I see ‘em!

Karaoke is a mighty interesting pastime that I am constantly finding a secret passion of my friends. Singing usually proffers a new aspect to people and in fact, it is something that is itself interestingly changing, as a part of people’s lives.

I’m no historian but I believe that the people of the past sang much more. At dinners, at births, deaths, war, in the garden, plucking berries. In the mundane and the majestic moments of life, singing had its special meaning. In our present day, singing is rarely done by any of us. It speaks volumes that singing is done in the last private sanctum of privacy – the toilet. Without song, what else marks the events of our lives?

I believe that perhaps in the past, there was a song to greet the day, a song to be thankful for for breakfast, a song to remember the ancestors that guided the day, a bath song, a working song (hi-ho-hi-ho-it’s home from work we go), a song to marvel the sunset, a song to raise the barbeque fire, a song for the sleeping child and a song for one’s love. These days, we have replaced these songs with other people singing them for us. From singing, we are now listening. We have a soundtrack of morning songs, songs to accompany through that traffic jam, an easy-listening-dun-offend-the-colleagues soundtrack, a playlist for exercise, a playlist for chill-out. It is kinda strange isn’t it?

Anyways, as people sing, you can see that bit much more of their inner self. It is not just about singing, it is what songs they choose as much as those they do not try, who they sing with, how they care about lyrics, melody… All these are interesting and comforting as they extend their personalities before you. To me, there are a lot of things that ring true through these songs.

Objectively, I am not saying much. Naturally, as you spend more time with people, you learn to see more sides of them, and then karaoke is nothing different from any other activity.

But ask a karaoke lover, and he/she will tell you it is different. Within the darkened room, images of wishes and desires projected, one can take up another personality, live a break-up, celebrate a first kiss, pine a lost one. It is not uncommon, such a feature of entertainment, to live vicariously the performed. For people looking to gun down karaoke, where one becomes the performer, the charge is that it is all an act.

Yes, I agree with it. It is an act, a brief one, like a drama performance. But it is also true, these words whose author I cannot thank due to poor memory:

"Be careful of what you pretend to be,

for that is what you are."

Does the world wait to know who you are? Are there more than the precious few whose mute melody you understand? The hearts you can count on to duet and sing out to without a word – yet there are few we are willing to give this tune to. Simply put, only a few truly know us, and there are even fewer we are willing to reveal ourselves to.

The rest of the world that does not know you, that you do not give your frequency to, they need some connection with you. Even if you think singing to be pretense, it still resonates from a part of yourself. Not the heart, but it still bears your breath.

Everyone is a singer. In the quiet moments of memory, between the brief spaces where feeling falls between word and image, melodies remain. You have that song you love, that you sing within when you hear it from others. You might sing for yourself, you might sing to the world. If you think that singing is an act, a contrived performance, I still tell you to sing. I’m deaf to your silent song; sing so that I have melody to at least know you by.

———————————————————————————————–By the way, if you love easy-reading, finishing a book in one sitting, and love songs, read ‘High Fidelity’. It is not a challenging read, but one that you will no doubt enjoy and will want to relisten to, like a favourite song. Finished it some time back and suddenly thought about it. Borrow it from me if you want! I’ve 2 copies! Strangely enough…

            During my last formal observation, I died a small death. What could it be, you might guess. Perhaps a quick introduction should you be unaware of my life til now. I’ve been on practicum, being attached to a primary school to teach. Observations are tense moments when a mentor teacher/supervisor/principal sits in at the back of the class to grade you. Basically, you will be sweating big time.

            Now how did I die? No, my mentor did not grade me poorly, but that I felt that I had failed 2 of my students.

            It goes like this: 2 boys, extremely naughty and equally poor in their grades by any stretch of the imagination actually bothered to stop then to ask me,

“Mr. Tan, this one I dunno. Can you help me?”

While this might strike one as an ordinary situation, it surprised me for these 2 boys have never been interested in their studies. They were always causing me much grief in class due to their misbehaviors. But I still liked them because I was naughty like them last time. heez…Anyways…

I had prepared well for the observation lesson and it was an interesting one. It was meant to be fun for every student so that they should pay attention. It worked, perhaps too well.

As the boy asked me this question, I could only answer,

“Ok, ask your friends first, I will help you later.”

