The end of one era

I suppose we had it coming. We've known each other for well over a decade ... in the case of Michelle and I, a knee-knocking two. It's all well and good being in the same madding city and meeting up to reminisce about 'back in the days', but as Stefan astutely reminded me over tea this afternoon, with this lot it has been about far more.

London life empties people's pockets of precious time (and $!), which is why it's so significant that our group has made it a point to meet up regularly.

We have a smorgasbord of characters - in the food spectrum we are overly represented by the meat, chicken feet and foie gras lovers (though Michelle's rather tasteful Lipid Adventure of the Liquified Kind might have put some off liver for eternity). For sure, nothing stands between them and a hearty Royal China dim sum. Not even the feeble -but earnest!- protestations of the non-prawn-eating pescatarian.

Professionally, the group is dominated by Driven People With Serious Jobs in Big Companies ... apart from myself, of course. And yet -hallelujah- not one is the bland, cookie-cutter product that a PWSJ often is.

Last night Shri and Deepa very kindly had us over for an incredible dinner, quite possibly the last get-together before Michelle heads East, Ramesh and Julie move to Clerkenwell, Shri and Deepa to Highbury. Ste and I still have some months before disappearing to Zurich, but in many ways, we met to bid farewell to an era. The photos will say it better.

At one point, Ramesh a.k.a. Taro (real name in birth certificate) and the token Malaysian, showed off a calculation game that once stumped even the mightiest brain, Karthik Muralidharan. The numerate amongst us were impressed ... Deepa rightly suggested that it had to do with multiples of nine. I stuck to taking photos and my humble mental sums.
Here we have 3/4 of the Regent's Park Sunday Morning Tennis Team! Watch out, we cuss like sailors! Don't mistake Julie's smile for weakness - she was lobbying for early morning tennis the next day. The levitating white blob is Ramesh's napkin. Voices told him to do something spontaneous, so he flung it at us. Indeed, some things never change.




Spirits were high - there was good wine, women ... and Michelle bellowed a song of sorts. Wait, hang on, it was actually a taunt about my abundant white hair (again) and I am putting her down on record as having said that SHE WILL QUIT HER JOB IF SHE FINDS A WHITE HAIR ON HER HEAD.

I will miss doing this. Terribly.

Did I mention that I have cable?

I frequently daydream and have the archtypal 'lights on but no one home' expression on my face. Not that it is warmly appreciated by anyone, apart from fellow spaced-out Tube riders. For better or worse, this vapid condition has escalated this past week and made significant headway into my sacred slumber time. Now not only are the metaphorical lights left on, but the entire clutch of electrical appliances -telly, whistling kettle, radio clock, you name it- jam in the cramped apartment of my subconscious. I dream in full audio and technicolour splendour.

"What about the neighbours?" the civic-minded among you might ask.

Well, I'll be damned if I care, it is a blooming lark! Every night without fail, a long-drawn dream, simmered in home-made thick and chunky plot, unfurls. There is no shortage of weird and wonderful characters -and this is where it gets interesting- there hasn't been one whom I've actually recognised. Yes, it is an ad-hoc, one-night-only deal.

Last night's entertainment was a la 'Memoirs of a Geisha', with yours truly in the dramatic lead role as a moralising entertainer woo-ed by a colleague's spouse. Go figure. The previous night's thread had me sailing across the deep blue ocean with a bunch of strangers in a sampan. Always long stories, but terribly scant on character development. Who will debut tonight?

At crepe brunch this afternoon, Pink said that there might be troubling issues occupying my thoughts. She is right, though it seems obvious on hindsight. Even Ste the skeptic -who is first to hear the unexpurgated gibberish about my dreams at the crack of dawn- had to agree.

So it appears that my mind has licenced itself a separate channel for sorting things out. Where's that damn remote control ...

An eye for an eye

The hip bone is connected to the thigh bone ... is connected to the shin bone ... is connected to the ankle bone and the foot bone. There you have it, I'm an ace at Biology. And it really gets my goat when a bodily system backs up and does unexpected things.

When I blow my nose, the pressure throws my tear ducts into reverse gear. This is annoying. Evidently they weren't briefed about sticking to their singular roles of obedient eyeball lubrication. So my 'windows to the soul' are in fact windscreen cleaners for the face as well, squirt squirt.

Bloody irritating.

