Tuesday, 31 October 2006
... notable events : Singapore to Haadyai
School was over. It was the 6 month haitus between pre-university and
university. It was the grey limbo of a statusless person who was
neither an adult nor an adolescent, neither a working member of society
nor a student, neither a man or a boy, neither here nor there.
This
was the period when our A-level results were still not yet released.
Our applications to universities had gone out based on our final school
exam results and this was the period of the agonising wait for a
response. Some of us took up part-time work, our pens hovering undecidely over the dotted line of job applications forms that asked
"Current level of education:........ or "Current working
status:............". Those with glib tongues lied through their teeth
to land plush jobs, others like me could only turn red in the face when
interviewers asked the dreaded question, "We are looking for permanent
staff. Why are you here?"
I needed the money because dad's
allowance was for a student, something
I no longer was and unless I was resigned to vegetating at home
hoarding my savings, this was the only way to get at a minimum level of
finances for a social life. I did eventually find work, taking on the
exalted position of a street interviewer, stopping and harrassing
people on the streets to ask them pointless questions on whether they
liked hair tonic A or hair tonic B better, or if they went to private
clinics or to the government polyclinics when they were sick. I even
took on the more challenging interviews where thick skin was the only
job requirement needed, needing to barge through offices and medical
clinics to interview the doctors on the types of medicine they usually
prescribed. I made a lot of friends in those couple of months I'm sure.
But
we were not really part of working society, the not-quite students of
the limbo months. Work was well... boring. We needed to have fun too.
That was when a group of us decided to go up to Haadyai in Southern
Thailand, the hard way. Camping, hitching rides or taking public
transport up the full length of Peninsular Malaysia. I had grown up
hearing tales of my dad's scouting exploits cycling through then Malaya, the
1000km distance from Penang to Singapore and back on his rickety
bicycle with his friends and how they sheltered and slept on the floor
of the Muar Police Station while gunshots rang in the distance from the
fighting in the surrounding jungles against communist insurgents of the
Emergency years, and how at the Singapore Merlion statue at Marina Bay he lost his floppy scouting hat when it blew off his head into the sea. There were 4 of us with our bags, pots, torchlights,
camping gear and blankets, who finally stood at the Singapore train
station of the Malayan Railway that morning for our first leg of the
trip. All Malaysians, all former students studying in Singapore, all
crazy.
I planned most of the details of the journey, for it was
more a journey than a trip. We would make a few overnight stops at
campsites, knowledge learned from my time in the scouts, and at
strategically placed friend's/relatives' houses throughout Malaysia.
Singapore,
Gunung Ledang (campsite),
Melaka (backpacker's hostel),
Port Dickson (campsite),
Kuala Lumpur (friend's house),
Pulau Pangkor (campsite),
Penang (grandma's house),
Alor Setar (aunt's house),
Haadyai.
After going through the immigration counters to exit Singapore and to enter Malaysia, we finally boarded the train, a slow mail train that would take us to Segamat, the closest stop to Gunung Ledang (Mount Ophir). We couldn't take the express trains as Segamat was not a sufficiently large station to warrant a stop by the express and only the mail train which stopped at every single station along the line would do. As it pulled out of the station, we were all cheerfully grinning at each other. This would be a grand adventure.
We arrived at Segamat station at about lunch time. The ride had taken a few hours and we were hungry. We took a quick lunch at a local food stall by the side of the road while I tried to remember my previous visit to the Gunung Ledang campsite and the way to get there. It wasn't far by bus, I remembered. After asking around a little for directions from passerbys, we soon found our bus. We boarded the bus with all our gear and after paying the bus fare, asked the bus conductor to let us know when to get off. He apparently was an old hand at this as the Gunung Ledang campsite was a well frequented site with most campers coming by train to the Segamat station. We were just another group in an unending line of campers headed for the popular campsite.
The bus had barely left town when we were told to get off. The narrow 2-lane road was deserted with only a single wooden pole at the side to show that this was a busstop. We crossed the road and started our trek down a side road leading to the campground. There were prominent signboards pointing the way to the Gunung Ledang Waterfall which was just below the campsite. The trek proved to be quite a walk but we got to the foot of the waterfall, guided in part by the small stream that appeared in the middle of our road which disappeared into a dirt road not far from the main road, as well as from the increasingly loud roaring sound of the waterfall was we neared it.
We marched up to the small police post at the base of falls to report ourselves. The police officer, a portly gentleman asked only one question. "Singaporean?" We all shook our heads in the negative. We were all Malaysians we told him. "Ok, go. No need to report." he said. Laughing, we left and started up the concrete stairs that led up the falls. Apparently the police either didn't care about Malaysians, or they didn't trust Singaporeans to take care of themselves. Probably the latter as there had been a few reports in the newspapers recently, of Singaporeans getting lost in Malaysian jungles on overnight camping trips.
We found a nice spot just above the main falls to pitch our tent and as it was probably the off-peak season, we were the only campsite around. Our tent was just simple canvas sheet propped on two stout bamboo poles which we had chopped down with a saw from a nearby grove, and a large groundsheet laid on top of a bed of leaves to keep the damp away. The tent proved rather useless as 2 of us decided that the night was much too nice to sleep "indoors", and we promptly plonked ourselves, bedrolls, blankets and all onto a large almost-flat boulder by the river where we could see the stars. After a quickly cooked meal, we stuffed ourselves into the beds to eat and chat. It grew dark very quickly and it was soon almost pitch dark except for the dim light from the stars above peeking through the jungle canopy. The roaring waterfall making a not unpleasant droning sound far below us as we drifted to sleep. This was the life.
We woke to the strange feel of wet bedding. I was up with a start. Uhhh....
Either the river water had risen, or we had slid down to the water's edge. The bottom of my blanket was soaking wet. "Hehehe..." we grinned sheepishly at each other, each thinking the exact same thing, that we could have been swept down the water fall if the water had risen any faster. Oh well, live and learn we told ourselves. We made breakfast and then decided to go for a swim after stuffing ourselves with coffee, scrambled eggs, pancakes, hotdogs and canned sardines with bread. I think we outdid ourselves that first breakfast of the trip. It was the only time we made the effort. Cooked food at the subsequent camps were increasingly dismayal affairs. We packed up a little after breakfast, breaking camp so that we could move off for Melaka right after our swim.
We swam in the various pools just above the waterfall, splashing around and making fools of ourselves but since there wasn't another to see, we just went plain crazy-silly. That was when we noticed that the river water was rising, and rising fast. It must be raining further upstream. I told everyone to pack up everything. The faster we got everything packed into bags and under waterproof sheets, the better. I proved right. The rain arrived very quickly and there we crouched, in our swimming trunks huddled underneath plasticsheets. We had unfortunately packed our tent and it was too late now to repitch it. The rain had come too soon, and we were caught in what was becoming a major downpour.
We were soon shivering underneath the plastic sheet and some large banana leaves which had been pulled over our faces to suppliment our make-shift shelter. This just wouldn't do. We were all going to get a cold if things didn't improve. Standing, I walked out into the rain and tried to get everyone to follow me. Only one other person followed me. Oh well, don't say I didn't warn the rest. The two of us started doing stretches and rubbed ourselves vigoriously, bringing back warmth into our cold bodies. I also did a little more exploring and found a sheltered spot underneath a big boulder next to the swiftly flowing river. For awhile, this spot proved perfect, shelter from the rain and the cold winds coming down the mountain. We kept rubbing our arms and bodies, keeping warm as best we could. But even this meager shelter didn't last. The water level rose dangerously until the spot we were standing on was flooded with fast moving water. We moved back out into under the jungle canopy rather than risk being swept off our feet by the water. I'm not sure how long the rain lasted but my arms were aching by the time the rain tapered off to a very light drizzle. Taking the opportunity presented by the break in the storm, we whipped out towels and dry shirts and dried ourselves as best we could. Feeling better but still wary of the weather, we grabbed our things and started down the stairs, headed back down to the police post at the base of the mountain. We didn't relish the thought of having to spend anymore time in the pouring rain slapping and rubbing ourselves silly.
We made it just as the rain restarted itself. Safely under a solid roof now, we towelled off properly and dressed with me handing out and forcing everyone to swallow vitamin C pills. But the pills came a little late for one of our party though. He was one of the 2 who had sat things out shivering under the plastic sheet and not kept warm, and now he had caught a cold. To make matters worse, he had received a call during the night and he had been deliberating whether he should return home to attend to an urgent matter. The cold made up his mind for him and as we treked back out to the main road, we were already redividing the supplies amongst the remaining 3 adventurers, everyone in low spirits from such a lousy start to the journey.
An agricultural supply truck belonging to a government forestry agency rumbled past us while we were still walking out towards the main road. We flagged it down and asked if we could hitch a ride out to the road. It turned out that the driver was headed to Melaka, exactly where we were going! The driver very cheerfully opened the back of the truck and we piled in, squeezing ourselves amongst the bags of fertilizer and plants. Our returning friend was dropped off at the main road as he was originally from Muar, a town not far from here and he was quite confident of being able to find his way home. The rest of us, a little cheered from our good fortune in finding a direct lift to our next stop, dozed in the back all the way to Melaka.
We arrived at Melaka in the evening, hungry and tired. We checked into the first backpacker's hotel we found, not bothering to shop around for better bargains and headed for the famed seafood hawker stalls of the old town. After a good meal of crab and other delightful eats, we were soon thoroughly satiated. With a full tummy, we returned to our hotel and were soon snoring away on the lumpy queen-sized bed of the hotel, all three of us, lined up like sardines on the bed.
We woke up in good spirits the morning after and made our way to the front kitchen area where they had breakfast ready for us. Smiling politely at the other backpackers, most of them western couples on shoestring budgets, we noted with a smile the grimy rundown condition of the hotel, which was little more than a few rooms filled with bunkbeds on the 2nd storey of a old shophouse. We checked out after breakfast, eager to move on. We caught a bus heading to Port Dickson, going towards an old campsite known as the Blue Lagoon.
The campsite that I finally led our small backpacking group to turned out to be a different one from the one I had initially imagined. I had intended to use the campsite next to an army base. It was a campsite I had used twice before and it had very interesting human-sized holes in the ground and was the perfect spot for telling creepy ghost stories under the light of the moon, but alas memory failed me and the one actually arrived at was another one which was a little more commercialised, with condominiums and toilet facilities right by the beach front. The site was very different from the way I remembered it although the familiar landmarks were still there. It proved to be a good choice all the same since it certainly didn't hurt to have showers and running water just next to the campsite. We pitched our tent and settled in for campfire meal in full view of the setting sun over the Melaka straits.
The next day was a full day of seaside activities. We canoed, swam, dug clams, and did our damnest to roast our skin to a reddish peeling mess of sunburnt flakes. We spent a total of 2 nights on that beach, playing day and night until our young sun-baked bodies were screaming for soothing relief and a soft bed. Port Dickson was a mere 2 hours from Kuala Lumpur, our next destination, and halfway point of the trip. In Kuala Lumpur were beds, nice, soft, clean beds, and that as far as we were concerned at the time, was all that mattered.
Kuala Lumpur was an opportunity to replenish and resupply. We stayed at the home of one of the guys who like me was also from Kuala Lumpur. I resisted contacting my relatives and friends, prefering to simply slip through undetected. After a well rested night we were at it again, hoversacks on our backs and on a bus to Pulau Pangkor.
We reached Lumut in good time, arriving at the ferry terminal just before lunch. We bought our ferry tickets and settled down at the jetty to wait. We chatted and laughed the carefree banter of youth. We took photographs and we threw rocks into the water until the ferry arrived. The ferry ride was a nice change of pace. Balanced precariously on the rear railing of the ferry, we thoroughly salted our already sun-baked skin and hair.
Our camp at Pangkor proved the easiest of our three campsites. After what was a very satisfactory dinner of crabs and other local seafood delicacies, we roamed the island searching for a place to bed for the night. We finally rented a simple stilted shed on the southwestern most corner of the island, a remote beach that was filled with empty unrented stilted sheds. We were the only ones on the whole beach. The sunset was spectacular and we attempted photographs of our dark silhouettes wading in the surf against the orange sky.
