A Time To Drive

I remember sitting in my university one day, and the lecturer was talking about reflexes.

There are two kinds of reflexes. Firstly, there are those that are natural, which is inbuilt into us as humans. Take for example, accidentally brushing your hand against a boiling pot.

All your brilliantly designed neurones will send a message to one another in a matter of miliseconds and your hand withdraws before your brain even has a chance to say "Er, excuse me, Mr. Cheok. If I may please distract you from your girl ogling for just a moment, and draw your attention this way... this way, please, to your burning hand. Could you please, erm... PULL IT THE *(%^ AWAY!!!"

And then there are reflexes which are learnt - the ones that you become good at after years of doing something, like riding a bike for example, until you can do it without really thinking. There are four stages to this reflex:

Unconscious incompetence

• You think to yourself - Riding a bike must be the easiest thing in the world. Look at your five year old neighbour, Loong Loong, happily showing off his crazy bike skills, riding circles around your teenage non-cycling ass, ringing his stupid little bicycle bell mockingly in your face. Stupid runt. I'll show him.
  

Conscious incompetence

• You think to yourself - Oww. This bicycle riding crap is hard! I have fallen off this stupid thing so many times, I've got grass in my nostrils. And there is sand in the cuts on my legs. And in the battle of Bicycle Seat vs. My Groin, let's just say that my future generations are a threatened species.
  

Conscious competence

• You think to yourself - I'm finally doing it! Look Mum, I can finally ride! Whoa, steady there, Mr. Bike. Steady! There, there (pats the bike handlebars calmly, whips his hair out and connects it to the bike using his Tsahaylu). Okay, left, Mr. Bike! Now, right! Now, straight!

Unconscious competence

• You don't really even have to think to yourself .You are one with the bike. There is no bike. There is only me. And there is me knocking over Loong Loong while ringing my bell.
  

Your body learns to do it so well that you could literally "do it in your sleep."

Which brings me to my point:



One of the reflexes that most of us learn in our lifetimes is the driving reflex. I remember wishing that I could drive, finding out that I couldn't, getting palpitations and sweating at the thought of driving into KL city, and finally being able to zip past cars on the Federal Highway without even having to lift a middle finger.

However, since working nights at the ED, I have been travelling home really tired some mornings, and nodding off in the car. It is a dangerous thing, I know. You pull up at a traffic light. There are cars stopped ahead of you. You see these cars in a two-second stroboscopic effect.

Eyes open.
Car with brake lights on.
Eyes close.
Eyes open.
Car with brake lights on.
Eyes close.
Eyes open.
Crap! The light is green, and the car in front has moved really far ahead!

And then you hurriedly press your accelerator, hoping that the car behind you doesn't honk you impatiently. You turn the aircond a little colder, turn the music a little louder, and pinch your nipples. Whatever keeps you awake.

Your reflexes are dulled by your lack of sleep. Reaction times are slower, which is a dangerous thing. Which is why I have resorted to pulling over and taking a nap sometimes which helps somewhat, although not completely. Other times I foolishly try to brave it home.

I think about my sister, and her 36 hour shifts and driving home after that. All I can say is, dear God, would you please look after us.

Amen.

The Hospital's Littlest Pharmacist

One of the stories from my time in the little town of M:

The doctor picked up his file and looked at his name on the screen. The diagnosis sitting under his name stated that he was "anxious, agitated, thinking bad thoughts."

He was the doctor's first patient that night, and as he walked into the room, he saw the patient sitting on the bed, holding his head in his hands, leaning against the metal plating that reached halfway up the wall.

He was dressed in a dirty white singlet, looking all of his twenty nine years, with a baseball cap covering his cropped hair. He looked like he hadn't showered in days, but the doctor decided that he had seen (and smelt) worse.

The doctor asks the perfunctory questions, whether he was on any medications or had any medical problems. What do you do? the doctor asks by way of making conversation.

Oh, I am involved in you know, my own business, he replies.

Oh good, so you've got your own business eh? the doctor echoes.

What kind of business?

The patient hesitates. Let's just say it's my own business, and I do my best.