My lesson was planned to a tight schedule and I could not afford time to give him individual attention. Time was ticking away and many other ‘explosions’ of misbehaviors were building up behind my back should I not return my attention to the class. Also, they were in need of BIG help (the last CA one got 1/30)

So in fact I had lied to this earnest, knowledge-seeking kid. It was especially painful considering they had never bothered to ask for help or really wanted to learn.

I’ve read this line that goes something like this

‘The hero in the battlefield dies but once,

but the coward dies many little deaths each day.”

Just to detract a little; there are pivotal life-changing moments in each of our lives. For me, they usually involve teachers that have motivated me. In my primary school, a teacher liked my composition and gave me special praise for it, in secondary school, my English teacher, Ms. Ng Soo Nee also said that my compositions were good and that she enjoyed reading them. In JC, my literature teacher Mr Dennis made literature the coolest and most thought-provoking thing on Earth for me. In my night classes, a Mr Anand astounded me by how much the human condition was yet to be explored. And in university, I felt a small place for myself in the universe when some of my teachers like Dr Lumsden bothered to hear and give thought to some of my personal views of things. Hence, basically, these teachers have encouraged me and I feel that if they had not put in that extra effort, my life might have failed or I would be in another path altogether.

Hence in this instance, when I could probably (just maybe) turn this kid’s life around by helping him, I failed too. When would he have another chance when he would think,

‘Someone wants to help me.” Or even know that “I need help”?

it is hard to say.

I’ve shared this with my Mushroom Choomchoom and she has told me that I should go back and offer the 2 kids a chance to have some remedial. I think it is a great idea and I have emailed the kid telling him my suggestion. I’ll just be waiting for my mentor teacher’s reply to the suggestion.

Sometimes, we falter when we are given the chance to do the right thing. Saul Bellow once said:

‘We are never without a reason for long.”

It is true, we quickly justify our actions. Like how I can say that I should never forsake the entire lesson where many others are eager to learn just for a single student. As the Chinese say it, “Do not give up the forest for a single tree’.

Yes, but in our lives, sometimes in that secret silent hour, reasons slip away and we only breath with emotions. At this time, reflection is the most painful, right and wrong are no longer value bound. We instinctively know the things we have done wrong, whatever our reasons for it.

Thankfully, sometimes, we have with us, these guardians of our soul’s secrets. They know us beyond our own reasons. These people will guide us back on track to live the lives we have forgotten. If you find such a person to inspire yourself, and save you from your little deaths, you just might remember to fight on. You should be thankful.

So……………….

This is what the boy wrote to me in a cute email:

Dear  Mr Tan,

Thank for your card and I love you Mr Tan.

We wish you all the best.

From (undisclosed)

So cute right!

If everyday, you have a chance to be putting things right for the people around you, and you are doing the things that matter to you, you’ll know that what you’re doing is worthwhile. If you no longer care, get out of the place, you’re wasting your life! I’m lucky in this sense, having the chance to decide whether I have done right or not.

On thursday I was talking to my mentor teacher by the swimming pool as we were supervising our class for swimming lessons (real fun that!). Anyways she was saying that the present generation of kids are becoming soft as ‘tau-hu’. While I was glad that she spoke as if I did not belong to that ‘tau-hu’ generation (I know I’m not ok?!), I was saddened to hear of such a bleak assessment by someone who is in-charge of our future generation.

Together with the recent furore over the Taiwanese politician saying that ‘Singaporeans are stupidier (sic)’, this episode at the pool does make me confront what are my thoughts towards the present generation. I’m sure all of us have thought of it before; is SIngapore producing the kind of bad-ass no-nonsense Darth Vader leaders of the past, or is the present batch softies?

First of all, we have to examine our present attitudes and those of the critics. We grew up with our values and hence, they naturally seem important to us. That is understandable. It is pretty enjoyable putting down those after us, even if it might be sub-conscious or that we feel we do genuinely despise the attitudes of the current generation. However, I agree with something that I’ve read that it is loutish behaviour to despise new-comers to a scene, just because we have entered the room first. Yes we all have our laughs at those new at something we are adept to, but perhaps we need to show more maturity on that. We need not bolster our insecurity towards the new world by showing disdain for its ways.