The next day was a full day for us and we were determined to explore the island. There were only three ways to explore the island, by taken the notoriously spotty bus service, renting motorcycles or renting bicycles. We didn't want to squeeze into buses with the locals and only one of us had a motorcycle license. We deliberated renting motorcycles anyway and risking the day on motored wheels even without licenses but rationality prevailed and we settled for bicycles. On hindsight, the unlicensed risk would have been the better option as we underestimated the number of hills we had to climb on our round-island tour. From our base at the southwestern corner, we ranged far and wide and got as far as the northwestern tip and the southeastern tip before giving up from shuddering calf muscles. My bicycle was the worst, the cycle chain jumping so often that my hands were soon blackened from the grease of having to reset the chains. We left Pangkor island the next day, swearing to take a more luxury route, no more camping for us. Our next stop was to Penang.
Back onto the mainland, we caught a public bus from Pangkor to Butterworth/Seberang Prai. The bus rocked and bumped it's way north, stopping at villages and towns I never knew existed, some too small to even have a proper street, others large enough to have shophouses. The journey took half the day to traverse the final 200 or so kilometres along the old highway until we finally arrived at the ferry terminal opposite the island of Penang. We boarded a ferry to the island and were soon on our way to my grandmother's house.
The stay at Penang proved the most relaxing of the stops, eating and sightseeing, taking in a leisurely high-tea at the top of the TAR complex, the tallest building in Georgetown, the capital of the state of Penang. We also went to the famous Batu Feringgi beach, to Kek Lok Si Temple, to Gurney Drive and other interesting places with me acting as tourguide as I was the most familiar with Penang. Penang was also where a second traveller left the group leaving us with just two. He didn't want to go to Thailand and so Penang would be his final stop.
From Penang, the much reduced group of two were soon on a bus to Alor Setar, the capital of the state of Kedah where my aunt and cousins welcomed us to their home. My aunt made no disguise of her intention of introducing my cousin a year younger than I, to my friend but he played it cool. All through the stay, he must have been rather stressed to have my aunt on his back but he took it all in his stride. My little cousin acted as tourguide for our excursion up north across the Thai border into the small shopper's paradise of Haadyai. The three of us roamed the streets soaking in the sights and sounds of southern Thailand, drinking way too much of their local iced coffee which was made with boiled milk, coffee and crushed ice, giving it a distinctive taste that until today I order when eating at Thai eateries every chance I get.
We had by then, travelled more than over 1000km, backpacking along the way across 2 national boundaries and stopping over at multiple campsites and homes. Haadyai was the end of what was an enjoyable but tiring adventure. Our travel lust thoroughly satiated, we returned to Singapore not a little eager to resume the dull normacy of life at home, to return to the peace and quiet of everyday life until the next lure of adventure calls us again and we dust off our backpacks to go yet again on another wild adventure.
Monday, 30 October 2006
... notable events : When companies collapse
My very first job was as a site engineer on a construction site building mid-range government housing under the Singapore Housing Development Board (HDB) scheme. The site was Woodlands N2 C10 in the northern part of Singapore. As a new engineer fresh out of school, everything was new and novel. The year was 1995 and the economy was booming.
Work was tough. Foremen wouldn't listen. Workers treated you condescendingly. Skilled labour changed designs at will. Client engineers bullied you. Clerk-of-works gave you hell. Administrative staff gave you the runaround. Everyone bullied you. But it was all part of the game. As the youngest and greenest guy at the site office, you watched, waited and learned. The site engineer was technically the 3rd man in the site hirerachy but all that counted for naught when you didn't have a single ounce of experience under your belt. It didn't help that within 3 months I was also taking on the added hat of Assistant Project Manager ie. number 2 man on site.
I arrived to work early every morning, well before 7am and didn't get home till at least 10pm. The work week was officially 8:30am to 6:00pm from Mondays to Saturdays with alternate Sunday's off but more often than not, concreting works or inspection schedules would drive working hours well beyond the official times and on occasion going even beyond the 6 1/2 day work week. It was tiring work climbing through rubble and construction material and I soon realised that just walking was a challenge as one had to look carefully at every step in case of rusty nails, unsecure footing, loose planks, ankle-twisting rubble, all the while keeping in mind that your head was likely to hit scaffolding, beams, construction machinery, formwork and all sorts of interesting stuff that would take out an eye if vigilance even dropped a notch. It didn't help that stuff could fall from upper floorw and drop onto your head, and stories of disgruntle workers kicking reinforcement bars downward as spears circulating the worksites didn't help liven the mood. No hardhat could possibly hope to stop an impaling spear of 460 yieldstrength steel hurling downward at your very melon-like head.
Half way through the year, the adjacent site, N2 C11 which was also under the same contracting company I worked for started running into major problems and delays. A string of resignations soon forced me to take on yet another hat as the project engineer for that site too. I now not only needed to climb through one site, but two. It was hard work and my skin was soon dark brown from long exposure to the sun and the sticky filth of sweat-stained work clothes a constant mind-numbing irritant that no amount of washing up seemed to be able to remove.
Because site work was hard on a person, the monetary benefits were good. We had a regular lunch allowance, car allowance, unlimited petrol creditcard and very often even got dinner allowances on top of our regular salaries which were already higher than the salaries of office-based engineers. Money was easily saved because of the higher pays but also because I hardly had time beyond a cold dinner and at most an hour of tv before going to bed so as to rise early the next day for work. The single alternate Sunday off was the only time I actually had to do something non-work related, but I was often too tired after a continuous 13 day working stretch to even think of getting out of the house.
But it was fun. It felt good to get out and do physical work, never couped up in an office for hours on end, to drive around entertaining clients, to have an entertainment budget, to be treated to dinners by sub-contractors, to play chess or computer games with the HDB engineers who hide in your site office to avoid going back to their own offices, to drive all over Singapore for meetings or to simply yell your lungs out at lazy workers who insist that they know better ways of constructing things than you, the engineer.
The problems at N2 C11 soon grew to epic proportions. All sorts of theories began to surface, some wilder than others. The HDB clerk-of-works had been offended and he was purposely making us suffer, gods were angry since the site prayer table was wrongly sited in front of the rubbish bin, the company was losing money from taking on one project too many and the corner-cutting was hurting this site, a power struggle was happening in the company's HQ in Hongkong and the Singapore operations was being abandoned, HDB policies were killing contractors with too stiffling requirements and slow progress payments, the company maintained too high an expense with expensive offices in the downtown financial district and was therefore running into cashflow problems... whatever the real reason, one thing was for sure, the company was in trouble and N2 C11 was just the symptom of a greater rot in the system.
Things went from bad to worse. Our salaries and allowances were increasingly becoming delayed. I tried to take on more than my job scope, making frequent trips to the main office at Phillip Street downtown to beg the company's design engineer for design work so that I would be able to learn not only the work of a site engineer but also that of a design engineer. I started doing design for temporary supports, temporary frames, counter proposals for beams and slabs, redesigns of permanent works due to site constraints, redesigns of works to save constructions costs, all the while copying examples and getting help from the company's resident Professional Engineer and his design engineer. I was preparing for the worse and I didn't want to be stuck as a mere site engineer, the prospects of which were limited to a contractor's career path. I wanted to be able to get into consulting and for that I needed design experience. I grabbed everything I could get my hands on, even redesigns from other consultants were photocopied for future reference, whether or not I would ever use them in the course of my work.
Then a shocking turn of events occured. The company announced that one of the minor shareholders had bought over the whole Singapore operations and renamed the company. We were now under a new owner. This at the time was a very puzzling turn of events. I worried for my future and entertained thoughts of changing companies. The lure of switching to the lesser paying job of a design engineer in a consulting firm was looking increasingly attractive. I also didn't want to be trapped by the seduction of higher site salaries and eventually lose my chance of ever switching. Covertly I applied for design work and attended job interviews, but always the issue of pay stayed my hand. Despite my now almost 1 year of site experience, I was no better than a fresh graduate engineer in a design office as they considered me new to design, my efforts in learning notwithstanding.
Things on site began to look stranger and stranger. Sub-consultants stop deliveries and material suppliers demanded cash up front for deliveries. N2 C11 saw a slew of Hongkong expatriats who had supposedly followed the new owner across and they came to be based on site with grand sounding titles like Senior Construction Engineer, Senior Project Manager, etc. They were all very highly paid with nothing to do. For two relatively medium-sized construction sites of only 7 and 9 15 storey residential and carparking blocks each, we were lopsidedly top heavy in upper management. Many of us puzzled over this and feared for the worse. Work moved in fits and starts, sometimes very rushed, while at other times simply non-existent and we would spend time chatting and playing games in the site office. It was surreal.
Debts rose, and subcontractors and suppliers alike withheld services, which exacerbated the cashflow problem, delaying the much needed progress payments from the HDB because of the slow progress on site. Very soon, work trickled down to merely critical path items, the site Project Manager and myself, working out ways to stretch our dwindling resources while maximising work progress so as to clock progress milestones. This was done purely to enable progress claims for money. Both the sites were at about 90% complete but we just couldn't push that final lap. Everything soon grounded to a halt. It was obvious that the company was in serious trouble despite the many promising memos still being issued from the head office.
We soon had absolutely nothing to do on site. We wrote and rewrote reports, read newspapers end to end and just wasted our time playig poker or chatting the hours away. Out of shear boredom, we took to shooting flies with rubberbands and we actually got quite good at it, hitting one out of every 3. I even took to racing down the almost completed multistorey carparks on my rollerblades, charging down the ramps from the roof to the ground floor in ever faster spirals. We played roller hockey on the flat open roofs with icehockey sticks, and did everything but work, for there was none. This lasted for 2 months while our salaries and allowances continued to be paid. I doggedly stayed on, hoping for the best, and as it was nearing the year end, hoping for the regular bonuses to be paid.
When the money for petrol to keep the electricity generators for our lights and airconditioning finally ran out plunging our offices into darkness, I knew then that the company no longer had any chance of recovery. My final $650 cheque for car allowance bounced, confirming that I had already overstayed on a sinking ship. Even my government mandated central provident fund (CPF) hadn't received payments from the company for 3 months, and I only found out about it when I received a warning letter that my account was now long over due for payments.
I started reapplying for another job with a vengeance as the inevitable occured, the company went into Judicial Management with the new owner bankrupt. Within a week, I had a few job offers but all with a much reduced salary. Gritting my teeth, I took the most promising offer eventhough they offered almost $800 less than what I was currently drawing in salaries and allowances. I bid farewell to my unlimited petrolcard with a heavy heart and bid my colleagues farewell. The Project Manager bid me to stay another month, saying that they still expected things to turn around, but I knew he was only hoping against hope and that the company was for all intents and purposes, dead. I was one of the first to leave. Waving goodbye in the darkened office that day, I left my colleagues still at their desks twidling their thumbs and staring at the ceiling.
Chatting with my ex-colleagues later after I had left, I found out that the new owner who had bought over the dying company only to go bankrupt, was now back in Hongkong together with all the rest of the highly paid Hongkong expatriats, working again for the original parent company. We speculated that it had all been an elaborate scam, to rescue funds from a money-losing company. The Hongkong company, a famous contractor in Hongkong, had attempted to setup a branch in Singapore only to run into cashflow problems possibly due to their lack of experience with local conditions and governmental restrictions. In order to pull back as much of their funds and capital as possible, they engineered the sale of the company to one of their junior shareholders who was to become the scapegoat. He took on the company, buying it from the parent for a larger sum than it was worth and inherited all the company's debt. He then hired the Hongkong expatriates at high salaries to continue to drain the company's coffers. In this way, the Hongkong parent became the largest debtor and had the biggest claim to the company's assets when it finally went under Judicial Management. The owner, having been declared bankrupt in Singapore, promptly returned to Hongkong where he rejoined the parent company having done them a tremendous service. All the Hongkong expatriates too returned, after taking as much of the spare cash they could in the form of salaries back to Hongkong. If this were true, it was beautifully concocted and orchestrated.
It proved however, to be a blessing in disguise. The construction career path is seductive for it's high pay and bonuses, but it is one that is limited in scope. The closure of my company gave me the push required to accept the lower starting pay of the design engineer and hence, my entry into the boarder prospects of a consulting engineer. Without the benefit of both site engineering experience and design engineering experience, I would not have qualified for registration to the Board of Engineers as a Professional Engineer 6 years later. There is still an outstanding claim of mine, for about $5000+ in unpaid salaries, allowances and CPF contributions but my last contact with the Judicial Managers left little doubt that there would be nothing left over after the secured debtors, the banks, the lawyers and the accountants had been paid. We as employees, were in their terms, unsecured debtors and as such were not even entitled to the scraps. We were quite literally, left with nothing.
