
Or, it could be just shit, so that you'd rather forget it ever happened. Or mindnumbingly average, destined to be consigned into the dark depths somewhere in the annals of the ACRC, to be unearthed by an archaeological team someday like the Italians did with Pompeii of Mount Vesuvius. The only difference is, even then they might decide that your report is better used as firewood.
"Yo Monty, check this out. It's a school report."
(flips through contents)
"On the other hand, let's just pretend we didn't see it."
It starts out normally like any other school project, and then it morphs into something else entirely. Beginning as an amorphous blob, it soon grows arms and legs in all directions and before you know it, it is a thirty foot monster with a hundred arms and even more legs. Heck, it even grows manparts and ladyparts, so it can constantly reproduce itself.
And the worst thing about the FYP is really how it just hangs around, like a case of someone farting in the lift. Even after the offending source is gone, a toxic cloud of it lingers, getting caught up in the air circulation.
The FYP. As pleasant as someone letting it rip. I've had friends complaining about how they live, breathe and dream about it. But you know, breathing in bad air has a tendency to affect your general wellbeing, so you start becoming irritable and highly strung. You become one of those people that always go "Don't talk to me about FYP!" and five minutes later, voila, you bring it up again, because you can't help it. It has a vicegrip on your mind, your life, and everything in between.
And you know how they always say that shit happens? Well, in FYPs, shit is the building block, it is literally the foundation of all FYPs. Shit doesn't just happen, you can be sure that at every step of the way you will be overwhelmed by it. And when you take a microscope and zoom into each block, you can be sure that each block of shit is really composed of granules of even more... you guessed it - shit.
A lot of it comes from being a student and being expected to produce a work of professional quality. Most of the time, people don't even give you a chance, simply because you are a student. You had no problems at all in internship producing the work, because people trusted your organisation. As a student, you can be the very same person, but people just don't trust you so it is hard to get anything done without being exploited or conveniently ignored.
And it is often the things that you think are going fine that end up becoming the shittiest. After all, nothing screws up your day more than thinking you settled something, only to have a call come in just five minutes before H-Hour telling you that the roof is on fire, the firemen are all drunk in some strip club somewhere, and a dog just chewed on all the fire hoses so they all leak. If I were an employer, I would hire the fixers in FYP groups, simply because they tend to be the most adept problem solvers.
It is like wearing fur boots into a cow pasture, experiencing the kind of feeling you get from watching it stick onto the boots and getting entangled in the millions of minuscule fibres, over and over, knowing that you will never get it off in this life. The shit that happens doesn't just happen, it stays with you, gnawing away at your sanity. Soon you will be chewing bark and pontificating to random people, if it doesn't kill you first.
I think the best measure of just how shitty an FYP really is would be this. If you were to put a gun to me and say "Your life, or you do FYP", I'd take the gun and do the shooting myself.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
because you are young and invincible - part deux
It was an innocuous enough phone call, once again.
"Hey, I'm gonna need your help to drive."
"Oh the van ah, no problem. I'm used to it already."
"No, this time its a big truck."
"What! You're kidding right? You sure its Class 3 license not."
"No, I'm not. I'm sitting in it right now. The driver says its Class 3."
And that was how I landed up driving a Isuzu truck out of a HDB parking lot at 3am in the morning. As much as I was relieved to find out it wasn't one of those ridiculous Malaysian "Kendaraan Panjang" kind of long trucks, there was no question of a rear-view mirror. The back of the truck was a huge metal box with 4 padlocks, the kind people use to transport furniture, frozen food and the like.
This is a picture of what the truck was like.
You know, as a guy, you always want to test your limits, but driving weird random vehicles is not exactly the way to go about it. The idea is to stay alive so you can brag to people after.
I had my fair share of close shaves, but the good thing about a truck is, you own the road. If you want to change lanes, nobody is going to fuck with you. You can squash them into pecan pie and you probably wouldn't even realise it because behind you is an armoured metal box. Add the fact that you don't have any idea what's behind you, you could pretty much make ten pecan pies and still not realise a thing. I saw a dead cat and after my truck rolled over it it was dead pecan pie. Da-dump. 70km/h in a tank babeh!