Old Easter Photos from 2004

The Eggs of Easter Past ...

... and the bangs that didn't last!

(title: "On this egg there is still life", colour pencil on chicken eggshell,
c. 2004)

What I'm reading now ... and will probably be for the next 6 months ...

I had originally purchased the hard copy of "Mao: The Unknown Story" for my Uncle Thiam Tong, an avid reader of political biographies, and queued to have it autographed by the authors at the launch.

After a couple of months, I thought I should have a go at it myself. It had the potential to be one of the few Thick Books that I have read cover to cover ... except that I've barely managed to pull through the first quarter of it since starting in February.

I haven't read Wild Swans and I do appreciate that 10 years of fieldwork and firsthand research went into this work ... but the authors dwell excessively on the personal depravity and abject evil of the man in question, that the whole working of the Chinese Communist machinery, as a system, goes unmentioned.

Or, perhaps, I should just be patient and persevere ... the crux might lie in the chapters beyond the photo inserts.

Singing the First Year Phd Blues

My pet demon was a sophisticated Siege Mentality. Neither tame nor placid, it knew better than to perch perilously on the fraying rim of my conscience … or that already droopy right shoulder. It howled deep into the night as I lay awake in bed at 3am, adrenaline strobing through my veins.

I finally applied sufficient resolve and a slap-dash of CBT to rationalise the tension away. The little sniveller then metamorphosed into a more malevolent form.

The dark days of Persecution Complex were thus ushered into my already chaotic life. This fire-breathing, rabble-rousing, excessively-headed hydra was dead bent on drawing blood. It's quarry? That fragile and unstable commodity, self-confidence.

I suppose the prescription in this case -as with many things- is, chop chop.

One good patch deserves another

When I was a child, I suffered quite badly from growing pains. The attacks always came like sprites in the night - suddenly and in a pack. Throbbing aches traipsing through my joints for hours into the night as I sweated, groaned and tossed about in bed. So unhappy ... and still not tall enough in spite of all that painful growth!

If things got too unbearable -my moans shriller and increasingly disturbing for our neighbours- my late father would prescribe me a painkiller. Most other times though, my mother would squirt some Counterpain or a apply dollap of Tiger Balm on the criminal joint and give it a vigorous massage. This would always be followed with at least one medicinal plaster stuck on for good measure, akin to the yellow talismans (talismen?) in Chinese lore which keep hopping vampires (in imperial court garb) at bay. Ah, the controlled release of soothing agents in subsequent hours!

It wasn't unusual for me to be sporting 4 to 6 of these ko-yok at a time, particularly at my elbows and ankles. During those years, my youthful presence in the household was closely associated with the elderly, ah-kong smell of camphor-cum-balm. Coupled with my penchant for Tiger Balm and Axe Oil, I suppose there could have been a sufficiently strong case made about my all-round flammability. Sigh ... and at that age!

The aches became more sporadic during my early teens, then one fine day just ceased altogether. Like the little lame boy who was healed, I was elated by my ligaments' liberation and threw away the ever-faithful, ever-relieving trademarked Tokuhon and Salonpas plasters.

Today Ste and I headed to Chinatown with a mission. To rally the forces of good and able reinforcements in his battle against backache. We were not disappointed! Behind the bustling cashiers at New Loon Fung Supermarket on Gerrard Street were my ever-faithful, anti-pain patches. Quick introductions were made and we were off to a strong start.

Year of the White Hare

A couple of weeks ago, I bumped into Mark Latonero on the No. 38 bus. We were on our way from Angel to Holborn when he decided to share some breaking news in his friendly American drawl.

Mark:"Hey so you know what, I had a mid-life crisis the other day!"

Alicia:"A mid-life crisis? Mark, we're the same age, what the heck are you talking about?!! Life expectancy -even for men- is much higher these days you know."

Mark:"Well, I looked at myself in the mirror and found one grey hair!"

Alicia's inner voice:"Wah piang eh ..."

So that won him an ice-cold Deathstare at 10.30 on a Monday morning. And before I could follow through with some powerful Elbow-Meets-Rib action, the bus pulled -and kept pulling, as bendy buses do- up to my stop and I had to hop off in haste.