Work was tough. Foremen wouldn't listen. Workers treated you condescendingly. Skilled labour changed designs at will. Client engineers bullied you. Clerk-of-works gave you hell. Administrative staff gave you the runaround. Everyone bullied you. But it was all part of the game. As the youngest and greenest guy at the site office, you watched, waited and learned. The site engineer was technically the 3rd man in the site hirerachy but all that counted for naught when you didn't have a single ounce of experience under your belt. It didn't help that within 3 months I was also taking on the added hat of Assistant Project Manager ie. number 2 man on site.
I arrived to work early every morning, well before 7am and didn't get home till at least 10pm. The work week was officially 8:30am to 6:00pm from Mondays to Saturdays with alternate Sunday's off but more often than not, concreting works or inspection schedules would drive working hours well beyond the official times and on occasion going even beyond the 6 1/2 day work week. It was tiring work climbing through rubble and construction material and I soon realised that just walking was a challenge as one had to look carefully at every step in case of rusty nails, unsecure footing, loose planks, ankle-twisting rubble, all the while keeping in mind that your head was likely to hit scaffolding, beams, construction machinery, formwork and all sorts of interesting stuff that would take out an eye if vigilance even dropped a notch. It didn't help that stuff could fall from upper floorw and drop onto your head, and stories of disgruntle workers kicking reinforcement bars downward as spears circulating the worksites didn't help liven the mood. No hardhat could possibly hope to stop an impaling spear of 460 yieldstrength steel hurling downward at your very melon-like head.
Half way through the year, the adjacent site, N2 C11 which was also under the same contracting company I worked for started running into major problems and delays. A string of resignations soon forced me to take on yet another hat as the project engineer for that site too. I now not only needed to climb through one site, but two. It was hard work and my skin was soon dark brown from long exposure to the sun and the sticky filth of sweat-stained work clothes a constant mind-numbing irritant that no amount of washing up seemed to be able to remove.
Because site work was hard on a person, the monetary benefits were good. We had a regular lunch allowance, car allowance, unlimited petrol creditcard and very often even got dinner allowances on top of our regular salaries which were already higher than the salaries of office-based engineers. Money was easily saved because of the higher pays but also because I hardly had time beyond a cold dinner and at most an hour of tv before going to bed so as to rise early the next day for work. The single alternate Sunday off was the only time I actually had to do something non-work related, but I was often too tired after a continuous 13 day working stretch to even think of getting out of the house.
But it was fun. It felt good to get out and do physical work, never couped up in an office for hours on end, to drive around entertaining clients, to have an entertainment budget, to be treated to dinners by sub-contractors, to play chess or computer games with the HDB engineers who hide in your site office to avoid going back to their own offices, to drive all over Singapore for meetings or to simply yell your lungs out at lazy workers who insist that they know better ways of constructing things than you, the engineer.
The problems at N2 C11 soon grew to epic proportions. All sorts of theories began to surface, some wilder than others. The HDB clerk-of-works had been offended and he was purposely making us suffer, gods were angry since the site prayer table was wrongly sited in front of the rubbish bin, the company was losing money from taking on one project too many and the corner-cutting was hurting this site, a power struggle was happening in the company's HQ in Hongkong and the Singapore operations was being abandoned, HDB policies were killing contractors with too stiffling requirements and slow progress payments, the company maintained too high an expense with expensive offices in the downtown financial district and was therefore running into cashflow problems... whatever the real reason, one thing was for sure, the company was in trouble and N2 C11 was just the symptom of a greater rot in the system.
Things went from bad to worse. Our salaries and allowances were increasingly becoming delayed. I tried to take on more than my job scope, making frequent trips to the main office at Phillip Street downtown to beg the company's design engineer for design work so that I would be able to learn not only the work of a site engineer but also that of a design engineer. I started doing design for temporary supports, temporary frames, counter proposals for beams and slabs, redesigns of permanent works due to site constraints, redesigns of works to save constructions costs, all the while copying examples and getting help from the company's resident Professional Engineer and his design engineer. I was preparing for the worse and I didn't want to be stuck as a mere site engineer, the prospects of which were limited to a contractor's career path. I wanted to be able to get into consulting and for that I needed design experience. I grabbed everything I could get my hands on, even redesigns from other consultants were photocopied for future reference, whether or not I would ever use them in the course of my work.
Then a shocking turn of events occured. The company announced that one of the minor shareholders had bought over the whole Singapore operations and renamed the company. We were now under a new owner. This at the time was a very puzzling turn of events. I worried for my future and entertained thoughts of changing companies. The lure of switching to the lesser paying job of a design engineer in a consulting firm was looking increasingly attractive. I also didn't want to be trapped by the seduction of higher site salaries and eventually lose my chance of ever switching. Covertly I applied for design work and attended job interviews, but always the issue of pay stayed my hand. Despite my now almost 1 year of site experience, I was no better than a fresh graduate engineer in a design office as they considered me new to design, my efforts in learning notwithstanding.
Things on site began to look stranger and stranger. Sub-consultants stop deliveries and material suppliers demanded cash up front for deliveries. N2 C11 saw a slew of Hongkong expatriats who had supposedly followed the new owner across and they came to be based on site with grand sounding titles like Senior Construction Engineer, Senior Project Manager, etc. They were all very highly paid with nothing to do. For two relatively medium-sized construction sites of only 7 and 9 15 storey residential and carparking blocks each, we were lopsidedly top heavy in upper management. Many of us puzzled over this and feared for the worse. Work moved in fits and starts, sometimes very rushed, while at other times simply non-existent and we would spend time chatting and playing games in the site office. It was surreal.
Debts rose, and subcontractors and suppliers alike withheld services, which exacerbated the cashflow problem, delaying the much needed progress payments from the HDB because of the slow progress on site. Very soon, work trickled down to merely critical path items, the site Project Manager and myself, working out ways to stretch our dwindling resources while maximising work progress so as to clock progress milestones. This was done purely to enable progress claims for money. Both the sites were at about 90% complete but we just couldn't push that final lap. Everything soon grounded to a halt. It was obvious that the company was in serious trouble despite the many promising memos still being issued from the head office.
We soon had absolutely nothing to do on site. We wrote and rewrote reports, read newspapers end to end and just wasted our time playig poker or chatting the hours away. Out of shear boredom, we took to shooting flies with rubberbands and we actually got quite good at it, hitting one out of every 3. I even took to racing down the almost completed multistorey carparks on my rollerblades, charging down the ramps from the roof to the ground floor in ever faster spirals. We played roller hockey on the flat open roofs with icehockey sticks, and did everything but work, for there was none. This lasted for 2 months while our salaries and allowances continued to be paid. I doggedly stayed on, hoping for the best, and as it was nearing the year end, hoping for the regular bonuses to be paid.
When the money for petrol to keep the electricity generators for our lights and airconditioning finally ran out plunging our offices into darkness, I knew then that the company no longer had any chance of recovery. My final $650 cheque for car allowance bounced, confirming that I had already overstayed on a sinking ship. Even my government mandated central provident fund (CPF) hadn't received payments from the company for 3 months, and I only found out about it when I received a warning letter that my account was now long over due for payments.
I started reapplying for another job with a vengeance as the inevitable occured, the company went into Judicial Management with the new owner bankrupt. Within a week, I had a few job offers but all with a much reduced salary. Gritting my teeth, I took the most promising offer eventhough they offered almost $800 less than what I was currently drawing in salaries and allowances. I bid farewell to my unlimited petrolcard with a heavy heart and bid my colleagues farewell. The Project Manager bid me to stay another month, saying that they still expected things to turn around, but I knew he was only hoping against hope and that the company was for all intents and purposes, dead. I was one of the first to leave. Waving goodbye in the darkened office that day, I left my colleagues still at their desks twidling their thumbs and staring at the ceiling.
Chatting with my ex-colleagues later after I had left, I found out that the new owner who had bought over the dying company only to go bankrupt, was now back in Hongkong together with all the rest of the highly paid Hongkong expatriats, working again for the original parent company. We speculated that it had all been an elaborate scam, to rescue funds from a money-losing company. The Hongkong company, a famous contractor in Hongkong, had attempted to setup a branch in Singapore only to run into cashflow problems possibly due to their lack of experience with local conditions and governmental restrictions. In order to pull back as much of their funds and capital as possible, they engineered the sale of the company to one of their junior shareholders who was to become the scapegoat. He took on the company, buying it from the parent for a larger sum than it was worth and inherited all the company's debt. He then hired the Hongkong expatriates at high salaries to continue to drain the company's coffers. In this way, the Hongkong parent became the largest debtor and had the biggest claim to the company's assets when it finally went under Judicial Management. The owner, having been declared bankrupt in Singapore, promptly returned to Hongkong where he rejoined the parent company having done them a tremendous service. All the Hongkong expatriates too returned, after taking as much of the spare cash they could in the form of salaries back to Hongkong. If this were true, it was beautifully concocted and orchestrated.
It proved however, to be a blessing in disguise. The construction career path is seductive for it's high pay and bonuses, but it is one that is limited in scope. The closure of my company gave me the push required to accept the lower starting pay of the design engineer and hence, my entry into the boarder prospects of a consulting engineer. Without the benefit of both site engineering experience and design engineering experience, I would not have qualified for registration to the Board of Engineers as a Professional Engineer 6 years later. There is still an outstanding claim of mine, for about $5000+ in unpaid salaries, allowances and CPF contributions but my last contact with the Judicial Managers left little doubt that there would be nothing left over after the secured debtors, the banks, the lawyers and the accountants had been paid. We as employees, were in their terms, unsecured debtors and as such were not even entitled to the scraps. We were quite literally, left with nothing.
Saturday, 28 October 2006
Project - Wedding 8 "Gun" Catapult Salute
At 2:30pm - 5:30pm 29th October 2006, Urofpersia, Centaur and I started buiding 8 identical Hudun Pao catapults for a full artillery corps of 8 Catapults for a 8 "Gun" Salute for my wedding banquet on the 11th November 2006.
The main frames will stand approximately 5 inches tall each with the throw-arms at rest making the total height approximately 10 inches tall. They will be the table centerpieces cum dinner menu holder for the event.
This will very interestingly be the largest assembly of Chinese Hudun Paos since the fall of the Song dynasty 1000 years ago.
Thursday, 26 October 2006
Tuesday, 24 October 2006
... notable events : Wife Baiting, Trapping & Capture in Paris
"What a difference.... a day makes." so sang Michael Buble.
The
sun didn't shine any brighter, the trees didn't look any different, the
river didn't bubble any merrier and the birds didn't sing any happier,
I know that intellectually, but in my heart I knew that a perfect day
had just become more... perfect.
It started months before... the scheming that is.
"What's a good spot?" I asked my online buddy jlaporte or Jean.
We went through a whole host of suggestions. The Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Hotel des Invalides, Notredame, the Arc de Triomphe, we delibrated them all. "The Hotel des Invalides is a nice place. I recommend it." said Jean. But I didn't like having the word "Invalid" anywhere in such a perfect occasion so that was thrown out. "The Louvre?" Too open and commercialised. Finally I settled on a bridge. What could be better than a beautiful Parisian bridge over the River Seine? There were a total of 13 bridges in the central area providing links to and between the Ile de la Cité and Ile Saint-Louis and they brought out visions of romance and stolen kisses under umbrellas in the rain.
The Pont Marie looked promising. It was built in 1614-35 on the orders of Louis XIII and bears the name of its architect, Christophe Marie. According to Jean and others in the know, the bridge over the river Seine where lovers kiss when passing by boat or barge underneath. It was also the bridge of so many a romantic hollywood comedy. Parfait! Non? Apparently not according to Jean and Francois who had by then, joined in my nefarious scheme. It wasn't a major bridge, nor was it even a nice looking bridge. It didn't have any interesting backdrop behind it to frame a memorable photograph. Besides, as one of them rightly pointed out, you kiss UNDER the bridge, not over it. Sigh, so it was back to the drawing boards we went, grumbling in french.