It was a cat, which means that it had ceased to be cat some time ago. So no animals were harmed in the production of this article, in case you're a reader who also doubles up as an animal activist. Before you go all crazy on me, let me remind you that I'm also an animal.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that the truck was actually easier to drive than the van, but in a typical lucky fashion, I drove it right out of the carpark right into a police roadblock. I swear I panicked when I saw the police officer start to walk over towards the lorry. And the only thing my friend said was "Quick drive! Drive! Don't let him stop us!" Good thing it wasn't like GTA where if you try to ram a cop with a truck you get a one-star rating, because I sure as hell wasn't ready to have five or six police cars on me.
Later I found out why the police officer was probably walking over. I'd forgotten to switch on my headlights. I was really lucky that he had not taken down the license plate number. And a minute after I'd switched it on, my friend who was driving her car called me to say "Hey your headlights aren't on!"
I told her I knew, before I realised that all four of my limbs were doing distinctly different things. My left leg was on the clutch, the right on the accelerator, my right hand on the steering wheel, and my left hand on the phone. And my eyes? They were also on the phone, trying to end the call, because it was a touchscreen phone.
I think I made a very interesting right turn right about there. I went from the right most lane into the left most lane, before cutting across two lanes into the right most lane again. Once again, I was lucky it was 3am, before the pattern I'd just traced across the roads resembled a driver on coke, and I don't mean Coca-Cola.
However, only on the expressway did I find out the real problem with the truck. When you learn driving, the thing they always tell you is when the vehicle is too slow change down the gear so the vehicle doesn't drag on the wrong gear. Well, that was what I did when I went into a slip road.
After I'd changed the gear, the engine made this weird sputtering noise, and all of us in the cabin felt the distinct whine associated with a loss of power. I rammed the accelerator, trying to kick the engine into life, but all I succeeded in doing was producing an angry RRR! out of the truck. The speedometer never even went above 20km/h.
I think I had changed the vehicle down from 5th gear to 2nd, because I was unfamiliar with the gearbox. I swore like a sailor, which did little to inspire confidence in my friends who were sharing the cabin with me, and I also started mashing the stupid gearstick around, which made some very weird noises. Kind of like mechanical chafing, the kind that usually causes sparks to fly out. But to no avail. The truck just died on me.
And that was how a lorry came to block up a slip road one lane wide on an expressway. You know, people don't normally stop on expressways. I have a feeling that it is supposed to be illegal. If a fatimah had showed up then, like how fatimahs always show up when you least want them to to hand you a summons, I think she would have made enough commission to feed her five kids for the next month and still go on the haj.
I eventually managed to drive the truck to my friend's place, where we had to unload some props, only to find that the truck still had something in store for me. At the back of that truck is a huge metal box. Inside the metal box, as you can imagine, is pitch dark. So obviously, somewhere in there there must be a light switch. What they don't tell you is, IT'S A TRAP!
Flipping the light switch one way switches on the light. Flipping it the other way sounds the horn. And no matter what, by the divine rule called Murphy's Law, the first time you flip that switch, it will be the horn.
And hence some estate in Pasir Ris got a full blast of a truck horn at 4am in the morning. I am very thankful that nobody threw a crate of eggs down, but I think my life expectancy was shortened by five minutes from the shock.
But yes, now I am officially van and truck enabled.
"Hey, I'm gonna need your help to drive."
"Oh the van ah, no problem. I'm used to it already."
"No, this time its a big truck."
"What! You're kidding right? You sure its Class 3 license not."
"No, I'm not. I'm sitting in it right now. The driver says its Class 3."
And that was how I landed up driving a Isuzu truck out of a HDB parking lot at 3am in the morning. As much as I was relieved to find out it wasn't one of those ridiculous Malaysian "Kendaraan Panjang" kind of long trucks, there was no question of a rear-view mirror. The back of the truck was a huge metal box with 4 padlocks, the kind people use to transport furniture, frozen food and the like.