I have a bittersweet relationship with my burgeoning crop of white hair. It was bound to happen at some point, given my advancing age as well as pure genetics. My late father's pate went salt-and-pepper (bucketful of salt, pinch of pepper) when he was an undergraduate, or so I've been told. So these hairs of heredity (which make me an heir of hairidity, ha!) are a natural, albeit small, reminder of what made me Me.

I reckon though that these silver strands, still largely outnumbered by their robust coloured brethren, have expansionist ploys afoot. When Ste and I were out with the JC gang last weekend (commemorating Melvin Liew's London visit and INSEAD rugby triumph), I took the opportunity to get some objective feedback on my rapidly greying tresses.

Ramesh:"Wah! You really DO have a lot of white hair! When did that happen?"

Michelle:"The day I get a white hair will be the day I shoot myself!"

Hmm. The truth be told, I've made a casual decision to go grey - first, out of sheer curiosity, and second, to hopefully develop my (hitherto non-existent) gravitas.

Now how does one cultivate the formidable Indira streak, which has a presence all its own? Knowing my luck, any experimentation in this regard will render me a twin of The Bride of Frankenstein.

The Postman Rings

Absolutely fabulous! The postman buzzed our intercom this morning and said there was a package for me. "Ooh ooh ooh, somebody loves me!" was squealed, the elated, self-confident cousin to the more frequent lament, "What, no mail? Nobody loves me!!!"

The large, round handwriting on the puffy envelope betrayed the sender's identity in a snap. The distinctive, loping 'J' could only mean one thing - Janelle's annual V-Day gift has landed! With all the hoopla of Rio at Carnival (minus the unfortunate outbreaks of violence in Rocinha of late) and the shebang of a Hollywood celebrity snog (J - hint for next year's present), HOOAH!

With impressive finesse and enviable timeliness, my dear LA-based friend continually out-does herself with generous thoughts followed up by real action. Yes, it is WOW indeed. Spoiling the market lah, woman.

Overcome with a mixture of glee and shame (for I had also missed Janelle's recent birthday), I ripped the wrapping open and welcomed The Coolest Pair of Pyjamas into my fold. I can now retire the tatty (Was Green, Now Grey) one that was purchased with Esther at Old Navy when we last visited Janelle.

Pai seh, pai seh ... but still thick-skinned enough to do the sofa-slouch for the camera (hugging my cuddly paunch for good measure, of course). Thank you thank you thank you!

The Wonders of Tiger Balm

TIGER BALM
For the symptomatic relief of muscular aches & pains, sprains, rheumatism and lumbago. Rub gently on the affected parts.

Ingredients: Menthol BP (8.0%), Cajuput Oil BPC (13.0%), Camphor BP/DAB (11.0%), Clove Oil BP (1.5%), Dementholised Mint Oil BP (16.0%), Paraffin & Petrolatum (q.s.).

Especially effective for easing Swiss-German husband's lower back pain after a whole day at the mahjong table.

Oh I get it now!

It used to bother me when I was younger, that I couldn't get out of her shadow. Though I never saw that much of a resemblance, people would always comment on how much I looked like my Mom when she was young. Well, I've finally come around. It was a slightly unnerving revelation not so long ago, which I've since accepted as The Way Things Are - that inextricable blend of nature and nurture.

When Mom is stressed or anxious about something, she can't sleep. Ditto for me. Mom sings in the bath and will 'la la la' the lyrics she can't remember. Ste puts up with similarly sketchy shower repertoires from yours truly (this morning's included 'You're History' by Shakespeare's Sister ... I can only imagine what was going through his head, "Hoppla, I married a banshee!"). Mom and I are loud, lively and enjoy poking fun at people. We relish noise, dancing, open houses and pot lucks.

After Ste's best man Roman met my parents for the first time, he apparently commented, "Ah, now I know why Alicia is like that!" This struck me too when my folks were in Bern for our wedding. We were having a home-cooked lunch at Roman's flat, preparing Teochew Mueh ... or at least half of us were. Mom and I were having a boisterous go at each other while trimming and curling ribbons on the church programmes, while Dad and Ste were in the kitchen, diligently, good-naturedly and peacefully making meatballs and porridge. They looked at each other, chuckled and shook their heads.

Now that I've got my head screwed on a little tighter, I am both proud and happy that Mom and I are so alike. Without intending to be, without forcing it, it's just happened. We have always shared and fostered big and bubbly dreams for me - as professional belly dancer, ballerina, lawyer, traveller, writer, academic.