How about the Pont Neuf? It was built between 1578 and 1607 and despite it's name, was the oldest bridge in the city and spanned both arms of the river at the western
tip of the Ile de la Cité. I scoured the internet for photographs and more descriptions, devouring every bit of information I could get my hands on. It had wrought iron rails and best of all, it had the Notredame de Paris just behind it! But it had one major drawback. It was a major traffic bridge and knowing the intended victim, it would be alas, a little too public a display of affection for her. So accompanied by more cussing in french, we poured back into the maps.
Then we found it. It was a bridge built in 1828. The Pont de L'Archeveche! Oh, merveilleux! It had everything I wanted. It was smack right up by Notredame, it wasn't a bridge with heavy traffic, it had nice wrought iron railings and it was the right spot I could tell right away. So that was that. Jean would go and look over the place and determine camera angles for me while I hoped for fine weather and generally did my best to make sure I arrange travel schedules to get us firstly to Paris, and secondly, to the spot in time before the autumn evening sun set.
The e-mails and PMs flew fast and furious over the 7 hour timezones. Other details were thrown around, some incorporated, others discarded. Flowers? Could I manage hiding flowers somewhere on my person? Probably not. Ring? I needed to get a decent solitaire stone as the actual wife-bait. Ok, check that on my to do list before we fly for London. Which knee was supposed to be on the ground? "The left or the right?" I asked Jean. What would I say? In three languages I thought. It just felt right to do it in three. In English as it would leave no doubt to my intentions. In Cantonese as it was both our mother-tongues and what Waikit and I conversed most comfortably in. In French, for when in Paris the city of Romance, how can we even think of leaving out the lingua-franca of Parisian romance? Jean's help was invaluable as we toyed with the wording until he and I found one that both sounded as well as felt right. He even gave me the pronounciations to the whole phrase in pinyin to help untangle the mangled french words from my mouth. For the whole month leading to the departure date, I practiced it, sneaking peeks at the slip of paper I had written it down on until I could recite it almost effortlessly. I could only hope that my tongue wouldn't fail me when the time came. Jean would be our camera man, capturing the exact moment of proposal, something few ever manage to do and so I was determined to obtain bragging rights for.
We arrived in Paris on the evening of the 29th October 2005. During dinner, our tourguide explained the next day's iternary. We had a morning tour of Notredame and the Ile de la Cité. After that it was free and easy for us to explore until lunch when we would head to Versailles. We should be back in Paris by about 3-4pm, more than enough time to shop a little and then get to Notredame where Jean and I had agreed to meet. After dinner, we found a note left by the hotel from Jean in our room, confirming the meeting at 6pm in front of the Notredame d'Paris. I made a quick call to Jean while the victim was showering and all was set for the next day's event. I was still running the possibilities through my head when I fell asleep that night.
We woke bright and early on the morning of the 30th. I was up at the first ring of the wake-up call and practically jumping up and down in excitement on Waikit's bed to wake her. "Wake up! Wake up! Time to go!" I practically extruded joy and eagerness. Later, coming out of the bathroom after her morning shower, Waikit commented when she saw me already dressed, wearing a long sleeved collared shirt. "Wah", she exclaimed, "You're so well dressed to meet your friend."
I smiled and nodded, "Yeah." Little did she know then, it was all for her benefit. It was all part of my scheme to bait and capture a wife for prosperity.
The tour of Paris started at Notredame, giving me the perfect opportunity to scout out the area and to plan things accordingly. It was good that I managed to get a good feel of the area so as not to be unexpectedly delayed when push came to shove later in the evening. I smiled knowingly, and snapped photos of the area just in case I needed a review. Then came the city bus tour where we were taken around the famous sights of Paris before we were let loose for lunch. Dropped off near the Musee du Louvre where we then walked westward to the Place de la Concorde and peered up the Avenue des Champs-Elysees at the Arc de Triomphe far in the distance. Lunching on a park bench at the Jardin des Tuileries we soon made our way back to the bus which whisked us away to Versailles.
The Versailles excursion was an optional tour which I had delibrated not going for, fearing that it would take us past the meeting time with Jean and my rendezvous with destiny. My main fear was that the sun would set and I would have had the planned event cast in dark shadows and not the least romantic or even remotely nice. The weather had been perfect so far and Jean, who was checking the daily weather for me running up to my arrival was rather amazed at the unseasonally sunny weather. Like I said, parfait!
Versaille was nice, but boring and much of the experience was lost on me as I kept thinking of the coming deed. Waikit kept patting my pants pockets to check if my mobilephone and keys were still with me. A very nice gesture and certainly reassuring to know she's watching out for me, but a darn nuisance when one is desperately trying to hide the bulky box of a diamond ring from being prematurely discovered by the intended recepient! I kept switching the box from pocket to pocket, always trying to keep it on the side furthest from her, sometimes in my pants pocket, sometimes in my jacket pocket, sometimes in my hand as she goes on yet another full body search.
But I made it through the ordeal. The time finally came when we departed Versailles and returned to Paris. The bus dropped us in front of the Opera house as we had opted out of the night cabaret/dinner optional excursion so that I could do my dastardly deed. It was about 4pm.
We descended into the Metro to catch a subway to the Arc De Triomphe where we snapped yet more obligatory photos of the world famous structure. Then after that it was a short hop to Waikit's monument in Paris, the Louis Vutton store along the Avenue des Champs-Elysees. Lining up to go in, I couldn't help but remark that this was the kind of business I would love to get into, one where people would line up and wait patiently just to give you money.
We spent way longer than expected in the LV store, mainly because of a counter error in giving us the wrong bag in the first place, and also because whilst waiting Waikit spied yet another bag to buy so we ended up having to wait for that second bag to be prepared too. When we finally left the place, it was already 30 minutes to the 6pm meeting time. I led the way quickly down the Metro in a hurry.
We stopped off at the Louvre instead of going further and closer to Notredame as I wanted to snap more photos of us in front of the Pyramide Napoleon. I thought that from there it would be a simple short walk to Notredame. Oops. I think I underestimated that walk just a wee bit. It was 6pm and we were still trying to get to Notredame, walking as fast as our legs could take us, and an assumed shortcut turning out to be a long way around didn't help our journey or our moods. I tried calling Jean's mobile number to tell him I would be late but Jean's wife who answered the call with an amused voice told us that he was already waiting for us as he had left very early to look over the place first and he didn't have his phone with him. Nothing else to do but to grit our teeth and walk faster.
We made it 20 minutes past 6pm and I saw Jean almost immediately. He was looking very worried in the middle of a throng of Japanese tourists, looking over what must have been a sea of blackhaired people, trying to recognise me from the photos I'd sent before hand. Smiling widely and apologising profusely I walked up to him and shook his hand. "Bonsoir Jean!"
"This way." Jean motioned after the introductions. We walked down the left side of Notredame, past the staring gargoyles but Waikit needed to use the washroom and so, fretting that we might miss the beautiful waning sunlight so close to the finish line, we quickly found her a toilet to go to, all the while the two of us looking as non-chalant as we could. A quick word to the restaurant keeper in French and off to the toilet went our innocent unsuspecting victim. Jean and I took the opportunity to talk about the arrangements then. He said the bridge location was not suitable. It wasn't as nice as we had imagined, but he had an alternative spot that was really just to die for. Well, ok. This late into the game, my future was in Jean's good hands so when Waikit finally re-emerge after an anxious nail-biting wait, we left with Jean in the lead.
Waikit looked at me quizzically as we followed Jean who walked briskly along the Pont de L'Archeveche, the excitement in Jean's posture and gestures very, very obvious. I was just bursting to reassure Waikit but I just couldn't spoil the surprise now.
At the originally agree spot on the Pont de L'Archeveche, Jean stopped and turned to me. "See." he said. The beautiful wrought iron railing that I was so interested in having, actually blocked out half the view of Notredame, especially when I needed to kneel low onto the ground. "I'll take a photo of the two of you here." he said. Good idea. A quick snap with our digital camera and the preview of the photo showed me exactly what he meant. We nodded our heads in agreement. The railings were simply too high and only the upper spires of Notredame could be seen. "This way." Jean motioned, and started to walk along the opposite bank from Notredame.
I could feel Waikit's agitation now. She must have been very confused and rather alarmed by then, more so when Jean started down the stone steps at the side of the road, down the 4-5m or so river embankment to the deserted lower paved level right by the water's edge. This was the stuff of movies, where gunfights were fought, where damsels were courted and where fugitives would escape into on the silver screen along the Seine, underneath the bridges of Paris. But best of all, it really was much, much better than the original spot. It was perfect!
"We'll just take a quick photo here." I reassured Waikit who was eyeing Jean rather suspiciously by now. Passing the camera to Jean, we found a clear area without boats to mar the photograph. Smiling nervously, I took a deep breath while Jean said a few encouraging words, words that I don't remember exactly now but something to the effect of "Be strong. Go and do it.", anxious as I was at what I was just about to do. I nodded to Jean, palming the jewellery box and turned to walk back to Waikit with a smile.
Standing with Waikit and grinning idiotically for the camera, we both stood with the gentle waters of the Seine lapping at our heels, Notredame basking in the reddish-yellow evening sunlight behind us. Suddenly I dropped to my knee with open jewellery box in hand. It was a quaint marriage proposal custom, learnt from the Far
Western Regions to propose to my future bride. "Wai Kit, je vous aime.
Voulez-vous devenir mon epouse?", "Waikit, kar bei ngor.", "Wai Kit, will you marry me?" so I went in three languages, hand
over heart, solitaire diamond ring in hand, right knee on the ground as
taught by Jean.
Waikit was speechless.
I waited on my knees for her reply while I sensed more than I saw the photographs Jean was taking for posperity. Finally she reached forward to pull me up. "Stand up." she hushed, probably more worried about the prospect of people stopping to watch than anything. Smiling I stood and gave her a hug. Then with my knees feeling like jelly and my hands still a little quivering, I walked over to Jean. "I got you two photos." he said, tears in his eyes.
"Thank you Jean." I said happily, hugging him in gratitude. "Did she say yes?" he asked, his face still raw with emotion. The French REALLY are emotional people, I thought to myself as I nodded my head and said, "I'm not sure..." but knowing Waikit, she wouldn't vocally say yes, for the answer I knew, was already in her heart.
As we walked back towards the staircase to go back up to the road level, we joked lightly with each other, everyone still obviously lost in his or her own thoughts. Holding Waikit's hands I climbed the stone stair feeling rather pleased with myself and Waikit still reeling and feeling a little shellshocked from the sudden gesture. We had a meeting with Francois to make, and Jean was leading us to a nice cafe for a drink.
At the cafe, we sat and chatted, and I introduced the two Parisians to each other as well as handed out gifts from Shanghai and Singapore to the two of them. Francois had two bottles of French wine for me to take home, one for Koi Hin, and the other for me. After Jean had left us, we spent the rest of the evening having a lovely dinner with Francois and his cool black leather jacket at another cozy little restaurant, one which got Waikit a little worried as to where this shifty-eyed Frenchman whom we just met was taking us to. We talked and chatted about CHF and everything else under the sun and I even had roasted French rabbit as my main course, but there was no beating that top of the world feeling of having done what we'd just done and the rest of the evening, while nice, was just a mere suppliment to an amazing experience, one that we will carry with us through the years and will never fail to bring a shy smile to our faces at the audacity of the deed and the brashness of it all.
>>> Click here for the Pictorial Blog - "Project Wife"
>>> Click here for Wedding Photos
Monday, 23 October 2006
... notable events : My First Halloween
West Vine Street, Kalamazoo, Michigan, U.S.A.
That was our first house in the US. Rented of course. On my dad's government scholarship, we could afford little else. I was 6 years old and my dad had brought his family with him to the US while he did his Masters at the Western Michigan University.
He arrived first. Mom and her two darling kids followed a few months later. I still remember my grandparents sending us off at Subang International Airport. My mom recalls the worried looks on grandma's face and the constant barrage of advice and dos and don'ts. This was the mid 1970s and hardly anyone travelled far, let alone fly halfway across the world to live. All I remembered was the roar of jets, the hot tarmac as we walked towards the mobile stairs to board our plane, and my relatives waving from the open-air send-off area on the second storey balcony.
It was October 1977 and my first ever flight on an airplane.