This is a picture of what the truck was like.
You know, as a guy, you always want to test your limits, but driving weird random vehicles is not exactly the way to go about it. The idea is to stay alive so you can brag to people after.I had my fair share of close shaves, but the good thing about a truck is, you own the road. If you want to change lanes, nobody is going to fuck with you. You can squash them into pecan pie and you probably wouldn't even realise it because behind you is an armoured metal box. Add the fact that you don't have any idea what's behind you, you could pretty much make ten pecan pies and still not realise a thing. I saw a dead cat and after my truck rolled over it it was dead pecan pie. Da-dump. 70km/h in a tank babeh!
It was a cat, which means that it had ceased to be cat some time ago. So no animals were harmed in the production of this article, in case you're a reader who also doubles up as an animal activist. Before you go all crazy on me, let me remind you that I'm also an animal.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that the truck was actually easier to drive than the van, but in a typical lucky fashion, I drove it right out of the carpark right into a police roadblock. I swear I panicked when I saw the police officer start to walk over towards the lorry. And the only thing my friend said was "Quick drive! Drive! Don't let him stop us!" Good thing it wasn't like GTA where if you try to ram a cop with a truck you get a one-star rating, because I sure as hell wasn't ready to have five or six police cars on me.
Later I found out why the police officer was probably walking over. I'd forgotten to switch on my headlights. I was really lucky that he had not taken down the license plate number. And a minute after I'd switched it on, my friend who was driving her car called me to say "Hey your headlights aren't on!"
I told her I knew, before I realised that all four of my limbs were doing distinctly different things. My left leg was on the clutch, the right on the accelerator, my right hand on the steering wheel, and my left hand on the phone. And my eyes? They were also on the phone, trying to end the call, because it was a touchscreen phone.
I think I made a very interesting right turn right about there. I went from the right most lane into the left most lane, before cutting across two lanes into the right most lane again. Once again, I was lucky it was 3am, before the pattern I'd just traced across the roads resembled a driver on coke, and I don't mean Coca-Cola.
However, only on the expressway did I find out the real problem with the truck. When you learn driving, the thing they always tell you is when the vehicle is too slow change down the gear so the vehicle doesn't drag on the wrong gear. Well, that was what I did when I went into a slip road.
After I'd changed the gear, the engine made this weird sputtering noise, and all of us in the cabin felt the distinct whine associated with a loss of power. I rammed the accelerator, trying to kick the engine into life, but all I succeeded in doing was producing an angry RRR! out of the truck. The speedometer never even went above 20km/h.
I think I had changed the vehicle down from 5th gear to 2nd, because I was unfamiliar with the gearbox. I swore like a sailor, which did little to inspire confidence in my friends who were sharing the cabin with me, and I also started mashing the stupid gearstick around, which made some very weird noises. Kind of like mechanical chafing, the kind that usually causes sparks to fly out. But to no avail. The truck just died on me.
And that was how a lorry came to block up a slip road one lane wide on an expressway. You know, people don't normally stop on expressways. I have a feeling that it is supposed to be illegal. If a fatimah had showed up then, like how fatimahs always show up when you least want them to to hand you a summons, I think she would have made enough commission to feed her five kids for the next month and still go on the haj.
I eventually managed to drive the truck to my friend's place, where we had to unload some props, only to find that the truck still had something in store for me. At the back of that truck is a huge metal box. Inside the metal box, as you can imagine, is pitch dark. So obviously, somewhere in there there must be a light switch. What they don't tell you is, IT'S A TRAP!
Flipping the light switch one way switches on the light. Flipping it the other way sounds the horn. And no matter what, by the divine rule called Murphy's Law, the first time you flip that switch, it will be the horn.
And hence some estate in Pasir Ris got a full blast of a truck horn at 4am in the morning. I am very thankful that nobody threw a crate of eggs down, but I think my life expectancy was shortened by five minutes from the shock.
But yes, now I am officially van and truck enabled.
Monday, February 07, 2011
Mission impossible
My latest school assignment is about designing a website to promote NTU as a arts and cultural hub.