So, what's been going on, the doctor asks, sensing that the patient wanted to avoid the subject of work. He starts to talk, and he tells about the stresses going on in his life. About how he's feeling like smashing stuff up, you know, because he's sick of it all. The cops are on my case, you know, when all I am trying to do is make a living.

The doctor's face betrays his curiosity - what kind of job would cause the police to be involved. And suddenly like clockwork everything clicks into place.

The eyes.

The earrings.

The tattoo on his right arm where the doctor had stabbed a Valium needle to calm the patient down.

The metal plate which the patient was leaning against. He was the reason that the metal plate was there. The last time the patient was restrained in this very room he had kicked a hole in the wall.

This was the town's local drug dealer.

The doctor asks him what has brought him here tonight. The guy starts speaking, and as he speaks his face flushes red and his arms gestured strongly. His speech is controlled, with threatening undertones, as he tells his story about how he had an argument with his mother earlier in the day, and overturned the table outside her house. He was sorry, you know, but he can't undo what he's done.

The doctor stands at the table near the exit, listening and gently probing, as a flurry of stories continue. He talks about his past, and how he is now living in his car, and about how he wants to go away somewhere and just be away from people. Maybe lead a quiet farm life. Get away from his family and friends who are troubling him.

And then he talks about the troubled thoughts that have been plaguing him - he gets really upset when he hears from his friends about children getting beaten up or sexually abused, and a few graphically violent crimes happening in town.

He uses his drugs to escape, you know. To pass the hours while waiting for the world to change.

He talks about his ex-partner, and how he drove about an hour away to see her and his newborn child. And how she wouldn't let him in. And so he punched a hole in the door. And then the police came because he had violated his restriction order. He was sorry, you know. He is silent as his eyes well up with tears at the thought of the child he will not see grow up, apart from glimpses from afar.

The doctor ponders the drug dealer from the safe distance of his table. Why should he believe him? He knew what this guy was like the last time he came in. And when the doctor spoke to the psychiatric team, they recognised his name immediately and their response was one of resignation and blaseness.

And yet, in his heart, the doctor felt that here was someone, who was not that different from him.

Who wants to love, and be loved, and live in a world free of trouble and stories that raise questions about our humanity. But someone who didn't have the emotional maturity or resources to deal with it in an adult way.

And so the doctor, not knowing what else to do for him, does the only thing he knows how, and he offers to pray for the patient. The patient is taken aback, but accepts his offer.

The doctor knows that nothing else can save all the years of poor choice that this person has made, nor can he provide the constant support that this person will need, and in his helplessness, he can only offer the help of a higher authority who is all-knowing, all-loving and all-powerful.

I wish I could tell you there was a ray of light that night, a bedside conversion, a miracle. All I can say is, the patient walked out better than when he first came in, and maybe we must claim these small victories in life, and learn to fight another day.

What Karen Did 2: Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Dear Mum,

I hope that you have had a happy Chinese New Year, and do remember that this is the sixth year of ang pau that I am still waiting on.

I am expecting a very big packet next year. Like an A4 size one.

It was a good but tiring New Year's for us... I was in the middle of working a seven day shift while Karen worked really hard to prepare us a wonderful home-made dinner for a bunch of us on the first night of Chinese New Year.

She really worked her kitchen fingers to the bone, as you can see - there's a fish, braised beef, fried chicken (which became beer chicken after we spilled some beer on it. It was a purposeful accident), some yummy soup, stir-fried asparagus, and - would you believe it - lobak (or ngoh hiang) made from scratch.

We finished off with a wonderful dessert made by Wency, her equally talented housemate. It was a refreshing lychee and mango pudding. Yummy!

Both you and Grace were missed very much this Chinese New Year, and we wish that you were here to try out all these wonderful dishes. We made it as Chinese New Year as we could by buying peanut cookies, peanuts, peanut ice-cream and every peanut thing that we could get our hands on. As you can see, no Chinese New Year is complete without the compulsory lychee and chyrsanthemum drinks from our good friend Yeo Hiap Seng.

I miss your vegetarian dish, though, Mum. It was always a sure sign of Chinese New Year - the fatt choi, the dried foo chook, and the fungi all mixed up with other ingredients I would happily eat but could barely name here. As you can see, we have not upkept the tradition of eating vegetarian on the first day of Chinese New Year. There was at least four different animals on that table that night.

