Welcome 2017

Wisdom for a new year that brings with it uncertainties.

Was Mao Zedong a good man?

INEQUALITY

I asked my mother if Mao Zedong was a good man. She said he was a good man but he did something that was wrong. He took the wealth away from the rich and made everyone equal.

How could you take away the wealth of the rich, she said. These weren't ill-gotten gains. They weren't stolen. They were accumulated through very hard work.

No one wanted to work, she said. There was no motivation to work because everyone ate from the 'same pot of rice'. In the end the rice was finished.

Return our Terrexs

I read this comment on CNA:

[What a shame to you, China: you were not able to look after your own people, n many of our forefathers had no choice but to take risks n travel afar to find livelihoods; whether they were successful or not, they remained thrifty n supported you n their families in china thru remittance; even during Japanese occupation when many sacrificed n risked their lives for China; Singapore's government has also been investing as one of China's largest inves...tors, supported china all these years, we learn your language .... and look at how a big bully you have become, keeping Singapore's 9 armor vehicles 'unlawfully' n indefinitely while immediate bow to USA when you 'rightfully' capture the drone. If you want to be a respectable giant, start behaving like one.]

And thought how true it is.

Many overseas Chinese worked hard and supported their families back in China. My father never failed to remit money to China to take care of his 5 brothers and a sister and their families. That was why when he died, he left no savings.

My mother never forgot the families in China. Despite being illiterate, she worked very hard not only to raise us but to continue her responsibility to families in China. She scrimped and saved and each end of the year, she would send a little of what she had managed to save to both her side and my father's side of the families in China.

In later years when I started work, she had more money to send. She sent money for them to build their houses to withstand typhoons. Long after the families in China began to prosper, my mother continued to send a token of her love and care for them even though they told her circumstances have greatly improved, they have prospered and no longer lacked anything and she didn't need to remit money to them anymore.

Overseas Chinese have fulfilled their responsibilities to the families they left behind in China.

Don't be a small man. Return our Terrex.

Freedom of Speech and defenders of Amos Yee

Freedom of speech is responsible speech. A civilized society is one that respects racial, cultural and religious differences and sensitivities.

There is nothing civilized in making fun of or mocking another's religion or race, just like you wouldn't think someone who looks over at his neighbour's house and starts shouting profanities at the neighbour's children is civilized. Sure, you'll say he is just exercising freedom of speech. But you would not say his behavior was civilized.

Freedom of speech without responsibility has no value. One who exercises freedom of speech without responsibility is like a noisy gong attracting a lot of attention but producing nothing constructive.

Liberal freedom of speech? It is overvalued and under policed. Someone gets harassed and taunted online and commits suicide, and all they can do is to express horror that such a thing has happened. They can't even protect the weak and the vulnerable with their liberal freedom of speech. So they just wring their hands and cry "the horror, the horror".

Civilized behaviour is the behaviour of an enlightened person. And one who exercises freedom of speech in a responsible way is a mature person because only mature people can exercise self-restrain and self-control.

Learning how to live in abundance and how to survive with little

During the Asian financial crisis, many people were hurt. I recall reading the story of a young man from Malaysia. He described his hardships after being hit and one of his hardships is the quality of rice he had to eat. He could not afford high quality rice and he found it difficult to swallow inferior grade rice.

That story left an impression on me. I grew up in a very poor family and I have no difficulty surviving on the barest minimum. But my children live in different circumstances.

So one day I told my girls I could buy high quality rice for them to eat. But they should learn to eat rice even if it is of an inferior grade. They should learn how to live in abundance and how to survive with little. And I don't buy high quality rice for them.

There Is Something More Precious Than Money

When my siblings and I were young, we never spent our Hong Bao money. Don't ask me why. We didn't have any discussion not to spend. Neither did mother instruct us not to spend.