We touched down at Haneda International Airport, Tokyo on transit. Mom took us around and I got a glimpse of the famed Japanese Bullet Train. I remember mom talking the Shinkansen guard to let us just slip in through the fare gates without tickets to see the trains. She didn't know how to speak Japanese but used written Chinese to communicate her intent. Holding my sister's hand, I slipped through to watch the trains. We also saw vending machines for the first time. Quite the novelty when you can just buy stuff by slotting in coins.
After a few nights in Tokyo, we were on our way again, next stop LAX. The flight over was a long and tiring flight and all enthusiasm and excitement over the journey had long left my spirit by then. My mom, very perceptively had given me a simple sling bag made of some hardy PVC material. Dragging my bag by the strap behind me, it bumped along the airport floor exactly as my mom predicted I would do, but that was the best I could manage, tired as I was, both mentally and physically.
From LA International, it was yet another flight to Chicago. It was a tiring flight, crossing almost the entire span of continental USA. When we finally arrived in Chicago, we were all so sick and tired of airplanes that we would have sworn never to leave terra-firma ever again if we'd been asked to. But yet we still had the final flight to make.
At Chicago O'Hare Airport, the final hop to Kalamazoo was via a small Fokker Friendship. It was a harrrowing flight, buffeted by turbulence the entire 1 hour journey. After what must have been up to that moment, the worse experience of my young life, we finally arrived at the small Kalamazoo airport in the late evening. My father was there with his second-hand green oldsmobile, and his big smile to greet 3 very tired travellers.
So it was at the double storey rented semi-detached house at West Vine Street that I saw my first Halloween a week or so later. Newly arrived, we were entirely unprepared for the celebration. The first inkling I had of Halloween was my mom's scream at the front door when she opened it in responses to the door bell. I'm not sure who was the more frighten of the two, my mom who was suddenly faced with a few rather stunted ghouls and ghosts, or the little ghouls and ghosts who were suddenly faced with a madly screaming Chinese lady. Our neighbours on our left, a pair of very pretty young ladies with blonde hair, rushed over to see what the matter was and the amusement in their eyes was plain to see when they realised what the problem was. They very merrily explained the nature of the celebration and mom in the spirit of the holiday, searched the fridge for sweets and candy to give to the trick-o-treating kids. So heightened was her excitement that we later found a small fridge tray missing, probably dropped off along with the candy into one of the kid's bags.
I'm not sure how but mom managed to get a stack of candy which sat in a large pile on the dining table. We spent the rest of the day answering the door and doling out candy to all the little demons and creepy monsters that came knocking and yelling much too loudly "Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat".
My sister and I didn't have costumes, and we didn't go trick-o-treating except to our pretty female neighbours who very generously gave us lots of candy for our efforts, despite not looking the least scary or funny. We threw this into the dwindling stack on the dining table, careful to only steal a few here and there whenever we thought that mom wasn't looking as we had been warned not to eat any as she needed the meager supply to give out to all the other kids who came by.
It was with much relief when the hour hand drew close to midnight and no more trick-o-treaters came. Mom locked the door and distributed our the remaining candy between my sister and I. My favourite were the orange and yellow triangular candycorns which I'm sure contributed greatly to the many cavities that I got in my teeth.
Next year we told ourselves. Next year we would know what Halloween was and mom promised that we would be ready, ghoulish costumes, candy and all. With that promise we trudged up the stairs to bed, dreaming of the day's events, the day we had our first Halloween.
That was our first house in the US. Rented of course. On my dad's government scholarship, we could afford little else. I was 6 years old and my dad had brought his family with him to the US while he did his Masters at the Western Michigan University.
He arrived first. Mom and her two darling kids followed a few months later. I still remember my grandparents sending us off at Subang International Airport. My mom recalls the worried looks on grandma's face and the constant barrage of advice and dos and don'ts. This was the mid 1970s and hardly anyone travelled far, let alone fly halfway across the world to live. All I remembered was the roar of jets, the hot tarmac as we walked towards the mobile stairs to board our plane, and my relatives waving from the open-air send-off area on the second storey balcony.
It was October 1977 and my first ever flight on an airplane.
We touched down at Haneda International Airport, Tokyo on transit. Mom took us around and I got a glimpse of the famed Japanese Bullet Train. I remember mom talking the Shinkansen guard to let us just slip in through the fare gates without tickets to see the trains. She didn't know how to speak Japanese but used written Chinese to communicate her intent. Holding my sister's hand, I slipped through to watch the trains. We also saw vending machines for the first time. Quite the novelty when you can just buy stuff by slotting in coins.
After a few nights in Tokyo, we were on our way again, next stop LAX. The flight over was a long and tiring flight and all enthusiasm and excitement over the journey had long left my spirit by then. My mom, very perceptively had given me a simple sling bag made of some hardy PVC material. Dragging my bag by the strap behind me, it bumped along the airport floor exactly as my mom predicted I would do, but that was the best I could manage, tired as I was, both mentally and physically.
From LA International, it was yet another flight to Chicago. It was a tiring flight, crossing almost the entire span of continental USA. When we finally arrived in Chicago, we were all so sick and tired of airplanes that we would have sworn never to leave terra-firma ever again if we'd been asked to. But yet we still had the final flight to make.
At Chicago O'Hare Airport, the final hop to Kalamazoo was via a small Fokker Friendship. It was a harrrowing flight, buffeted by turbulence the entire 1 hour journey. After what must have been up to that moment, the worse experience of my young life, we finally arrived at the small Kalamazoo airport in the late evening. My father was there with his second-hand green oldsmobile, and his big smile to greet 3 very tired travellers.
So it was at the double storey rented semi-detached house at West Vine Street that I saw my first Halloween a week or so later. Newly arrived, we were entirely unprepared for the celebration. The first inkling I had of Halloween was my mom's scream at the front door when she opened it in responses to the door bell. I'm not sure who was the more frighten of the two, my mom who was suddenly faced with a few rather stunted ghouls and ghosts, or the little ghouls and ghosts who were suddenly faced with a madly screaming Chinese lady. Our neighbours on our left, a pair of very pretty young ladies with blonde hair, rushed over to see what the matter was and the amusement in their eyes was plain to see when they realised what the problem was. They very merrily explained the nature of the celebration and mom in the spirit of the holiday, searched the fridge for sweets and candy to give to the trick-o-treating kids. So heightened was her excitement that we later found a small fridge tray missing, probably dropped off along with the candy into one of the kid's bags.
I'm not sure how but mom managed to get a stack of candy which sat in a large pile on the dining table. We spent the rest of the day answering the door and doling out candy to all the little demons and creepy monsters that came knocking and yelling much too loudly "Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat".
My sister and I didn't have costumes, and we didn't go trick-o-treating except to our pretty female neighbours who very generously gave us lots of candy for our efforts, despite not looking the least scary or funny. We threw this into the dwindling stack on the dining table, careful to only steal a few here and there whenever we thought that mom wasn't looking as we had been warned not to eat any as she needed the meager supply to give out to all the other kids who came by.
It was with much relief when the hour hand drew close to midnight and no more trick-o-treaters came. Mom locked the door and distributed our the remaining candy between my sister and I. My favourite were the orange and yellow triangular candycorns which I'm sure contributed greatly to the many cavities that I got in my teeth.
Next year we told ourselves. Next year we would know what Halloween was and mom promised that we would be ready, ghoulish costumes, candy and all. With that promise we trudged up the stairs to bed, dreaming of the day's events, the day we had our first Halloween.
Thursday, 19 October 2006
... notable events : Lost in Roma... almost
It was the last day of our tour, one that started at St. Paul in London and ended at St. Peter in Rome. We were enjoying ourselves thoroughly but somewhat tired from too much walking and waaaay too little sleep. "I don't even wake up this early for work." Waikit would complain and then throw her pillow across the room at me. Being the sounder sleeper, I was usually still fast asleep when the morning call rang to get us ready for another day of touring and sightseeing.
The last stop was at the Roman Forum and the Colliseum. We parted company with the rest of the tourgroup to explore Rome on our own as we opted out of the last optional tour which would have taken the tourgroup outside of Rome to the Roman Hills for dinner in the countryside. "The optional is too expensive." we concluded. "We want to see more of Rome by ourselves." we both agreed.
So there we were at the Colliseum with hugs all round to parting tour members, the bulk of which were from Australia, the rest from the Phillipines, Malaysia and the USA. It was just past lunch and we had the rest of the day to explore, shop and get back to our hotel in the northern part of town. We had a flight to catch the very next morning to Edinburgh, and I still needed to arrange for an airport transfer with the hotel front desk. So we told ourselves we would head back in time for dinner around the hotel.
We found a nice place to picnic and soak in the historic ambience of the Roman ruins, and out came the packed sandwiches, thermos flask, satchet soups and milo. Munching on the cheese and ham sandwich we enjoyed the weak autumn sun and slurped our soup, taking turns with the single termos mug. Life couldn't have been better. Simple pleasures.
After lunch we started our own city tour. From the Colliseum, we walked slowly along the Via D. Fori Imperiali headed towards Trevi Fountain snapping photographs as we went and kept a close eye out for interesting souveniers to bring home. Just before the Plazza Venezia, we dodged a foursome of gypsy girls who had started converging on us only to fortunately switch targets to a caucasian couple just behind us when I swapped Waikit off the the other side of me at the last minute. We had heard horror stories of bags being snatched by teams of gypsy girls in full sight of other pedestrians and how my granduncle had his wallet lifted or how my father once had to brandish an umbrella to scare off a similar trio of girls who were in a handbag tug-of-war with my screaming mother.
The gypsy girl who had been headed for Waikit looked indecisive for just a fleeting moment before she turned ever so slightly to head instead for the couple behind us. The other three girls very noticeably shifted their approach angle as well and suddenly we were through! Walking a little faster to distance ourselves, I turned back to watch. Two girls were tugging at the man's arms while anothers were circling the woman who was clinging tightly to her man's arm. I hesitated for just a moment, entertaining thoughts of shouting a warning or doing something but an insistent tug on my elbow changed my mind. I had someone I needed to protect first and foremost. That other fellow will just have to fend his woman himself. I noted rather darkly that no one else paid any attention to the unfortunate couple and either pretended not to see anything or hurried past as if it were of no concern to them.
Crossing the intersection after snapping more photographs at the Vittorio Emanuelle Monument, we were soon on one of the major shopping roads, the Via Del Corso and relative safety of other shoppers. Walking, stopping, popping into shops to look at clothes and shoes, we eventually made it back again to Piazza di Trevi for the second time where we snapped yet more photos, this time more leisurely. I kept pulling Waikit into souvenier shops around the area, looking for a nice chess set of Roman soldiers or something similar. Failed to find one I liked but spent a lovely time looking at beautifuly painted Roman figurines.
After Trevi Fountain, we walked on. Piazza Colonna, Piazza della Rotonda, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona until our tired legs took us to Ponte Umberto I. From there we took more photos of the Tiber River with the Castel S. Angelo and the Vatican far in the background. We were already very tired by then and decided to head to a familiar subway station. Crossing the river to walk along the LGT. Prati, we walked along the riverside and then recrossed the river at Ponte Cavour. It was a simple matter of walking straight to Spanish Steps and the subway station there. Practically at the point of collapse, we were about to enter the subway station when the smells of freshly baked pizza filled our nostrils. Mmmmm... drawn by the smell, our eyes couldn't leave the thick lovely slices of pizza on the shop counter. Ok, we told ourselves. The Euro is freakishly expensive but we can do with 2 slices of pizza. It was a good decision. They were the best pizza we had ever tasted in our lives. Maybe it was the experience of being in Rome, or the fact that we were a little hungry, or that we had been packing lunches of boring ham and cheese sandwiches almost daily or simply that it really was good pizza, but we relished every bite and rested our weary legs in the process.
The original plan was to take a subway train to Ottavanio and catch a bus from the interchange next to the subway station, back to our hotel. Our weary bodies were screaming for a taxi instead but the pizza stop did wonders to our spirit because all thoughts of a taxi were banished after the first couple of bites. We can do this. It'll be fun. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. The bus it'll be. So we caught a train to Cipro-Musei Vaticani. At Cipro, we couldn't make any sense of the confusing maze of signs. What in the world was a Bus Terminal called in Italian? Our tourist maps failed us. Probably because this wasn't exactly something tourists needed to know I suppose. So we chose the exit that looked the most promising and most brightly lit. Coming out into the darkening sky I was quite pleased to see two police officers, one of whom was quite happy to practice his English with us. "Buono sera." I started. "There. Bus stop. Si." the policeman replied, nodded and pointed helpfully.