Since when did they start grading the impossible? I mean, it is okay if you want me to promote the artistic and cultural aspects of NTU, but trying to rebrand it as a hub is kind of stretching it.
Just because Singapore likes to slap the word "hub" on anything that is three buildings of the same type clustered together doesn't mean that NTU automatically qualifies as a hub for arts and culture just because it has an auditorium for holding arts performances, or a fancy glass building with grass on its roof and none on the ground.
If that were the case, all those hair care centres would all be arts hubs, because they can grow grass where there weren't any before.
The problem is, this assignment is actually graded. So it means that as a student, you start to dig into your deepest reserve, the endless capacity to bullshit. Any student worth his salt knows it. When you have an exam question that asks you for five factors and you only remember four, you simply rephrase the fourth and use it as the fifth.
It also calls for another skill, a very simple one, simply called "never say it as it is". If your school has a violin club with 10 members in it, call it an orchestra. If it has a dance club, call it a masterclass in movement. If there are a series of shit boring academic lectures coming up, rebrand it as "once-in-a-lifetime talks by distinguished faculty of prestigious institutions highlighting important social issues". Wait, NTU already does that.
Damn, you know something is wrong when they do that and still nobody turns up.
Notice I didn't mention anything about the website design part of it. That is because designing a website is actually possible, even if I have to outsource the damn thing because of my lack of website creation skills.
I fear that even with my skill at trying to pull a fast one over the eyes of the unsuspecting lecturer, this assignment is doomed to failure. My only reprieve is that since it is a bell curve system, it is now about who dies a more dastardly death.
Since when did they start grading the impossible? I mean, it is okay if you want me to promote the artistic and cultural aspects of NTU, but trying to rebrand it as a hub is kind of stretching it.
Just because Singapore likes to slap the word "hub" on anything that is three buildings of the same type clustered together doesn't mean that NTU automatically qualifies as a hub for arts and culture just because it has an auditorium for holding arts performances, or a fancy glass building with grass on its roof and none on the ground.
If that were the case, all those hair care centres would all be arts hubs, because they can grow grass where there weren't any before.
The problem is, this assignment is actually graded. So it means that as a student, you start to dig into your deepest reserve, the endless capacity to bullshit. Any student worth his salt knows it. When you have an exam question that asks you for five factors and you only remember four, you simply rephrase the fourth and use it as the fifth.
It also calls for another skill, a very simple one, simply called "never say it as it is". If your school has a violin club with 10 members in it, call it an orchestra. If it has a dance club, call it a masterclass in movement. If there are a series of shit boring academic lectures coming up, rebrand it as "once-in-a-lifetime talks by distinguished faculty of prestigious institutions highlighting important social issues". Wait, NTU already does that.
Damn, you know something is wrong when they do that and still nobody turns up.
Notice I didn't mention anything about the website design part of it. That is because designing a website is actually possible, even if I have to outsource the damn thing because of my lack of website creation skills.
I fear that even with my skill at trying to pull a fast one over the eyes of the unsuspecting lecturer, this assignment is doomed to failure. My only reprieve is that since it is a bell curve system, it is now about who dies a more dastardly death.
Saturday, February 05, 2011
"Just A Dream" by Nelly - Sam Tsui & Christina Grimmie
A really amazing cover of "Just a Dream" by Nelly.
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Bak Kwa!
I love Chinese New Year. I mean, how can you not. I am conditioned to respond with enthusiasm at the sight of bright red angpows. Just like how Pavlov conditioned his dog all those years ago, only that I do it at a higher level, with more subtlety and small talk and less salivating.
But I have to admit that this CNY, I really felt my age. Where did all these little kids come from. I could have sworn that just a year ago, they didn't exist. Wait, you know what, they really didn't. And suddenly I have to play with a whole coterie of babies, clasping their tiny little hands, even smaller feet, and I have to contend with their slightly older siblings calling me uncle. And their beaming grandparents handing those little critters over to me, saying "Come, let uncle carry you. Boy, don't kick around. Look at uncle, boy ah. Look at uncle."