Every new year, we opened our Hong Baos with great excitement and counted the money. It was always a small sum but the crisp new notes made us happy. Then we would save the money, each in our own places - until the coming of the next new year.

Then on the evening of the eve of lunar new year, after dinner, my siblings and I would gather with mother in the bedroom where we would take out those crisp new notes, carefully put away for the whole year, and give them to mother. There was a lot of joy as we once again counted the money and then repack them to make Hong Baos for mother to give away.

There is something more precious than money. It is a mother's love and the warmth of a family. My mother is one of the greatest blessings in my life.

The RISIS Orchid

Here's the RISIS orchid I said I would post.

River Valley Road was very far from my home. At that time I lived in a kampong house somewhere in the east bounded by Bartley Road and Upper Paya Lebar Road.

There was no direct bus to River Valley Road. To save on bus fares, I walked all the way to Serangoon Road from where I took a direct bus to River Valley. It was quite a distance. But when you are young, you are energetic. No distance is too great to walk.

I did crazy things like that with my friend anyway when I was in secondary school. We walked all the way back home from school because the buses were always crowded after school. My friend's father was shocked when he discovered this and forbade her to do that again. Haha And that put an end to our walking.

The shophouse was directly opposite the bus stop where I would alight. I would be early and would wait at the bus stop for my boss and his wife to arrive to open the shutter to the shop. My boss drove a Volkswagen.

Lunch every day was noodle from the coffee shop next door. My boss' wife asked if I didn't get sick of eating the same food every day. I said no which was true because I wasn't particularly fussy about food. But the reasons why I had practically the same food every lunch was because I had no colleagues (boss' wife did not count as colleague) and I didn't know River Valley other than the shophouse where I worked and I was too timid to try to venture around on my own. Also, it saved money.

A few times I wanted to throw the testimonial away because it is now a useless piece of paper but then I didn't because it represented a piece of history. Once I thought of giving the RISIS Orchid to my helper who was going back for good because I have no use for it but then, being a sentimental kind of person, I changed my mind.

My First Job

MY FIRST JOB was a clerk for a very small company.

It was after my 'A' level exam and while waiting for the results. I sent out letters and they called me for an interview. Some days later, I received a phone call telling me to report for work. I was elated at being successful in landing myself a job.

My joy was somewhat dampened on my first day of work when I was told that I wasn't the first choice. The first choice was a very experienced person. That person, however, did ...not turn up for work.

So here I was, the second choice. Still, I was happy the first choice did not turn up which gave me an opportunity to be employed.

It was a very small company. There were only 4 of us - my boss who called himself the managing director, his wife who did the accounting work, myself who handled all the correspondences and other paper work, and another boy who drove the pick-up and did various jobs including making deliveries.

It was a tyre business along with tools and accessories, car batteries and all that. The company was located in a shophouse at River Valley Road and quite often, my boss' parents would pay visits to the shop.

My boss and his wife did not appear to have a loving relationship because his wife would often tell me stories of how he courted her, how loving he was during courtship and how different everything became after marriage.

As my boss was often out on business, she had lots of opportunities to tell me her stories. I listened to her without commenting. I didn't think it was a good thing for a wife to speak ill of her own husband to his employee.

I spent a fair bit of time sitting with my boss as he gave instructions on what he wanted corresponded. My boss was probably Chinese educated because his English was poor. A Mr Hing. I have forgotten the rest of his name.

I often corrected his grammar and constructions. And this pleased him greatly. The correspondences were mostly to companies overseas such as Europe. Through these correspondences, he was successful in securing for his company a sole dealership in what they called a 'tyre opening' machine.

When I left to continue my studies a few months later, my boss was sad to see me go. He gave me a beautiful testimonial of my work there. His wife gave me a RISIS orchid as a parting gift.

I didn't know what to do with the orchid and still don't know what to do with it. So I just left it in my drawer at home. It's there and I will look for it and post a photo another day.

After I left, the company also went out of my mind. I had embarked on another chapter in my life.