Perhaps the one thing that still gets my goat is, "Oh you look like sisters!"

Nice try, but no banana!

Just so you know I'm still around and a contributor

hellos everybody! a very quick note.

how is everyone doing? namely, Alicia, Ste and Michelle?

Michelle, I'm still most remorseful about missing drinks before you left... hope you had a nice flight back and things are going the way you want at work.... Hugs!

Alicia, hello! hee hee. Hope all is well on your side too. Hugs!

Going through the shoebox

I'm organising my photo gallery. Here's a heartwarming selection from 2004.




Serving up an elbow sandwich at Wynford Road. March 2004.





Our first wedding. We topped Las Vegas by signing on the dotted line at even tackier 'Las Vegas Night' in Goodenough College. The sunglassed pastor authenticated the union by signing off on our certificate as ... "pastor". May 2004.





Another opportunity to cross-dress, at Miki and Haydn's wedding blast in July 2004. We had a GREAT time! Ste's favourite colour is still pink.





Our close encounter with the Log Ness Monster in Inverness. RGS gang will find this reminiscent of a similar scene that was created on Orchard Road, with Janelle's 'traffic accident'. Old habits die hard. July 2004.

Things to be grateful for - I

Stefan letting me polish off the last 2 pineapple tarts from our precious stash.

Me: "Er ... you want to share? I have 1, you have 1 ..."

Ste: "No, it's okay. You can have both."

Me: "I thought you like pineapple tarts?!!"

Ste: "I like them very much. But it's a Chinese New Year thing for you and I know you're feeling a bit homesick, so you can have them."

Moral of the story - get your partner hooked on the Da Vinci Code and run off with the family jewels completely unnoticed.

U2 ... rattle and hum

I should've known better but got complacent. Dragging my feet as I did, I just never expected that I would be ambushed by my parents. Progressive Asian Parents, at that.

The well-worn routine was that I would call home once a week or fortnight. My folks and I would have a very loud and lively conversation (which has gotten me banned from the living room because Ste finds the decibels deafening) lasting at least an hour each time. The amount of fodder for discussion/contemplation/outright gossip is directly proportional to the size of one's extended family ... and heck, I'm genuinely interested in what the expanding nephew and niece community back home is up to.

At the close of one particularly energetic and satisfying call late last year, as we were preparing to hang up, I was caught like a deer in the headlights -

"Ok Girl, so don't forget to drink a lot of water and get enough rest ok?"

"Ya Mom, don't worry. I'll call again next week awright?"

"Ok! Love you!"

A beat.

"... er ... yeah, ok BYE!" (click)

It was a concerted, strategic, parental ambush. And soon after, Dad was up to the same fuzzy business.

I love my parents dearly, even more now than when I was younger because I understand them and myself much better now. The obnoxious, snotty, teenage twat in me still surfaces occasionally, but for the most part I'd like to think that I've come into my own.

But, while managing to ramble on in my signature way about nearly everything else ("Ma, are you sure those HRT pills are a good idea? Is the Aunty at Ghim Moh selling any new t-shirts? Did you and the girls play mahjong last weekend?"), I always missed the most important thing. By a mile.

Then what's the problem? Not the words ... Ste and I text/coo them to each other at least 10 times a day (I know, I know, too much information) ... I sign off my emails to good friends with "love" ... what's the deal with telling my parents?

Alamak, WHO KNOWS man.

Whatever the case, I've overcome this self-restraint somewhat these past few weeks and guess what, I'm beginning to get the hang of it! No more weird pause, no more non-committal "ya, ya me too", the shackles of self-restraint have been shattered, hallelujah.

Sigh. So it seems like parents still know best.

"Mom, Dad, LOVE YOU!" (logout)

That nibbling bug

It surfaces when you've been away for a while and yet isn't quite homesickness. The feeling, an undiscernable drip drip drip, eventually forms a mysterious mass of mysterious hankering. Barely ten years ago, I would have scoffed and clucked at the thought of anyone being so cheenah.

But Life boomerangs back ever so often and now I am trying to reconnect with my image of 'Chinese roots'. This is mostly funny because I am Singaporean first and have never been within a hair's breadth of China.