"Yah, smack your backside then you know." That last phrase was from me. I mean, I like kids but how do you engage a baby that doesn't even want to look at you. What I do sometimes is feed them peanut shells when their grandparents aren't looking. They really seem to love it. It's salty and fibrous after all, makes a good chew toy.
No, I'm really kidding. Their grandparents would kill me for that. But I did feed a toddler some. His mom later fished it out of his mouth, and smacked his butt. He will never eat another peanut shell again. One learns best from the school of hard knocks.
But well, I am still not used to being called "uncle". I am just 24 years old. Uncle used to be what I called other people, and they have always been those who hid in corners or pretended to be extremely interested in whatever was showing on television while their wives were busy making small talk. It gets quite funny sometimes when something like "Enchanted" is showing on television for the kids' entertainment and you see your 50-ish uncle straining to try and follow the inane sappiness of it.
And in another sign that things have changed, my peers have started giving me angpows and asking when it will be my turn to get married so they can save the angpow on me. And all my uncles and aunties start looking at me and going "Next one your turn ah. My son and daughter all married already. When can I attend your wedding dinner? Hahaha."
Very funny meh? How come I'm not laughing. I felt obligated to at least make a half-smile and laugh a little, but it came out like "hurhur" which didn't really do much to convince them that I was really very amused by their question.
There was a really funny moment this CNY though. A cousin of mine took out this list of formal addresses for relatives in Chinese that he printed off the Internet, saying that everyone should start learning how to call each other so it was more polite. You know, like what you call your second aunt's husband's sister on your father's side, that kind of nonsense. After awhile, he looked at the English translations, and he proceeded to say this.
"Aiyah, just call everyone auntie and uncle la. It's so much easier."
Precisely. Because CNY is the time when you meet all these random relatives that you probably wouldn't know from another person on the streets, and yet you have to pretend to be cordial because somehow by some stroke of fate you are in the same house.
So you have to make conversation with someone you could hardly care less about, and ditto for them, and pretend that you are genuinely interested that their kid is attending the same course you are, that they had a really tough time in the army, that their son ran away with their life savings and so on. I was talking with one of my more distant cousins, and the conversation ran into many awkward pauses, not least because I really didn't know what to fill it with, and same for them.
I mean, I can do small talk, but for most small talk, you have the option of saying bye and walking away when you run out of stuff to talk about. When its CNY, you can't leave till its polite to do so, which can be anywhere from half an hour to an hour. An hour of small talk between two disinterested parties is probably something you could milk for comedic effect because of all the badly spaced pregnant pauses and hanging sentences, if only you weren't the person stuck in it.
"So, I heard that you are studying now."
"Yes, I am studying mass communications at NTU."
"Wah, your English must be very good." (Seriously, why is this all they ever say about people who do mass comm? It is so not true.)
"Erm yah."
*awkward pause*
And this is when the humble angpow, the ambassador of goodwill, makes an entrance, so they can save further awkwardness.
But they then struggle to find the right filler phrase to say. Should it be "学业进步" because they can't be sure if you're still studying? Should it be "快高长大" because they are unsure if you are still a teenager? Yes, I still pass off convincingly as an A level student, I have good genes. Or should it be "心想事成" because you're already working? As a matter of fact, I got all three from different people, and I couldn't care less because all I cared about was that red packet they were holding.
I think I might have scared a few of them by being a little too eager to take the packet out of their hands before they had finished saying their filler phrase, which was quite obvious because their fingers were still gripping tightly to the angpow when I pulled on it. I know I have this crazed loopy grin when I want something really badly. It freaks the shit out of people, or so I've been told.
And the angpow comes into good use because the other favourite pastime of CNY is gambling. Your parents will normally chk you when you try to gamble, but during CNY, they are the ones opening the house and inviting people to gamble.
Only at CNY. Huat ah!
But I have to admit that this CNY, I really felt my age. Where did all these little kids come from. I could have sworn that just a year ago, they didn't exist. Wait, you know what, they really didn't. And suddenly I have to play with a whole coterie of babies, clasping their tiny little hands, even smaller feet, and I have to contend with their slightly older siblings calling me uncle. And their beaming grandparents handing those little critters over to me, saying "Come, let uncle carry you. Boy, don't kick around. Look at uncle, boy ah. Look at uncle."