The next point I have is that the times will mould themselves. Let me explain. How children grow up now is just a necessary way to change with the times. It is a sort of evolution of sorts. What we call ‘moral-laxness’ of the present kids is a reaction and necessary attitude to survive in an increasingly amoral world. Even things like ’short-attention span’, ‘ill-discipline’ and ‘playfulness’ could also be necessary attributes to survive in the times to come.

Having a short-attention span can be vital in our world where we have to shift our focus on a multitude of things. People have to multi-task alot more these days; be more attentive to small detail, fine-prints, sensory media etc…

Ill-discipline can actually be a good thing to have. In this world where all the old governing forces in people are falling apart (religion, government, family), it is those who are willing to walk out of line that might just be able to survive. Of course these are sweeping statements but are worthy points to note as well.

How about playfulness? Damn it I do hate playful kids! But well, I must acknowledge that with playfulness accompanies a sense of creativity, wanting to challenge norms, a sense of play… all these, I would like my own kid to be eventually be able to have. Though I’ll age faster with a jumpy kid at home.

Hence another point I’ll have to make is that the characteristics that seem bad to us are simply because we judge these kids with old values. The ones that we grew up with. The values that we are good at. The ones they are bad at. Hence, we feel threatened.

I guess every generation will criticise the next. It is a natural process and I hope it doesn’t end too. Surprised? Well in this dispising we are creating a disequilibrium (if such a thing exists!). Where the young will want to prove themselves right and fight for their own values; to make a new world. I guess that is how the human race will survive and progress. We despise them, they despise us. Soon we despise them from rocking chairs, they jump all over us making a new world. Sounds fair? We are doing it now..

Hence if you are thinking that you are bad to condemn the present generation of young punks, you might just be doing them a favor by making them more pissed off by the establishment. And when they are in power, you know where you’ll go…

So go ahead, have your fun, give in to your natural instincts for that is the way of… well, nature lorh. Happy despising! Young punks… so nice saying that. Try it! (then realise that you are old.)

Dunno where to begin,

life’s pace is a blast.

which round I’m racing?

overlapping the last.

We clock in this time,

numbers set on a watch.

silent rounds we do chime,

the thin turn fat as we watch.

With movement we mime,

the actions of our day.

Life’s race a pantomine,

stop - still - watch -

time still passes away.

Hi! I’m back cos Dumdum is beginning to write, and thinking of the joy she gives me as I read her entry, I decided to write this. Hope you like it <big wave!>

This lil poem is just a little about what I’ve been thinking about; how we should stop to write little entries of our lives. Like little attempts at time-taking in a race, it is important to stop and take our time, reflect on our progress, to glance briefly at the watch and forget about the race. It’s quite a cliche, life as a race, but cliches are so because they are truths that we dismiss because we always hear it in so leaden a fashion. Come let’s visit this cliche with fresh feet!

Like a diary/blog entry, it is difficult to take time to write, take time when we have been running a race too long and not bothering to stop to reflect. But well we have to start somewhere. I feel blog entries kind of pile up. If I write today’s entry I kinda neglect the past ones; so much material to omit! Sadly one just has to get started. It’s like only remembering to press your stopwatch when you have already gone like 7 or 8 rounds. Should one bother? I guess so, that’s why I’m writing this thought down now even though there were many before.

Hemingway once said ‘Never mistake motion for action.’

Sometimes we are so abothered by appearing to move that we forget to see where we are moving. Hence we must take time to reflect. The thin and fat hands do move alot, but they are just going round in circles. It is kinda funny when we think about if we stop running the race, we turn from thin to fat. Like in real life, as we stop to reflect, our sense of the forward-rushing moment disappears as we float up and see the pattern of our lives. Sometimes we are not running forward, but in circles. Upwards another step, the thin minute minute hand disappears and we go to the hour hand. Guess I too should learn not to be too caught up in the moment and learn to look from a bigger faraway perspective.

So I can say I am glad that you, kind reader, have bothered to stop today and pause a minute or two to think (I hope) about this entry. I have stopped to think (oh 27 minutes) and write this. Perhaps you have seen through these 2 minutes, into the course of your past day, week, maybe even month. Strange, you might just decide to stop moving more regularly. and grow fat?