Anyway, have a happy rest of Chinese New Year in Malaysia... I have heard that fireworks are now legal again in Malaysia. Could you please buy some so that we can save it up for when I come back next year in Christmas? It would surely give Santa a fright, and maybe we can steal his presents.

Your loving son,
hK.

What Karen Did

The new bedroom look: New bedspread, new table, new cupboard, new chair, new facial expression

I know that this post has been awhile coming, but I have been busy with this new hobby of mine: regular work. (Give me back last year!)

But trudging back to Melbourne from Malaysia, with the chains of nostalgia still heavy around my feet, I followed Karen up to my bedroom to unpack.

The first thing that I noticed amiss was that a shelf of mine, which used to be in the bedroom, was sitting out in the landing, and gone were the boxes I kept my piles of in-case-of-emergency-break-cardboard-box trash which I was going to sort through one day.

But walking into the room, and hearing Karen yell "Surprise!", I was really taken aback by the transformation that she had undertaken while I was away.

I could finally see my bedroom floor.

All my books were neatly stacked, and there was this awesome new computer table as well! Sneaky as she was, Karen had managed to enlist the help of a friend, Charles, and my brother to give my room a much needed Extreme Makeover with the help of our good friend Mr. Ikea.

And so now my room has a different feel. The light enters in a different way, there is more space to move around, and even Lillian Too, feng shui master (mistress?) extraordinaire would approve, saying that the wind and water flow is now causing the dragon to rouse from his slumber and eat the phoenix for breakfast. (Why do people even pay money for this?)

Anyways, a very big thank you to everyone who directly or indirectly conspired with Karen to make my room that little more liveable!

Happy Chinese New Year!

Year of the Memoirs of a Geisha Tiger .


I know it's a little premature, but I would like to wish you all a Happy Chinese New Year.

May it be one filled with wooden crates which give you splinters as you try to get to the kam trapped inside.

One filled with Yeo's Chrysanthemum Tea and Lychee drinks, visiting relatives, watching recent Hong Kong blockbusters on the TV, repetitive painful Chinese New Year songs in the supermarkets, new clothes, mahjong tables and playing cards, your lucky red underwear winning you heaps of money, Chinese New Year cookies, and heaps of lo sang. And enough ang paus to make your own ang pau paper fan.

Kong Hei Fatt Choy!

Someone please put me in a crate and send me back to Malaysia!

Aku Tahu Apa Yang Aku Buat Musim Panas Lepas*

Well, this week, my year off has officially ended. I think that it has truly been a fulfilling year, as I have written in my earlier entry, which culminated in the trip to Europe (which I promise will be up, within the year, haha!) and Singapore, and a wonderful month in Malaysia.

It was a truly magnificent trip back to Malaysia this time, and a really fulfilling one. These were some of the things that I managed to get up to:

1) Spending quality time with the family. I truly appreciate being back home. Even if it means just sitting in the living room in the mornings, reading The Star newspaper and leisurely filling in the cryptic crossword puzzles, or talking to Mum under the ceiling fan. I also love reading a good comic book on my bed (Shin Chan!) and it's great to be able to do that when you're almost t__ty!(_0!) years old.

We also had a great trip to Genting Highlands as a family, where we got to enjoy meals together (ie. Kenny Roger's Roasters with the repetitive werewolf howl from the nearby haunted house driving us absolutely insane) and getting to watch a movie together (Bodyguards and Assassins, which was quite a good watch) and this:



Absolute utter madness for the whole day. No outdoor ride was spared as we queued up for all the rides while Mum sat patiently for us, waiting for the horrible news that her three children were stuck up somewhere in the Space Shot, or thrown off the Corkscrew. Although I must say that she was really sporting and joined my brother on the violently swinging Pirate Ship. It was a day of near-death experiences on every ride and screaming out expletives in every language at the top of our lungs!

And yes, I have officially hooked them all onto the soundtrack of Avenue Q. My brother is still waiting to kill me for permanently burning The Internet Is For Porn into his head.