"Yah, smack your backside then you know." That last phrase was from me. I mean, I like kids but how do you engage a baby that doesn't even want to look at you. What I do sometimes is feed them peanut shells when their grandparents aren't looking. They really seem to love it. It's salty and fibrous after all, makes a good chew toy.
No, I'm really kidding. Their grandparents would kill me for that. But I did feed a toddler some. His mom later fished it out of his mouth, and smacked his butt. He will never eat another peanut shell again. One learns best from the school of hard knocks.
But well, I am still not used to being called "uncle". I am just 24 years old. Uncle used to be what I called other people, and they have always been those who hid in corners or pretended to be extremely interested in whatever was showing on television while their wives were busy making small talk. It gets quite funny sometimes when something like "Enchanted" is showing on television for the kids' entertainment and you see your 50-ish uncle straining to try and follow the inane sappiness of it.
And in another sign that things have changed, my peers have started giving me angpows and asking when it will be my turn to get married so they can save the angpow on me. And all my uncles and aunties start looking at me and going "Next one your turn ah. My son and daughter all married already. When can I attend your wedding dinner? Hahaha."
Very funny meh? How come I'm not laughing. I felt obligated to at least make a half-smile and laugh a little, but it came out like "hurhur" which didn't really do much to convince them that I was really very amused by their question.
There was a really funny moment this CNY though. A cousin of mine took out this list of formal addresses for relatives in Chinese that he printed off the Internet, saying that everyone should start learning how to call each other so it was more polite. You know, like what you call your second aunt's husband's sister on your father's side, that kind of nonsense. After awhile, he looked at the English translations, and he proceeded to say this.
"Aiyah, just call everyone auntie and uncle la. It's so much easier."
Precisely. Because CNY is the time when you meet all these random relatives that you probably wouldn't know from another person on the streets, and yet you have to pretend to be cordial because somehow by some stroke of fate you are in the same house.
So you have to make conversation with someone you could hardly care less about, and ditto for them, and pretend that you are genuinely interested that their kid is attending the same course you are, that they had a really tough time in the army, that their son ran away with their life savings and so on. I was talking with one of my more distant cousins, and the conversation ran into many awkward pauses, not least because I really didn't know what to fill it with, and same for them.
I mean, I can do small talk, but for most small talk, you have the option of saying bye and walking away when you run out of stuff to talk about. When its CNY, you can't leave till its polite to do so, which can be anywhere from half an hour to an hour. An hour of small talk between two disinterested parties is probably something you could milk for comedic effect because of all the badly spaced pregnant pauses and hanging sentences, if only you weren't the person stuck in it.
"So, I heard that you are studying now."
"Yes, I am studying mass communications at NTU."
"Wah, your English must be very good." (Seriously, why is this all they ever say about people who do mass comm? It is so not true.)
"Erm yah."
*awkward pause*
And this is when the humble angpow, the ambassador of goodwill, makes an entrance, so they can save further awkwardness.
But they then struggle to find the right filler phrase to say. Should it be "学业进步" because they can't be sure if you're still studying? Should it be "快高长大" because they are unsure if you are still a teenager? Yes, I still pass off convincingly as an A level student, I have good genes. Or should it be "心想事成" because you're already working? As a matter of fact, I got all three from different people, and I couldn't care less because all I cared about was that red packet they were holding.
I think I might have scared a few of them by being a little too eager to take the packet out of their hands before they had finished saying their filler phrase, which was quite obvious because their fingers were still gripping tightly to the angpow when I pulled on it. I know I have this crazed loopy grin when I want something really badly. It freaks the shit out of people, or so I've been told.
And the angpow comes into good use because the other favourite pastime of CNY is gambling. Your parents will normally chk you when you try to gamble, but during CNY, they are the ones opening the house and inviting people to gamble.
Only at CNY. Huat ah!
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