We all must pace ourselves and rest at times. Aiya, what if we do run another round?

(On a side note: if you have been using a digital watch all your life and didn’t really catch my message on the race, then my many sympathies. Analog is just more fun!)

As I flipped through a notebook of my favourite lines, one struck me as descriptive of my predicament since the beginning of the new school sem.

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be;

and that which is done is that which shall be done:

and there is no new thing under the sun.

It is an ache to remember our first years. I remember entering NIE with fresh eyes and really enjoyed what I was doing there. It was the most meaningful period of my life studying. Yes, no typo there man, so stop sniggering.

Now into the third year, my first week was quite a nightmare as I somehow couldn’t retrieve the extra spring in my step. Perhaps this dilemma has often been faced by many a man, finding the paths already trodden, and the lands of promise discovered. There was nothing new to be awed by.

This brings to mind an article that all the greatest discoveries of science have been found, and that the remaining scientists are scrapping at the barrel. Is this true? What else is there to motivate in the field, what place to take that’s new?

In literature or the arts I believe there is the same scenario. Studying literature, the same patterns seem to be turning up, like the dates of a calendar. Its the same story just a different time.

Harold Bloom, some prof at Yale or something wrote about the anxiety of influence, how everything new is produced under the shadow of something else, its father. Can we never step out from under the light? Is the self condemned to repeat others before itself? I’ve also written an essay on this called ‘Heavy History’, how we carry the knowledge of before and how it influences. But does it matter all that much?

Before I sound like some egoist, I must say I felt this strongly in my first week. Assuming that you are a student, let me genuinely ask you, when’s the last time you left a class fulfilled? Fortunately for me, I did not have to endure the first week’s drudgery long, my literature classes being set in motion.

This second week, I’ve enjoyed the company of many brilliant teachers, both my literature teachers. I enjoy their company and being in such a class is like hearing from an old friend and having a chat into the night. Is there a common language that the soul speaks from? Where the matters of the heart commune? Today, standing in a lift alone, I realised this change. It was still the same me in the mirror (yes that’s what I do in a lift) but I had greater resolve to prove myself and teach literature. For all you out there who know your purpose in life, do yourself and your life a favour, stick to it, I know it will pay off for you. Don’t let irony make you think that such things are cliche. When you die your life’s work cannot be disputed if you believe in it.

Cos we all know that mondays don’t change, its how we choose to gear up on sunday night.

How then do we erase the rust of the past? We never forget. Perhaps it is acceptance and a sense of a mission and a purpose. That time is bringing you not towards death, but towards the final goal, of a life well-spent.

I will end with the another quote that I felt illustrates this. I’m no christian advocate but I have not read widely enough to quote from other cultures or sources.

To everything there is a season,

and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.

- Ecclesistes 3:1 - Ecclesiastes 1:9

I was about to skip over the accounts of my 1 week attachment to my Primary School, when I asked myself:

‘Mark, oh isn’t there anything to write about?’

No small part to the incessant probing by Mushroom Choom-choom, I have decided to think abit deeper into that one week episode. Often our exchanges go like this:

M.C.C.: How was your week? Must have been very exciting?!

Me: Erm… (thinking) … umm… (forgetting) nothing much.

It was only when I decided that, in order to have proper conversations, I had better start talking abit more, that I decided to exercise my memory more to dig up nuggets of meaning. Thus I began thinking…

Hence (ping! epiphany!), I observed a weird occurance, (dumdumdumdum)

"Time flies when you are having … naps"

During this year’s attachment, our gang of 4 was usually passed over by teachers hooded in secrecy, mostly likely guarding their (mostly likely illegal) secrets to taming their class of 39 monsters. (Yea, 39 monsters cos Big Moe is proud that no teacher has ever to endure 40 these days)

Thus our day was spent in equal parts napping at the back of a class as it was hiding from the hooded figures of those spooked corridors.

The week wasn’t interesting, but strangely time didn’t crawl either. Thus I speculate a theory:

Time’s acceleration is not proportionate to your amount to fun. (As many self-consoling time-wasters are wont to have u believe with a smug smile)

Time doesn’t fly when you are having fun. Instead, Yes!

Time flies when you are having NAPS!

Why then did the popular phrase come about? Ah simple, naps are fun. But not all fun comprises of naps. They were simply confused part-to-wholes.