It wasn't hard once it had been pointed out to us. One big open space with a few raised curbs and small squarish sheds for waiting passengers. This is easy we told ourselves. We found the right spot to wait, the bus numbers plastered on the small signs next to the sheds. Waikit found a seat and quickly sat. I stayed on my feet despite my aching calves to watch all 5 lanes just in case we were wrong and had the wrong waiting shed, but all the while keeping an eye on Waikit and making sure I was always within sprinting distance. It was starting to get cold, and my legs were killing me in rebellion. The scheduled time said the bus should be here any minute now.
Minutes passed. Half an hour passed. I crossed and recrossed the bus terminal to recheck the bus numbers on the different sheds. Yes, I was quite sure we had the right shed. I toyed with the idea of asking someone but the language barrier stayed my hand, as did the unfriendly faces which put you off even approaching them let alone try and ask them questions. Everyone for himself in Rome it would seem. Maybe I should try and get a cab instead, but Waikit was already asleep on the bench. Let's just wait another 10-15 minutes.
45 minutes past the scheduled time, just as my mind was running some rather unfavourable comparisons of the systems, language proficiency and attitudes of people of this "Developed" Country with our our "Developing" Countries, the bus arrived. Everyone at the same bus shed as us were apparently waiting for the same bus, but the looks on their faces told me that a 45 minute wait was quite ordinary and normal. I shrugged my shoulders and woke Waikit up. She didn't sleep easily unless on a bed in a quiet darken room. That she fell asleep at the bus shed said volumes about her tired state.
Feeling more confident now, we boarded the bus. I showed the little map with our hotel marked out on it to the bus driver and he nodded his head vigoriously and waved his hands about. Ok then. We were on the home stretch. I should be able to match the bus as it twisted and turned on its way. The hotel wasn't far. This should be easy... or so I thought.
It didn't help that it was dark and looking out of a lighted bus into the darker surrounding was a challenge in itself, trying to keep close enough to the glass without hitting your nose whenever the bus lurched. It also didn't help that it took me awhile to realise how street signs looked like in Italy, and to distinguish them from other signs crowding the roads. To add to my misery, most of the roads were not lit, nor when lit, not even lit to our usual local standards. Then of all days, the wonderfully beautiful weather we'd experience during the trip had to end then and there with a fairly heavy drizzle. The bus lurched, twisting and turning in the old winding streets and soon my map which was rather useless to begin with, had it's value to me at that moment in time, reduced to zero. Twice I got up to ask the bus driver if we were still on course, twice he nodded vigoriously and went off in rapid Italian about something or other with both his mouth and his hands, but seemingly knowing what he was doing. So twice I was reassured enough to sit down yet again and frantically peer outside the bus for some sign or landmark I would recognise.
The point where my gut told me a journey of just a few kilometres shouldn't be taking this long soon came and went. The lady seated in front of me started to look alarmed and asked me something in rapid Italian I couldn't even have followed even if I knew how to speak Italian. I gathered she wanted to help so I showed her the map. She twisted it this way and that way, reading my English map upside down and then sideways and in all orientations of the compass, and then looked at me with sorrowful eyes and again went off in rapid Italian. Sigh. No help there. A Chinese looking woman then stepped up and asked the first lady something in Italian. She in turn had a go with the map. I kept repeating the name of the hotel to the two of them and then switched to Mandarin and then Cantonese hoping the new lady would understand, but no, her eyes were as blank as when I spoke English. She looked rather apologetic and I suspect she knew I was speaking in Chinese but didn't understand word I was saying. Damn.
The bus seemed to have moved out of the populated areas and buildings were few and far inbetween with the universal sign of a highway looming before us. This was obviously way past our hotel and who knows where this bus was going.
Waikit had gotten up from her seat by then and was trying to point the hotel location
on the map to the ladies and to gesture with open palms the word
"Where?", while I continued to query the bus driver. Something clicked I believe then. The first lady's eyes went wide and she started gesturing wildly, pointing back the way the bus had just come and rather frantically started talking in a near panic to the second lady and yelling to the bus driver who also started to retort back in a loud voice. After loads of hand gesturing and yelling, the bus driver stopped the bus and the first lady gestured for us to cross the road and take a bus back the way we had come.
Moments later, standing in the dark and getting wetter by the minute from the rain, I realised that maybe it might have been wiser to have stayed on the bus until we reached the end terminal, irregardless of how far it was. We were on a deserted road with hardly a building in sight except far across the road on the other side of a large junction where there were some hopeful bright lights and what looked like a highway reststop with a familiar Macdonalds sign. Taking Waikit's hand, and making sure her head was covered from the rain, we both started to walk towards the bright lights.
Darting across the large 3 lane road, careful to check for traffic from the rightside of the road instead of from the left, we soon made it across and with considerable relief, into the Macdonalds. Marching up to the counter, useless map in hand I started what was begining to sound repetitive, my query on how to get back to my hotel. The girl at the counter was quick to call for her duty manager when she realised I couldn't speak Italian. The duty manager arrived and her first words were like poetry to us when she asked in plain simple English. "Can I help you?"
Ten minutes later, we were back at the same place, just across the road from where the bus had originally set us down, armed with a few new bus numbers on my near useless map. These were the buses we could take to return the way we had come. At the bus stop, with my mobilephone-torchlight in one hand and with these new numbers in the other, we started looking down the pasted bus list which also gave the details of the routes. To our horror, none of the numbers at the bus stop matched the ones we were given. I tried another tack, to look for any streetname near our hotel but again, the names were either not familiar or too familiar as there were many names that simply looked all too much like each other. While I peered at the bus list, Waikit was by the side of the road looking out for either a police car or a taxi but there was hardly any traffic on that road. I was worried for her safety and kept a wary eye on her as she peered up and down the road. This was obviously the right bus stop and we were out of options except one, to call someone for help.
I started dialing the hotel's number when the rain which had stopped while we were in the Macdonalds, started up again and this bus stop was nothing but a pole by the side of the road. Waikit was getting crosser by the moment and our nerves were getting frayed from exhausion and from desperation. That was when the first car light appeared from a distance. I was still peering at the bus numbers when Waikit shouted. "Taxi!"
It was the most beautiful taxi in the world. It's seats were plush, it's interior warm and inviting. Back to our hotel! Pronto!
A mere 5 minutes later, we were at the front lobby of the hotel. Looking at the meter, it said 14 euros. I started to pull out my wallet when the taxi driver said, 24 euros. I stopped and looked at him, then at the meter and then back again at him. He fixed his stare at me and smiled. I wasn't in a mood to argue and too tired to care. I paid the 24 euros and slammed the door in his face but the driver only grinned even wider. But I didn't care. We were back, safe.
We had planned to get back to the hotel and then take a walk out to the local supermarket at the other end of the street to buy stuff back to the room to cook. The planned menu for the day was a simple spaghetti with soup, cooked and boiled with our portable electric pot. All that planning was dumped in our exhausion. We just wanted to sleep. After quick showers and cold bread and biscuits, Waikit fell onto her bed immediately, already fast asleep before her head hit the pillow. I took a longer time as I had to assemble the passports and airtickets and to go downstairs to speak to the front desk about our airport transfers.
On the way back up, I stopped by the room of two American ladies from our tourgroup whom we had promised to meet to say goodbye, and they very enthusiastically grabbed me to go to yet another room, this one of two Filipino ladies who had invited the Malaysian couple, the other Filipino couple and the Americans to a balcony party of cheese and wine. I very sportingly took an offered glass and nibbled a few cheese crackers, all the while freezing my bum off on that cold balcony. It was well past bedtime when I left that party and trudged back to my room. The two American ladies followed me back to my room, determined to say goodbye to Waikit despite my protestations that she was already fast asleep. Peering into the darkened room, they finally let me go with yet another round of hugs and promises to keep in touch.
Very tired by then and with only 4 hours to go to wake-up time, I curled under the covers to get what sleep I could, rather thankful that the day was over and tomorrow's flight would take us away for a brand new adventure in Scotland.
... notable events : Midnight chat with the Subang Jaya Police
I was back in KL for the holidays and as usual, my old school friends
had taken the opportunity to gather for a good time. It was the
pre-university years, the turn of the decade going into the final
decade of the last millenium. All of us were finishing our
pre-university studies at colleges taking Grades 12/13, the Malaysian
Form Upper 6 STPM, or in our final years taking the Cambridge A-level
exams and would soon be headed to universities. Like most Chinese
families in Malaysia, almost all of us were headed overseas for our
degrees, to the USA, to Australia, to UK and for me, either one of the
local universities in Singapore or elsewhere. We all knew that after
these last couple of meetings, we would part company for at least 4-5
years and who knows how many of our number would gather again after
obtaining our degrees. We had all been very close in highschool, bonds
which were forged over time under Lord Baden Powell's code of honour in
the Scouting brotherhood, sleeping, eating, camping, crapping, playing,
skirt-chasing, fighting and practically doing everything together. We
knew each other's parents, we eyed each other's sisters, we bullied
each other's little brothers and we defended each other from elder
brothers. Everyone made the effort to come out and party.
It was
one of my usual trips back to party and destress. It was always good to
get away once in awhile from the not-so-subtle stifling confinement of
the Singapore living environment. Usually travelling 7-8 hours by
overnight train from Singapore, I would arrive in KL in the early hours
of the morning in time to wait for the first buses to run and take me
home for a couple hours of undisturbed sleep before making the vital
calls to rally the party gang.
So it was at one of the usual
"mamak stall" eating places in Petaling Jaya that we ate, laughed and
chatted our time away until it was well past midnight. We piled back
into the two cars that we had managed to commandier from parents
specially for that night, one an expensively new BMW from the rich kid
in our group, and another a still-going-strong first generation Datsun
120Y that had only just been allowed into my friend's hands for the
very first time. We were undecided as to where to go next. Some of us
were rather keen on hitting some of the discos in downtown KL while
others just wanted to drive around and eat some more. We were all still
young teenagers and while we all already had our driving licenses,
actually having cars to utilize our licenses to go vroom, vroom was
still very much a rarity, much less having two cars. We intended to go
crazy.
Seven of us squished into the two cars, we drove off
initially headed towards the satellite township of Subang Jaya to see
what we could do next. Arriving at Subang Jaya we found the place not
too our liking and so we turned off into a side street residential area
to discuss our next move. This was a time when mobile phones were still
very much toys for the filthy rich and we had to do all our discussing
via direct modulation of the gaseous medium.
So there we were,
by the side of the road of a quiet residential neighbourhood in the
dead of the night, motors running while we leaned out windows and threw
options to and fro between the two cars. Two persons came by on a
scooter and stopped directly behind us.
"Police." the pillion rider yelled, getting off the scooter. "All of you... out of the cars."
Uhhh...
ok. They looked nothing like police officers but we got out of the cars
all the same. "Yes?" we asked the two indian men on the scooter who
were busy trying to look fierce.
"What are you all doing here?"
the shorter one asked harshly. "There have been a few break-ins by
armed robbers in the neighbourhood. We've just received a complaint
from one of the residents. Let me see your identity cards." he demanded.
Some
of us looked a little intimidated while others looked amused. "Show us
proof that you're police officers." someone retorted, gathering a
chorus of nods and grunts of approval all around. Yeah. Thank goodness
for cool headed minds.
A couple of badges were produced and two
of us took them for scrutiny in the car headlights. I looked on with
mixed feelings. Hope and expectation on my face as I watched my friends
read the badges, but their faces said it all.
"Guys, they ARE police." they mumbled in resignation.
"We're
undercover detectives." the taller policeman replied triumphantly.
"Identity cards PLEASE." they ordered. We sullenly complied and one by
one we handed our ICs over while the protestations began. "We didn't do
anything..." "We are students..." "We just stopped to decide where to
go to eat..." "I'm sorry officer, I just want to go home..."