But years later, I was travelling on the train when I passed by a building with the sigh that says "Hock Lee Trading' at the top, and I wondered to myself if that was the same company that I once worked in. If it was, then the company must surely have grown much since its humble days at River Valley Road

At 7-month-old, our first triumph and miracle!

The round-the-clock tube feeding at 3-hour intervals had given Daniel a slightly chubby look.

Tube feeding was a temporary solution. He couldn't possibly be tube-fed for the rest of his life, could he? Eventually he must learn to eat without choking. That was one of our concerns.

Thus began my son's long and arduous journey to learn to do the things that normal people have taken for granted.

He was 4 months old when I started to give him a milk-and-cereal mix by spoon so that he had the chance to learn to eat orally.

I propped him up on a pillow supported with bolsters at an incline so that gravity would help the cereal and milk to stay in his mouth and flow back to his throat for him to swallow. It was difficult. Most of the food was spilled. Every so often he would choke trying to swallow.

Off and on I also tried to give him milk from the bottle without success.

One night when he was 7 months old, we had just returned from my mother's place when I discovered that the feeding tube had become 'undone', probably due to his cheek rubbing against my shoulder.

It was night and we did not have any sterile feeding tube at home to use. The pharmacies were all closed. What was I to do? I was upset.

I prepared just 4 ounces of milk. My son would have to try to drink from the bottle. I wasn't going to give up.

Lo and behold, my son drank from the bottle! He was hungry. He drank all one ounce of it and then he stopped, tired and panting. I let him rest for some minutes and then I gave him the bottle again. And he drank another ounce and then he stopped to rest. Thus, resting in between, we finished 4 ounces of milk without choking once!

Oh the joy. You don't know how happy I was that night. I was so very proud of my son. You don't know what it was like to hold an empty milk bottle in your hand. I wanted to announce to the world that my son drank a bottle of milk all by himself. I didn't of course.

Next time you see a newborn baby sucking contentedly at a bottle of milk, you don't realize it but you are witnessing a miracle.

A lesson I learned from my son's birth: Count your blessing. You are more blessed than you realize.

Many things that we take for granted and do effortlessly are challenges for my son.

We quickly discovered, after he was born, that he could not coordinate the actions of sucking and swallowing. With every suck on the bottle, he cried because he choked on the milk.

We had to feed him by a feeding tube inserted from his nose down to his stomach.

We worried about how to make sure the tube stay in him and how to feed him when he grew older.

I fed my son round the clock. You know, trying to give him as much as I could so that he would have 'reserves' for the future.

For 7 months, I tube-fed by son every 3 hours round the clock. 8 times a day.

It was a most difficult and traumatic time for my son. I carried him in one arm and held the tube in the other. Every feeding took an hour and a half because he cried a lot and the pressure exerted meant the milk was hindered from flowing down the tube to his stomach. I had to be careful also to make sure the milk did not aspirate into his lungs. I walked around the house trying to pacify him as i poured the milk and waited for it to flow down.

The only time my son did not cry during feeding was at night when he was asleep. We let him sleep on an inclined plane so that we could give him milk at night.

For 7 months I had 3 to 4 hours of interrupted sleep each night. Those were days when I was really very tired. There were a number of times I was so tired and so sleepy from lack of sleep that I dozed off in the middle of a milk feed and drop the tube I held in my hand. The milk spilled onto the baby cot and onto my son.

Thankfully my son was not hurt.

I love my son. My time and my plans revolve around my son.

God has a sense of humour?