There was of course, the wonderful dinner with the extended family, and also a trip to Ipoh, where we met cousins who were so-many-times-removed until we were possibly not related anymore!

Our uncle kindly took us around in his car to show us the sights of all the wonderful small towns near Ipoh - from the dilapidated and haunted small town of Papan, to the kuih-muih town of Pusing, to the wonderful seafood lunch at the mining town of Tualang and finally, to my mother's home town in the little known town of Chemor.

Oh, and guess what - we actually got to visit the famous town of Tanjung Rambutan, which till today is still synonymous with the psychiatric institute there. I remember as kids, when we wanted to say indirectly that someone had lost their marbles, we would affectionately tell them to go to Tanjung Rambutan.



My uncle tried to drop me off several times but they wouldn't take me.

2) Spending time with friends. It was a really satisfying time of catching up, from listening to a good friend's testimony in his new church, to the lunch and dinner catch-ups with old friends which I always look forward to when I go home.

I always love trading stories with all my friends in Malaysia, to find out where everyone is in this year of their life. It is like having a stroboscopic relationship where you hear and see your friends grow year by year. I feel this great sense of comfort and belonging as we weave our stories and shared memories together. In many ways, they do complete the person that I am.

3) Cleaning up the house. I have spent a tiny fortune on photo albums, such that the people in Popular bookstore have been sending me flower wreaths thanking me for putting their children through college.

I am glad to have been able to clean up our wonderful home in TD, rearranging all our photos, throwing away decades old stuff, and also getting inspired by my little sister to actually wipe away thirty year old dust bunnies. These weren't dust bunnies anymore. They were more like Resident Evil Dust Zombies. Or Dustzilla.

We sold thousands of ringgit worth of old electronic goods to an electronic scrap man for the grand total of - wait for it - ninety ringgit. Four monitors, three CPUs, one big TV, an electronic typewriter and a fax machine. Ninety ringgit. I should have welded everything together, and hawked it off as an art piece for millions instead. Or started my own haram ma kei (illegal electronic horse-racing betting) centre.

4) Movies! Unlike my last visits to KL, this time I averaged almost a movie a week while I was back. I got to watch Avatar, Bodyguards and Assasins, Tiger WooHoo and the regrettable Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant. Four movies! Four times the caramel popcorn! Woohoo!

5) Whiiii! My brother bought a Wii for my family for Christmas, and like all good presents that we buy for the family, he and I ended up playing the most with it! I have sacrficed a total of 68 hours of my life trying to complete The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which I failed to do! Curse you Nintendo for robbing me of precious hours I could have spent playing with the computer instead!


My Mum and Mii (clockwise from top left) Me trying to show her how to play bowling. Mum tries it, and finds out she is very good. A very dejected me owes my Mum five ringgit for losing to her.

6) The Wedding. I got married, and you all missed it! Hahaha! No, it was a good friend's wedding from OCF which I got to host, and it was good fun, although, as usual, everyone thinks I am an idiot by the end of it.

And they ring the people to come with their straitjackets and bring me to - you guessed it - see number 1.

(Tanjung Rambutan, that is, not Genting Highlands. Genting Highlands is for rich mad people.)

So, a truly magical trip back home, and returning every year, I am still deeply in love with Malaysia. It's like going back to see your mistress. Only thing is, she is actually your wife.

*translated: I Know What I Did Last Summer. Not as punchy in Malay, though.

Your Grandfather's Road

One of the good friends that I got to catch up with this time around was M. We used to share the same classrooms and I can safely say that he was formative in the development of my current sense of humour (ie. the type which gets me slapped by random women. Haha!).

Like all good boys, we went to the science stream and learnt about anatomy and what little chemical molecules did to each other when we weren't looking.

But it is M who has doggedly pursued his dreams of the theatre and film. Where a lot of us were spouting ambitions of becoming a writer or a singer but are now pushing papers or at a computer desk job fighting our colleagues for promotion, M has instead taken charge of his God given destiny.

He has gotten his hands dirty in the entertainment industry, first by picking up roles in local theatre productions and sitcoms, taking up theatre studies in Melbourne (I was privileged to witness some of his early works) and now producing quality films and movies in Malaysia, as was his lifelong ambition.