"Open
your car trunks." they ordered the drivers, obviously relishing their
superiority. "Do you have any weapons on you?" they asked us, daring us
to say yes. Of course we didn't. I gave them an incruduleous look and
said, "Armed robbery, in a BMW?". They ignored me. I caught my friend's
eye and whispered. "They are not giving our ICs back." he nodded in
reply. "Yeah, we're stuck until they do." Damn.
So there we
were, playing twenty questions with the two policemen who looked in the
car trunks, looked under the car bonnets, looked into the car
interiors, and did their damnest to find anything that they could call
a weapon. We waited patiently, knowing that the evening had just gone
to the dogs.
The reponses from each of us were all different,
ranging from near panic to resignation and indignation. "We've done
nothing wrong..." "I'm expected home soon and I can't be late..." But
the police had the right to stop and search any illegal assembly, and
seven persons, all male, on a darkened residential street, was an
illegal assembly.
"Can we have our ICs back please?" someone
asked echoing the fear in our minds. That was the one thing keeping us
from just leaving. "No." came the reply. "Please follow us back the the
balai (station)." came the dreaded order.
With heavy hearts,
groans of agony, shrugging of shoulders and some fairly frantic
protestations, we piled back into the cars to chase the now receeding
scooter and our ICs which were still unreturned. "We have to get the
ICs back. Just play along and we'll be ok." we comforted ourselves in
the privacy of the car.
"What do they want?" someone asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" came the reply. Money. Bribe them and we'll get our
ICs back.... probably... we couldn't really be sure but that was our
consenses. "Can they lock us up?" a query arose. Not sure. Possibly.
They could hold us for 24 hours without charge... we think. That
thought really scared us and it stayed with us until we reached the
police station. Parking the cars we dragged ourselves out again to
follow the two policemen into the station's compound.
"Sit
down." they motioned, pointing to the outdoor table and seats in the
station's little garden. I had even initially followed the two officers
into the station when we first arrived only to be waved back outside.
That was when we knew for sure, exactly what they wanted. I smirked and
my friend threw me a knowing gaze. Yeah, they wanted money alright. Why
else all this wayang and shadow play? If we were in trouble, then book
us. Take us to the duty officer and tell us exactly why we were being
held. Why this rubbish about wanting to talk to us outside in the
garden. What's there to say? We're either suspect, or we're not.
We
now knew this was nothing but an elaborate scare. We might be young but
we were certainly not naive. Thinking we would breakdown at the sight
of a police station? Ok, we too can play the same game. So we also
stalled for time. We took our seats around the stone garden table and
we started to play.
My friend took the lead and we all chimed in
taking his cue. We chit-chatted, telling them I was due to catch the
train back to Singapore in the morning and couldn't miss the train. We
talked about needing to call our parents to come solve the problem. We
talked about having to return the cars or face angry parents. We talked
about how late it was and good boys ought to be home in bed. We talked
about everything and anything until I think the two Indian policemen
just gave up on us.
"Go home." they said with a disgusted wave.
We smirked and smiled pleasantly knowing we'd beaten the two. They
handed back our ICs with sharp short warnings not to cause anymore
trouble to each and everyone of us. We collected our ICs happy to get
them back safe and sound. "Thank you officer." we chorused, relieved to
be out of that place. We walked out rather smugly but all of us
emotionally drained from the ordeal.
Our night was spoilt. It
was almost 5am in the morning by then and we were all tired, annoyed
and just wanting to go back home to our beds. Piling back into the cars
we made the rounds dropping everyone back home, just happy to get the
whole episode over and behind us.
had taken the opportunity to gather for a good time. It was the
pre-university years, the turn of the decade going into the final
decade of the last millenium. All of us were finishing our
pre-university studies at colleges taking Grades 12/13, the Malaysian
Form Upper 6 STPM, or in our final years taking the Cambridge A-level
exams and would soon be headed to universities. Like most Chinese
families in Malaysia, almost all of us were headed overseas for our
degrees, to the USA, to Australia, to UK and for me, either one of the
local universities in Singapore or elsewhere. We all knew that after
these last couple of meetings, we would part company for at least 4-5
years and who knows how many of our number would gather again after
obtaining our degrees. We had all been very close in highschool, bonds
which were forged over time under Lord Baden Powell's code of honour in
the Scouting brotherhood, sleeping, eating, camping, crapping, playing,
skirt-chasing, fighting and practically doing everything together. We
knew each other's parents, we eyed each other's sisters, we bullied
each other's little brothers and we defended each other from elder
brothers. Everyone made the effort to come out and party.
It was
one of my usual trips back to party and destress. It was always good to
get away once in awhile from the not-so-subtle stifling confinement of
the Singapore living environment. Usually travelling 7-8 hours by
overnight train from Singapore, I would arrive in KL in the early hours
of the morning in time to wait for the first buses to run and take me
home for a couple hours of undisturbed sleep before making the vital
calls to rally the party gang.
So it was at one of the usual
"mamak stall" eating places in Petaling Jaya that we ate, laughed and
chatted our time away until it was well past midnight. We piled back
into the two cars that we had managed to commandier from parents
specially for that night, one an expensively new BMW from the rich kid
in our group, and another a still-going-strong first generation Datsun
120Y that had only just been allowed into my friend's hands for the
very first time. We were undecided as to where to go next. Some of us
were rather keen on hitting some of the discos in downtown KL while
others just wanted to drive around and eat some more. We were all still
young teenagers and while we all already had our driving licenses,
actually having cars to utilize our licenses to go vroom, vroom was
still very much a rarity, much less having two cars. We intended to go
crazy.
Seven of us squished into the two cars, we drove off
initially headed towards the satellite township of Subang Jaya to see
what we could do next. Arriving at Subang Jaya we found the place not
too our liking and so we turned off into a side street residential area
to discuss our next move. This was a time when mobile phones were still
very much toys for the filthy rich and we had to do all our discussing
via direct modulation of the gaseous medium.
So there we were,
by the side of the road of a quiet residential neighbourhood in the
dead of the night, motors running while we leaned out windows and threw
options to and fro between the two cars. Two persons came by on a
scooter and stopped directly behind us.
"Police." the pillion rider yelled, getting off the scooter. "All of you... out of the cars."
Uhhh...
ok. They looked nothing like police officers but we got out of the cars
all the same. "Yes?" we asked the two indian men on the scooter who
were busy trying to look fierce.
"What are you all doing here?"
the shorter one asked harshly. "There have been a few break-ins by
armed robbers in the neighbourhood. We've just received a complaint
from one of the residents. Let me see your identity cards." he demanded.
Some
of us looked a little intimidated while others looked amused. "Show us
proof that you're police officers." someone retorted, gathering a
chorus of nods and grunts of approval all around. Yeah. Thank goodness
for cool headed minds.
A couple of badges were produced and two
of us took them for scrutiny in the car headlights. I looked on with
mixed feelings. Hope and expectation on my face as I watched my friends
read the badges, but their faces said it all.
"Guys, they ARE police." they mumbled in resignation.
"We're
undercover detectives." the taller policeman replied triumphantly.
"Identity cards PLEASE." they ordered. We sullenly complied and one by
one we handed our ICs over while the protestations began. "We didn't do
anything..." "We are students..." "We just stopped to decide where to
go to eat..." "I'm sorry officer, I just want to go home..."
"Open
your car trunks." they ordered the drivers, obviously relishing their
superiority. "Do you have any weapons on you?" they asked us, daring us
to say yes. Of course we didn't. I gave them an incruduleous look and
said, "Armed robbery, in a BMW?". They ignored me. I caught my friend's
eye and whispered. "They are not giving our ICs back." he nodded in
reply. "Yeah, we're stuck until they do." Damn.
So there we
were, playing twenty questions with the two policemen who looked in the
car trunks, looked under the car bonnets, looked into the car
interiors, and did their damnest to find anything that they could call
a weapon. We waited patiently, knowing that the evening had just gone
to the dogs.
The reponses from each of us were all different,
ranging from near panic to resignation and indignation. "We've done
nothing wrong..." "I'm expected home soon and I can't be late..." But
the police had the right to stop and search any illegal assembly, and
seven persons, all male, on a darkened residential street, was an
illegal assembly.
"Can we have our ICs back please?" someone
asked echoing the fear in our minds. That was the one thing keeping us
from just leaving. "No." came the reply. "Please follow us back the the
balai (station)." came the dreaded order.
With heavy hearts,
groans of agony, shrugging of shoulders and some fairly frantic
protestations, we piled back into the cars to chase the now receeding
scooter and our ICs which were still unreturned. "We have to get the
ICs back. Just play along and we'll be ok." we comforted ourselves in
the privacy of the car.
"What do they want?" someone asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" came the reply. Money. Bribe them and we'll get our
ICs back.... probably... we couldn't really be sure but that was our
consenses. "Can they lock us up?" a query arose. Not sure. Possibly.
They could hold us for 24 hours without charge... we think. That
thought really scared us and it stayed with us until we reached the
police station. Parking the cars we dragged ourselves out again to
follow the two policemen into the station's compound.
"Sit
down." they motioned, pointing to the outdoor table and seats in the
station's little garden. I had even initially followed the two officers
into the station when we first arrived only to be waved back outside.
That was when we knew for sure, exactly what they wanted. I smirked and
my friend threw me a knowing gaze. Yeah, they wanted money alright. Why
else all this wayang and shadow play? If we were in trouble, then book
us. Take us to the duty officer and tell us exactly why we were being
held. Why this rubbish about wanting to talk to us outside in the
garden. What's there to say? We're either suspect, or we're not.
We
now knew this was nothing but an elaborate scare. We might be young but
we were certainly not naive. Thinking we would breakdown at the sight
of a police station? Ok, we too can play the same game. So we also
stalled for time. We took our seats around the stone garden table and
we started to play.
My friend took the lead and we all chimed in
taking his cue. We chit-chatted, telling them I was due to catch the
train back to Singapore in the morning and couldn't miss the train. We
talked about needing to call our parents to come solve the problem. We
talked about having to return the cars or face angry parents. We talked
about how late it was and good boys ought to be home in bed. We talked
about everything and anything until I think the two Indian policemen
just gave up on us.
"Go home." they said with a disgusted wave.
We smirked and smiled pleasantly knowing we'd beaten the two. They
handed back our ICs with sharp short warnings not to cause anymore
trouble to each and everyone of us. We collected our ICs happy to get
them back safe and sound. "Thank you officer." we chorused, relieved to
be out of that place. We walked out rather smugly but all of us
emotionally drained from the ordeal.
Our night was spoilt. It
was almost 5am in the morning by then and we were all tired, annoyed
and just wanting to go back home to our beds. Piling back into the cars
we made the rounds dropping everyone back home, just happy to get the
whole episode over and behind us.
Wednesday, 18 October 2006
Project - Chinese History Research
IMPORTANT NOTICE:
Some of these photos are restricted so please do not redistribute. I'm just sharing them for your info.
These were just some of the more interesting ones used in research for my book, in discussion with other researchers.
Photos are from various unrelated sources.
Monday, 16 October 2006
... notable events : Exploring Singapore's Wartime Past
The climb wasn't exactly what I would call challenging but no doubt it served it's purpose, keeping away all but the most determined of explorers from the hidden fortress at the top of the hill. One needed to keep hold of the branches and low brush along the sides of the narrow trail to pull oneself up the hill. At certain parts was a long nylon rope, highly frayed but still strong enough to take my weight past the most dangerious sections.
It was one of a string of forts guarding the busy port of Fortress Singapore, from Fort Siloso all the way to Kent Ridge. Built by the British, it probably was abandoned long before Singapore became an independant entity of its own, the structure of warfare changing to render just such a fort obsolete and a dinosaur of a bygone era.
I was certainly not the first nor the only one to explore the abandoned fort. As far as I could see, graffitti filled every major wall. Perched as I was on the top of a 8 foot wall after scaling the hill, a very ominious and erie silence swamped the senses as I took in the scene before me. The trees which grew close together as if to shield the fort from the rest of the world, parted at the top to lay bare it's secrets for me to explore. Strangely enough, the sounds of the outside world too seemed to stay away and the silence was disturbing.
I knew that the place wasn't entirely abandoned, accessible via a slip road on the other side of the hill, locked away by a high fence and chain. Just within the fortress compound was a transmission tower of some sort and would therefore have been regularly accessed for maintenance. I needed to be careful. I paused while as I reached out with my senses. For long seconds I stilled myself and listened but the strange quietness of the place was unbroken. Feeling reassured that I was alone, my eyes fluttered open and I grinned in eagerness.