After my training I was posted to another school, a school with some problematic teachers but that's a story for another time.
I was still settling down when horror of horrors, the discipline master asked me to assist him.
THANKFULLY, it had nothing to do with disciplining problematic students. I was to assist him in implementing programmes that hopefully would instill a sense of discipline in the student population.
I carried these out with enthusiasm and diligence. The discipline master was very pleased and I think the school was very happy too.
Apparently I had made a good initial impression on the principal and vice-principal. Haha. They always seemed happy to see me.
Then one day, the senior assistant - in those days there were senior assistants - came to me and told me excitedly that I was to attend an interview to be confirmed as a teacher!
It is a very rare thing for a teacher to have to face a panel of interviewers before he/she is confirmed as a teacher, so rare that most teachers have not even heard of it!
Even my senior assistant had not heard of it which explained his excitement. From his demeanour, he probably thought the interview was for exceptional teachers. LOL
I didn't share his excitement. I didn't fancy having to face a panel of interviewers. I didn't see the interview as good news when all my friends were confirmed without any fuss.
I couldn't think of any reason why I wasn't confirmed like the rest. I had done well in my exams and my supervisors had always been very pleased with my delivery in class.
The day of the interview arrived. There were some others who had similarly been called up for the interview. I listened to their chatter and guessed that we were there because we had received unfavourable reports from our principals.
A teacher stormed out of the interview exclaiming, "How dare they accused me of not marking assignments."
When my turn came I went in expecting an unpleasant time. The interviewers - there were 3 of them - greeted me with friendly faces! Then they asked me a few insignificant questions like:
How did I like my new school? Was it very far from my home? How long was travelling time? How did I find the state of discipline in my new school?
And then the interview was over as quickly as it began! Like a mere formality that was a waste of time.
But the last question was illuminating.
Chye Huat came to my mind and the unforgettable sarcastic "Our students are devils, you know. They are not angels."
Chye Huat was the culmination of my training in my previous school, my misery towards the end of my training.
I was his form teacher and the obstacle that stood in the way of his expulsion.
While Chye Huat was the nightmare of the school, I must have been the principal's bad dream.
It would have been difficult for her to write a report to MOE to explain an expulsion that did not have the form teacher's support.
So Chye Huat didn't get expelled but I was transferred out at the end of the school year which coincided with the end of my training.
It was a blessing in disguise though because it meant that I would be appraised again but by a different principal. I must have received a glowing report from him which over-rode the report of my previous principal.
It was a also a blessing that I was asked to assist in implementing programmes relating to discipline, an opportunity to prove myself in the area where I was deemed by my previous principal to be ignorant.
Perhaps God has a sense of humour.

Beneath the surface...

I once had a colleague who was what you would call in Chinese a " 开心果 ". There was not a dull moment with her. She was always bubbly and smiling and cracking people up with her wit and jokes, like someone without a care in the world.

Every day after school, we would walk together to the bus stop which was quite a distance. Alone with her, she was a more serious self though still very jovial and we talked about things and such. She was older than me by a good number of years.

Over time I must have won her confidence and trust because one day, she suggested going for a drink. We sat and talked and then she began to tell me her story.

Then I realized that the bubbly self was just a facade. Beneath was a person who had been greatly hurt and struggling to get on with life.

She was Sinhalese and she had been going steady with a guy for a few years. They had even discussed marriage. Then one day, the man dropped a bombshell on her. He told her he was going to get married - just one day before he was married. It was an arranged marriage and he wanted to listen to his parents.

She had no idea at all because he gave her no hint! He let her believe that marriage was on the cards and broke with her on the eve of his wedding.

I sat and listened spellbound to my colleague. I could never have guessed what she was going through. I found no comforting words to say to her because words, to me, were hollow and insincere in the face of a hurt so deep.

But I guess she did not want any comforting words or advice, just a listening ear, someone to whom she could pour her heart out and release the pent-up hurt she had been doing her utmost best to bury with a smiling face and witty jokes.

I was glad to be that listening ear.

Reunion Dinner, 7 Feb 2016

 

This is what I came up with from my limited repertoire of recipes. 
 
Chicken - cooked in peking duck style, braised mushrooms, braised abalone, sweet and sour fish and vegetables.

Our simple reunion dinner.