Nonetheless the first signs emerged during Chinese New Year 2 years ago. I returned to London from Singapore a month before, laden with fists full of hong baos. Stefan was coerced into the Make-the-Red-Lantern project. The final folded and stapled product bobbed about proudly in his dorm room window.

Meanwhile I had also volunteered for the Lunar New Year line up, an annual event, at Goodenough College. It was a great group of ladies - Teresa and Cindy were from Taiwan, Tomoko from Japan and Yu Fang from South Africa. Following 3 weeks of rehearsals, requests to the Taiwanese Consulate to borrow the costumes and plenty of laughter, the Lantern and Ribbon Dance was born. Heck, WE were all the authenticity that was needed!

I have since been married in a kua and 2 cheong sams (civil wedding and dinner Singapore), commenced research on Chinese foreign policy and enrolled in a Mandarin refresher course of my own volition. The thought resides somewhere in my head, that I must impart the language to my -currently imaginary- children.

The madding crowds kept me away from visits to Chinatown with my Mom in Singapore. Here, I intentionally jump into the fray, risking injury from boney old ladies in hairnets, Beijing Chinese uhr-uhr-uhr-ing at me and the startling blasts of firecrackers.

A little shock value

Esther will recall our rather brief encounter with Tony -we're on a FNB of course- after our chat over Max Brenner's hot chocolate with the wedding photographers, Ben and Lynelle.

The IOC meeting at Suntec wrapped up at the same time and the well-heeled international delegates -who contrasted somewhat with the casually muled pair that we were- streamed through the mall.

Esther and I hung around in eager anticipation, hoping for a free glimpse of a luminary. We were not disappointed. Tony strode by and raised his hand in a half-wave at Us, the gawking General Public. I stood there, gobsmacked by celebrity charity, and Esther chided me for not waving back.

Less impressive and endearing by far was Jacques, who whizzed by in a scrum of security staff. Perhaps it made him feel loved.

Note: this photo is from a different event, in early 2005.

This has been my bedtime reading since December. It's taking me a while to get through because -as a student researcher- entire days are spent reading and I'm often burnt out by the time dusk rolls along.

For better or worse, the book itself is emotionally exacting as we follow Dallaire on his tour of duty in Rwanda, in the build-up to and period of the 1994 genocide (I'm only midway through the book). My first attempts to understand -though can anyone really- what happened were through the films 'Sometimes in April' and 'Hotel Rwanda' and from following the coverage on the 10th anniversary observance campaigns in 2004.

Not having visited the country, most of what I think/feel about it has been inspired by Rwandan friends Liliane and Epiphanie, who have bravely chosen to invest themselves in the country's reconstruction and the community's recovery.

Oh you talented friends
With those wonderfully skilled hands
Creating wearable works of art
-I wouldn't know where to start!-

Thanks for the beautiful earrings, Meiping
... and sorry for the godawful verse!

This sure beats my bao

Prehistoric men were hunter-gatherers. In this day and age, the household heroics for sustenance have taken a decidedly different slant. They are forged by upright (versus hunched with knuckles dragging on the ground), tamed and domestic(ated) males such as Ste, who at the drop of a chef's hat, will whip up a mouthwatering apple pie in the peak of summer, Christmas cookies for the yuletide ... and who in the last month has taken to the dirty affair of baking bread.

I am not a huge fan of bread, but -apart from Tiger Balm- there's probably nothing more comforting and settling than the wafting aroma of a fresh loaf in the oven. Eau de Pain. As with most things in life however, the road to confection perfection is often lumpy. Ste's first attempt at Swiss Sunday Bread (zuepfe) in December was not quite the rousing success he had hoped for. The yeast that was procured from the bakery up Camden Passage malfunctioned and left the enormous mass of dough as unappealingly flat as it was before it was baked. Deflated and very brown.

That evening, we shamelessly presented our unconventional offering at Julie and Ramesh's Christmas pot luck party (where we later surprised Michelle with a chocolate cake that was howling under the weight of 30 blazing candles). I regularly offend friends and acquaintances alike with my unique culinary experiments, so thought nothing of it. A Muslim friend chuckled to us later - he had almost panicked because the bread looked like a suckling pig. We apologised profusely, because it did.

With his admirable never-say-die attitude -and armed with Swiss yeast purchased from Migros at Zurich Airport- in the weeks since Christmas, Ste has since perfected the recipe and the braiding.

Viva la Schweizer hefe!