To verify my hypothesis, we only have to look to Einstein. Or rather look at Einstein. He has peered into the truth to Time and Relativity. He knows the power of Naps. Look at his famous bed-hair!

 

Hence I’d like to end with a poem (kept short so that I can have a longer nap)

            ~ Ode to Nap ~

          Naps are fun,

      (oh who would deny),

     the bound needles run,

    with a close of the eye.

                                          Oh! - to nap!

As a tribute to the cute Tutu pictures on Mushroomhead Choomchoom Adeline’s blog, I, together with my new friends Abooga and Chickchick, have on a 12 dollar budget filmed a short story called: Total eclipse of the Sun. The 12 lolas is how much I paid for the Pangpang Lion and the Sourfaced one from Hush-hush at Taka. There was 50% discount at a 3hr Happy hour sale! Woohoo!

Yupz that’s about it, my first stab at a comic strip. If you love Abooga and Chickchick, feel free to request for more strips. hehehe. But til now Abooga only knows how to pounce on Chickchick la.

Btw, this is filmed on the milk plains of pillow land, aka my bed, using a Canon Powershot A75. No round animals were harmed in the process of filming.

When I stepped back to Mayflower for my attachment briefing today, our previous CT who took us under her wing last year was saying goodbye to us. It was the last day of her 38 year career.

My immediate impression was that she was finally free of her old life. I use the word ‘life’ because from knowing her the previous year, school was beyond the drudgeries of disciplining children, marking books etc; it was even beyond all the rewarding intrinsic stuff like pride that MOE sells us. It was most basically her life.

It seems that people of our day and for much time into the past have been used to wearing ‘uniforms’. This ‘uniform’, as one of my tutors said, is the profession that one takes, and extends into one’s life. By extension, I mean the principles (or lack of) and guiding ethos that most cannot shake off even after work.

In this day and age, we are fortunate that we have our choice of profession. Often, our character would be paired to our profession. Career, choice and character are spoken in the same breath. The brave join the army or become artistes, the meticulous become doctors or mastermind criminals, the people-people become teachers or join multi-level marketing. In the past and at places til now, jobs are paired by one’s social standing and family background. People are born slaves, forced to inherit businesses, sold to jobs. But I digress. My point is that jobs, with the advent of more human freedoms, now can run parallel with how we run our lives.

Where do the most commited and talented draw the line then? Does their dedication and gift mean they no longer have what they call a ‘normal’ life outside of work? Like for my today-retiring Mrs Ho, can they never change out of their uniform? She had realised this..

That’s when she decided to retire.

In reality, this brings to mind Japan’s PM Kozuimi’s (pardon my spelling, but I doubt he’s reading) visit to China and his visit to a Japanese shrine to honour his country’s dead soldiers. The Chinese screamed. He defended that he was visiting it as an individual rather than representing his country as the PM. There is a great divide of murky sea where one’s job end and the rights of an individual. Less remote from our reality: can a teacher smoke outside the school? Can one take off the uniform?

Haha, this is becoming Spiderman territory man..

Well for me I suppose it is what one thinks of one’s life and who or what he/she dedicates it to. Most of the heroic and the great spend their lives living their work. Most, to the point of obsession, and even beyond. Da Vinci’s code of living his life was not in search of ‘What is the meaning of life?’. Rather, it was ‘How can I make my life more meaningful?’. Thus I suppose we all have to dedicate our own lives to our own meaning. Keeping a home together as a homemaker needs as much dedication as an empire-maker.

And for Mrs Ho, she’s retiring to claim a new life that she deserves; that of caring for her three children. I hope she’ll be a good teacher to them.

 

Vietnam. To me, it was about a legacy of war and delicate people. Having visited it, it stands out for its art. I visited Ho Chi Minh City and it is a fascinating city of poverty and also new art. It’s a compelling mix. When I first arrived, amazing copies of western paintings astounded me in the city center. Botero, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Monet were to put it, de rigeur, to put the sentence in the mood. To expose my biased eye, I sadly passed over the paintings of local and original content. The center was also home to great embroidered silk screens and, for lack of a better phrase, cloth and silk the colors of,  exploded parrots. They make you wonder why you continue to think they are poor despite them having such a delicate appreciation of art.