Looking down at the broken concrete I contemplated my jump. An 8 feet jump was hardly a barrier but the uneven ground below littered with rubble would not guarantee a clean landing, and having a broken ankle in what was obviously a restricted area wouldn't be the smartest thing to do, but find a way down I had to do. I was eager to begin my exploring. Thoughts of finding treasures filled my mind. Not treasures of the shiny monetary kind, but the kinds that make the eyes of historians and collectors glaze over in rapture, although the presence of graffitti and the transmission tower made just such a find rather improbable.
I walked the edge of the wall looking for a way down until I finally found a pole leaning against the wall. Scaling the pole monkey-style, I shimmied hand over hand down until I was close enough to drop to the ground with minimal risk to ankle bones. Once on the ground, my grin only grew wider and I couldn't help the anticipation building in my quickened pulse.
The first explored were the simple rooms of the main building where the roofs had already caved in long before, opening everything to the elements. There was obviously nothing of value left here, either from other scavangers or from mother nature. The concrete floors made digging nothing but an exercise in futility. There was nothing here of interest anymore.
I headed for the watch tower next. From experience from other such sites, watch towers were usually empty but well worth the climb for the commanding views they gave of the surrounding area. The main things to watch out for were the rusted staircases/ladders and precariously fragile parapet walls and railings. I made it up the first level of cat-ladder which was in a decayed but serviceable condition. The second set however, proved to be devoid of rungs and only by dragging myself up via the side rails could I gain the next level. That unfortunately was where this particular journey ended. The final level, one where the best views would have been found, was out of reach, the final ladder was completely missing, rusted away into useless reddish brown strips from prolong exposure to the elements. I stared at the opening above me, the promise of adventure so near yet so far. Not having any means of scaling the hole in the ceiling short of bringing scaling ropes, I went back down to attempt easier areas to intrude.
The next building I tried was a two storey building that was more or less intact. It really didn't look too bad from the outside other than the fact that it looked creepy and abandoned not the least because all the windows were either broken, half-hanging out or completely shuttered. The first storey was boring, nothing but broken concrete and planks all over the place. The second storey however, accessible using a side staircase, was rather interesting in comparison. The were papers and charts still scattered on the floor or pinned to the walls. Unfortunately, there wasn't really much to read as everything was either water damaged or so faded that only outlines remained. I didn't stay long in this building as it got rather erie after awhile and I was quite glad to exit the building. The sky too was getting dark at the time and it was time to leave before I couldn't find my footing down the steep hill slope.
As I climbed back down the slope, I cast longing eyes back at the fort, thinking of all the areas yet to be explored. I vowed to return again and finish what I started, but until today, 8 years later, I still haven't found the opportunity nor a strong enough reason to go back. Things have probably changed by now as construction works were done along the foot of the hill since I was last there and the fort at the top of that hill is probably no longer as easily accessible to nosy people like me.
Sunday, 15 October 2006
... notable events : Organising the 1987-88 Party Years
As highschool seniors, the world was our oyster.
But best of all, it was also the time when we discovered that greatest of discoveries. We found out that girls were not only fun to be around, they were also interested in dorky boys like us too. (although none of us would have admitted to being dorky but instead, would have objected rather violently to the contrary since all of us were just so handsome, dashing and oh so to-die-for-drop-dead-gorgeous to the opposite sex!)
We were a group of scouts from the 5th Petaling Scout group of an all boy's secondary school, and one of our greatest achievement claims to date was to have linked up with a group of Girl Guides of the 1st Kuala Lumpur Coy of the Methodist Girl's School (MGS), KL. It was heaven on earth so far as we were concerned and every weekend was a party.
I was to make official contact and to invite the Coy for a gathering together with our Troop for our first joint gathering. For days I could hardly think of anything else. I procastinated and waited, gathering my wits about me until I could not put it off anymore. "So have you arranged it yet?" my friends and scouting seniors would ask, grins on their faces, cowards all. So one evening after school I puffed up my chest, gulped in deep breaths and stilled my beating heart.
I sat on the mid-level staircase landing where the home telephone was and recited in my head the things I would ask and the things I would say. I ran through the whole senario in my head and tried to anticipate the things I would say to this girl. Then I dialed.
"Hellothisiskitmengcallingonbehalfofthe5thPJtroopandIam..." gasp, breath, "...supposedtoarrangeajointgatheringtogetherwithyourcoy..." and off I went.
It was hilarious on hindsight but the terror quaking in my voice was real that day. The girl I spoke to was the Coy leader and as all females her age were, she was cool as a cucumber. "I was expecting you to call me earlier." she said crossly.
Oops.
But it all went well from that day on. She became one of my good friends and quite a few of us nerdy guys hooked up with that bunch of cool MGS girls over the course of the year. We started arranging parties and dances. Held at our houses, we rotated the location every week. A group of us got so good at arranging parties that they started offering their services to other equally "happening" highschool groups. Living rooms were transformed into the hottest discos in town, dining rooms became loveseating, garden verandas turned into places of whispered sweet nothings in the moonlight. Strob-lights were purchased, mixers, speakers, flashing neon lights, backlights, and neighbours were annoyed with the latest hit songs on cassette tapes which belted out the vocals of the likes of Whitney Houston, Stevey Wonder and the likes of which have never returned to the airwaves except in oldies channels.
I wasn't part of that entreprenising group as we were extremely clickish at the time, but I enjoyed myself all the same, tagging along to party, turning up at parties with my shirt trendily untucked, hair combed slick but still somehow managing to look ganggly and dorky all the same despite my best efforts. It was the teenage years and looking great for the girls was our number one priority as well as our number one failure. But is was a time when we had fun. It was a time to try out all our great moves only to have them fail and fall flat on our faces in the face of an actual female. It was the time when we would try breakdancing and end up looking more like amatuerish yoga.
Some of us made better headway with the girls than others, pairing off to disappear into the darker corners of the dance floors. Others like me could only watch in despair as our self-esteems took yet another beating to see the pretty girls disappear in arms not of your own. But party we did, and made friends with girls we also did, discovering the beauty and softness of the female anatomy as we went. The beat was hypnotic, and we all danced like it was the most important thing to grace our young lives. We practiced it at home, we hummed the songs in class, we applied ourselves with a vengeance at the next party. The norm was for fast dances then slow dances nearing the later parts of the night. Since one of us was always in control of the music and DJed the party, we ALWAYS made sure we had slow dances. That part was for most of us, the best part of the party and every girl was fair game.
The honeymoon years was what it was called, the years before our final SPM or "GCE O-level equivalent" exams. We were young punks and brats who left houses the morning after in a mess, furniture in disarray, food stains on the carpets, used untensils and plates littering the place, and the floor much too sticky from too much soda, smuggled booze and other unmentionable sticky stuff. We were only young once we would chorus to our naysayers. And we were cool. I think those guys who sold their services in setting up parties made some money although till this day they still refuse to say, but as far as I was concerned, we had fun. We were quite literally, Party Central and where we went, so went the party.
Life was good.
... notable events : Cold Iron and an Obligation bound in Chains of Steel
"I, in the presence of these my betters and my equals in my Calling, bind myself upon my Honour and Cold Iron that, to the best of knowledge and power, I will not henceforward suffer or pass, or be privy to the passing of, Bad Workmanship or Faulty Material in aught that concerns my works before mankind as an Engineer, or in my dealing with my own Soul before my Maker.
MY TIME I will not refuse; my Thought I will not grudge; my Care I will not deny towards the hounour, use, stability and perfection of any works to which I may be called to set my hand.
MY FAIR WAGES for that work I will openly take, My Reputation in my Calling I will honourably guard; but I will in no way go about to compass or wrest judgment or gratification from any one with whom I may deal. And further, I will early and warily strive my uttermost against professional jealousy or the belittling of my working-colleagues in any field of their labour.
FOR MY ASSURED FAILURES and derelictions, I ask pardon beforehand of my betters and my equals in my Calling here assembled; praying that in the hour of my temptations, weakness and weariness, the memory of this my Obligation and of the company before whom it was entered into, may return to me to aid, comfort and restrain."
... so went the pledge on that cold dreadfully rainy Vancouver day. The Obligation is part of the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer which was written in 1923 by Rudyard Kipling in response to a request from a group of Canadian engineers, administered by the Corporation of the Seven Wardens Inc. who are custodians to the ceremonies and of the 24 camps nationwide in Canada.
It was 1995 and graduation was in sight. Young engineers, all of us, eager to make our mark on the world. "ERTW" they would say, or "Engineers Rule the World" ignorant we were at the time since in reality, Engineers slave for THOSE who rule the world.
We entered the great hall in a somber procession, the weight of the moment upon us. In hushed voices we threaded the empty seats to find one to lay our bums. A murmur rose from the front ranks as more and more of us noticed the large steel chains which ran around hall, one for every row of chairs, to congregate in a mass of steel locked around the neck of a blacksmith's anvil on the central dias at the front. For those who had taken light of the moment, the sight of the cold steel chains as they filed into the hall silenced them all.
Our Iron Rings had arrived weeks before. We had been warned not to put them on but I doubt there was a single person amongst us who did not at least try it on for size, or to preen in front of a mirror to see how it fitted and weighed on his or her hand. With rings in hand, we all found our seats, picking up the card that was on the chair and very expectantly sat down. Thoughts of magical ceremonies and of witchcraft ran through our heads as we kicked, nudged and fingered the heavy chains on the floor. Few of us had any prior knowledge of the ceremony or any inkling of what was in store for us as the Ceremony of the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer was one that was and still is shrouded in secrecy and all publicity was shunned.
Speeches were made, our excitement rising as the true magnitude of our obligations and of our duties now began to creep upon us. Nothing much of what was said that day registered in my mind. I only knew that I stood at certain times and I sat at certain times, but all the time my newly minted Iron Ring was clutched tightly in my hand until it was time to put it on.
Standing, we were asked to slip the Iron Ring half-way onto the last finger of our working hand, in my case, being right handed, the Iron Ring went half-way up the smallest finger of my right hand. And there were stood and waited as representatives of the Seven Wardens circled the hall, pushing the ring all the way onto our fingers. There were nervous giggles and endless fidgetting as some rings proved harder than others to push in but eventually we all now wore our Iron Rings, the first step in our journey as Canadian engineers.
Next came the steel chains. We were told to pick up and hold the chains. This was done accompanied by more nervous chuckles and a couple of snide comments. With a fist full of cold steel, and card in our free hand, we then recited the Obligation of the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer.
"I, in the presence of these my betters and my equals in my Calling,
bind myself upon my Honour and Cold Iron that, to the best of knowledge
and power, I will not..." we chorused after the Seven Wardens on the raised dias until we reached the last line. A complete silence held sway in the room as the enormity and weight of the occasion began to rest heavily onto our young hearts.
This obligation was not an oath except where one makes it so, but rather a statement of intent, to do our best and to do our duties as engineers. Legend has it that the Ritual and Obligation was first conceived after the collapse of an iron bridge in the early years of the 20th century and that the first sets of Iron Rings were made from the scrapped iron of the collapse bridge. I'm still not sure how true this legend is but I was rather thankful that Iron Rings today are not made of iron but rather of stainless steel since I wasn't too keen on having a rusty ring around my finger after a few years working in the humid tropics. Legend also has it that an engineer once bound, was now a slave to his profession as the Iron Ring would not tolerate any challenges to it's dominance of the individual, and will cut any gold wedding ring that is placed on the fourth finger of the hand and that he must therefore be prepared for just such an eventuality.
In any case, we were warned that if at anytime we wished to free ourselves of the obligations or if we no longer feel that we can maintain the high standards expected of the Calling, we were to return our Iron Rings to the Corporation of the Seven Wardens and live once again free of duty and responsibilities. Not many of us gave that warning much thought that day, but for those of us who continue to wear it, the ring remains a constant reminder to us all, and identifies us as one and the same. I still wear my Iron Ring, having hardly ever left the little finger of my working hand since that fateful day in 1995, and for the foreseeable future, not likely to ever leave it, even if the memories of the day I took my Obligation receeds far into the distant past.
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