He is living his dream, with its incumbent days of stress and physical toll on his body, but whenever I see M, he is only a picture of happiness and true passion about his work. You can check out his directing work on this trailer, a miniseries premiered on Astro shot in the style of a movie.

Which is why I have the privilege of introducing Your Grandfather's Road, a Malaysian-first effort where the eventual movie will be based on your ideas and your comments. A movie by the people.

The premise is simple. Every day a story is published and a question is asked. Every day you get to leave your story or memories in the comment box. Later, they will put together your ideas into a script and then shoot the movie.

That's all.

So feel free, my friends, to contribute ideas, and even financially, if you so decide. It's truly your chance to be part of something great.

Tiger WooHoo!

Tiger WooHoo! (大日子)

I have had very little reason to cheer for Malaysian cinema growing up. We were still watching the black and white movies of the late P.Ramlee to soothe the nagging feeling that all was not well with Malaysian modern cinema.

I remember watching this film years ago, with my good friend M, and we went to watch this painful film Dari Jemapoh Ke Manchester; the bad taste of which I had in my mouth still lingering till this very day. Hahaha!

It was poorly shot, poorly scripted and the cast were unbearable to watch. I remember one of the (horribly yucky) lines from the film:

Girl holds banana fritter in her hands and eyes it seductively.

G:Do you know what they call goreng pisang (banana fritter) in Germany?

B: No... What is it called?

G: (with fake British accent) Gaw-ring pee-sang.

[Insert incredulous (as in, I can't believe that crap was in the script) laughter here. By the girl.] [And the audience.]

I really resent how they assumed that the people watching the show had the intelligence of a group of orangutans and that if they threw this rubbish our way, we would just welcome it with open arms.

But Malaysian cinema has inspired hope of recent years - I unashamedly lapped up all of Yasmin Ahmad's works and respected her noble efforts to tell a story and impart life lessons using the big and small screens.

I also remember walking out of Spinning Gasing years ago really enjoying the show, another Malaysian love-story-and-road-trip combination. It had good production values, a stellar cast and weaved great Malaysian tradition with modern city love. Unfortunately, I don't think it did too well commercially.

Which is why I was initially skeptical of Tiger WooHoo!, Malaysia's first homemade Chinese New Year show about the rare tiger dance practised in some parts of Malaysia.

(It only hit me now that we normally see a lion dance, not a tiger one! Woohoo!)

What was interesting, however, was that when I was waiting in line at GSC Megamall trying to buy tickets for the entirely forgettable Hollywood production of Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant or James Cameron's epic Avatar, I couldn't help but notice that Tiger Woo Hoo was selling out every evening on a weekday, and completely sold out on weekends.

It was this curiosity that finally brought my Mum and I to the queue one Friday afternoon to buy tickets for the show. And we weren't disappointed. It played to a packed house on a Friday afternoon, and it was a wonderful rollercoaster of laughter and the occasional tears. The camerawork was professional, and the cast was endearing. It was really quite heartwarming!

Okay, so it may not win awards the world over, but at least it's a heck of a start. I have heard it compared to a moderate-sized HK or Taiwan film, which I think is fair enough. And the Malaysian audience appreciate the respect this movie has shown them, and they are repaying it by turning up in droves, and parting gladly with their hard-earned ringgit.

Go watch it with your family!

Sang Yat Fai Lok

The Husband of My Mother's Sister

"Hey dude, can you do me a favour, and pick out a cake for him?" I hastily smsed my brother.

The rain was starting to pour torrentially, the wind wailing and the heavy drops lashing against our car as if the sky were mourning the death of her father.

We were headed to an extended family reunion at a Chinese restaurant, and we wanted to surprise my uncle for his birthday with a cake.

Tradition

As I was categorising the photos these holidays, I have compiled a whole album dedicated to the gatherings that we used to have for my Popo's birthdays.

Once a year, the three families in KL, and occasionally the ones from Ipoh would gather around a Chinese feast of eight courses, commemorating my grandmother's birthday.