So I asked myself, ‘Oh Mark why is this so?’. A familar but decidedly gruffer voiced replied: ‘You despise poverty’.

Ah so. So it was me. Again.

As I journeyed alone (ok accompanied by sweat stains a-many) to the outer rims of the city, the clean Perth-ish streets became somewhat like the Mexico I saw 10 yrs ago - the boundaries between the roads and walkways had no distinction and people huddled over dinner on pavements. wherever I went, I soon stuck out like the sore finger that the motorbike taxidudes hopefully raised at me from many streets away .

Soon the breathtaking art that I first experienced warped; it was like looking into a thick swirl of countless colours slowly mixed into a shiny black.

What was I to do? Soon !pirated! copies of exalted Penguin classics were stuffed in my face and the copies of painted masterpieces became gross mutants upon closer scrutiny. How did it happen? Soon, the picture of two Vietnamese farmers dwarfed by huge green acres of padi became soothing.

Was it me? The tourist that made this happen? The gangs of children forced by syndicates to beg instead of schooling, the generations of aspiring artists apeing western traditions that had no meaning to them? the talented embroidering foreign ‘Tintin’s and ‘Smurfs’ on their T-shirts. The snuffed breath of peddlers cursing at their cruel tourist idols that only seemed to self-describe as they chanted: ‘cheaper… noooo… cheaper!’

In the confines of my room when home, the unknown Vietnamese words on my T-shirt whispered secret stories, simplified into a picture of two outstretched hands, a dove and a bayonet that the phrase underlines. Perhaps until today Vietnam still remains a colony.

Piangz so serious? The t-shirt was cheap ok! half the color came out with the first soak le.

P.S: The beauty is that if anyone asks me, I say that I learnt they have a country embedded not with landmines, but with rich talent yet unearthed. Vietnam an arty place, who’d've known? [ed. another damn tourist and his preconceptions]

All lives are characterised by a past, and to me starting a first post makes me think of all the special moments in my life that I’d like to share and begin with. But where does one start? So I have decided that today is as good as any other day, for the feelings are dipped in the now and memory is yet shaded over by afterthought.

This blog will not be a diary of daily events, as my tutor in my primary school days told me, it is not what one does, but what are one’s attitudes towards things that make for good reading. Looking at my diary then, it actually did not warrant a second read. So hopefully this is one of the ground-rules I’ll keep by til the last (web-) page of this blog.

The next thing is that this is an open diary and so there will be some mush stuff that I do not wish to self-censure. Thus if you are not suppposed to be the one reading the stuff, I will have a ‘mushroom!’ alert so you can skip the part and make room to read the rest, without spoiling your appetite. Thus with this bit of housekeeping, maybe I’ll start.

Hoorayapididoo! Today is the 23rd month anniversary with mushroom! Choomchoom. Owing to my poor memory and a naive lack of guile, A. has (again) managed to win me by wishing me the occassion first. Perhaps to take a strange parallel, we are going to watch Batman Begins tonight, the director Chris Nolan having directed two of my fav shows, Memento and Insomnia. Is it some strange coincidence that A. always manages to bat off the snuffings of sleep and remember to msg/call me at the stroke of midnight on our monthly anniversaries? I think that a greater feat than Chris’ directing, and maybe A. has secretly watched the two movies and practised them to perfection on me.

On another note, I find myself at a weird task today, that perhaps by the machinations of a mind inclined to draw parallels, have found some meaning within. That is, I am doing photoshop on my grandparent’s passport photos. They are from my ‘dad’s side’ (sic) and I’ve never got to know them. Hence these black and white photo… what was their story? I find myself adding an absent shoulder to my grandma’s passport photo and overlapping it on my grandpa, while adding a collar to my grandpa’s photo that overexposure has diminished. Best of all perhaps, I have recombined both grandfolks together into a single picture. and again I think to myself, what is the secret history of their lives that noone can ever know? Maybe this blog might be a b/w photo of my life to my children? Hopefully they won’t have to do photoshop to put me together with my other half. Thus on a probably bizarre (to you) but strangely poignant note (to me) I end this entry as a tribute to a past unknown and a future of our own.

Wa solemn hor… err… Batman Begins! Ooraagghh!