This has gone on for as long as I can remember - we were little kids when this annual tradition was started. My older cousin sister - their daughter - would often entertain us three little runts by making star shapes from five pliable toothpicks, and then making a necklace out of them. My cousin brother would often tease us about how fat or dark we had become.

It was a great time of family togetherness and laughter shared over a lavish spread. Scraping by on my parent's income with the three of us as well, this would often be our only shark's fin meal of the year. And it is through the generosity of my uncle, who would always foot the bill, that we were able to have this annual tradition, one that we still cherish till today.

Although it has dissipated somewhat in our later years, what with Popo staying up in Ipoh on occasion, and the rest of the younger generation scattered all around the world, the three of us have taken it upon ourselves to carry on this wonderful family tradition. So it may not be her birthday, but it was a great occasion to meet up anyway.

Salt of the Earth

We listened as little children about how Ee Cheong was so poor, and yet very determined. He would study under the streetlamps and even traffic lights when the generators went off at a certain hour of the night in the small town where he lived.

He got his degree in chemical engineering, one of the few, if not the only person in his family with a university degree. He worked hard for one of the big petroleum companies in Malaysia, and this sense of achievement carried on in his daughter, our Piu Je, who was one of the first among our generations to be a doctor.

His humble beginnings, though, has kept Ee Cheong fairly down-to-earth. He was a man of fewer words in his younger days, but he would always smile and wave away our thanks after Popo's annual dinners. Money was secondary for the priceless memories that we were afforded.

Surprise!

The eight-course dinner ends, and the modern sturdy, sharp toothpicks (which had no star-making potential whatsoever) dangle out of one or two of our mouths tere. We are mulling over dessert after a filling dinner, and ready to leave.

The waiter brings out the cake box, and although indiscreet, my uncle peers out of the corner of his eyes disinterestedly and suspects nothing.

But suddenly the cake is revealed, and he is genuinely surprised. You could see him blush through his tanned skin, and his grin stretches from ear to ear, crinkling his face and hiding his eyes for a moment.

"You guys ah... Sneaky..." his finger wags in our direction playfully.

The candle is lit and our voices resonate through the restaurant in singing him a happy birthday. He blows out the candles, still grinning like a little boy.

As we are eating our cake, he suddenly speaks. I know that it had taken all the courage in the world for him to do so.

"Hey, guys, really ah... Thank you." He swallows. "I am a man who is rarely able to express himself, but truly, thank you."

"You know, we never really had birthday cakes growing up and when you're poor, birthdays were just another day in the year. It was a luxury that we could not afford, you know? So you guys ah, surprising me like this ah..." He grins. "I really don't have to words to tell you how truly appreciative I am."

He swallows hard again, his eyes fixed on his plate, and for the briefest of moment his smile disappears. It reappears quickly though, as he reaches for his fork and helps himself to a little more cake.

We sit in slightly awkward silence, not knowing how best to respond to this outpouring of gratitude. Here was a man who had blessed us all these years with a tradition that we cherish until this day, and yet his thankfulness was all the more humbling in that regard.

We ended the night with raucous conversation and laughter, and left the restaurant into the night.She was quiet now, tired after her sudden emotional outburst - the deep puddles of water which we skipped around gingerly the only remaining evidence of her crying that night.

*****************************************************************************

(Postscript: Driving home that night, I thought about this show I watched, based on a true story. It was called Fighting The Odds: The Marilyn Gambrell Story, and it was about a parole officer who starts up a programme called 'No More Victims' in a high school in the US. This programme was targeted at the children who had parents in jail, who were six times more likely to end up in jail themselves, in order to stop the trend.

There is this one scene, where one of the toughest kids in class in surprised by his classmates with a birthday cake. They surround him, and sing out to him at the top of their voices, and he is doing his best to pretend to be unmoved by his friends and teacher. He is frowning, and his stance is defensive, but the tears suddenly flow freely and his body shakes with his sobs.

It was the first time in all his seventeen years that anyone remembered his birthday. It was his first birthday cake ever.

I think about my childhood and all the birthdays that we had. Sure, we never had grand parties or lavish gifts, but Mum always insisted that there would be cake. The cake reminded us that we were remembered, and our milestones celebrated, but above all, that we were loved.)