Zo bo / "wow, that's magical"

There were three brothers who lived in a house that was far away from anybody else, in a forest, in a land, at some point in time when strange magical things happened now and then, and people didn't get all skeptical, but just go, "wow, that's magical", or something along those lines.

Everyday, the three brothers would go out to deal with their usual hunting and gathering, and also to pass their motion and urine (their house didn't have plumbing). When they were done with the essentials, they would also go about here and there to zo bo (which is a really nifty hokkien phrase that literally translate to mean "do nothing", but does not really mean "do nothing" but something like "do something, probably inconsequential, probably just to pass some time idly"). 

Since they were in the middle of the forest, and the nearest shopping mall was not near at all, and they had no internet, no books to read, they would come up with new ways to zo bo.

The eldest brother, who was tall and thin, enjoyed lying chest down, on the bank of a river (yes, there was at least a river nearby), and dunking his face in the flowing water, lifting it out to take a deep breath every now and then.


"What for?" You may ask... me (as in, me, I, the person who is humbly writing this down) for perceived lack of better alternative people to ask.


"Why..." I may say and pause for some time so that I can come up with something ridiculous to suit his posture, but it doesn't take me that long, really, "He wanted to count the fish passing him by in the river."


"What for?" You may ask. Or, if you should so prefer, "For what?" (Honestly, I personnally prefer the "For what".)

"So that he could get a sense of how many fish pass him by."

"Why would he want to know that?"

"I don't know," I may say with a shrug, "So that he'll go back and tell his brothers, 'Hey what do you know, Twenty-seven fish today'?" But nah, that is too practical. So I think I'll go with, "He liked the way the fins look on the fish."

And you may frown, knowing that this doesn't explain the counting behaviour at all. But you are clever, and you sense that I may say what I may say deliberately because I may be in the mood to be silly, so you may say  "Okay, whatever..." just to get on with it. And I shall quickly go on to talk about the next brother.

The second brother was short and stout, and had a thing for eggs: bird eggs, butterfly eggs, fish eggs, lizard eggs, scrambled eggs, poached eggs, half-boiled eggs, smashed eggs.
He'd climb around the forest, crawl on the floor, and cut up fish, and put in a lot of back-breaking work, just to find eggs to marvel at.

"What does he find so fascinating about eggs?" You may ask.

And I may wonder what nonsense I may have up my sleeves this time, but I may realise that I may not be feeling inspired.

But wait. As I write, I realise I can ask him that for you now, since he's pretty much in my head.

"Because I see the unhatched eggs' potential. Or the cooked/smashed eggs' lost potential." He may reply, pronouncing '/' as 'slash', such that he really says "the cooked slashed smashed eggs' lost potential...

"I can actually see potential - visually, tangibly, physically floating around some eggs like an aura, like a cloud of colours. Some eggs' potential are like fireworks made of feathers. Others are like shadows of sea coconuts dancing with orange mokara orchids... Or lost potential that can look like fish balls bouncing everywhere like gummy bears, or toenails of witches, or the old grey tee-shirt that's on somebody's kitchen floor as a rag..."

Well, you can take it from me that I didn't make this up. Because his reply is so ridiculous and fun that honestly, I wish I did make it up. I would certainly like to claim the credit for myself, but I'm afraid of stealing anything from anyone who can see potential and knows how witches' toenails look like, for he might be a wizard!

"I might be," I hear him warningly.

"And he lives in my head!" I think.

"I don't live in your head," he corrects, "I live in a forest far away from anybody else. But, yes, I am in your head." He nods.

And I smile weakly at all of us now, and move on to the third brother.

The third and last brother was between tall and short and thin and stout, zo bo-ed (note: Singlish past tense to the hokkien verb) by lazing around. He lazed by sitting down, standing up, in the sun, in the shade, humming a tune, eyes closed or eyes opened, looking at the trees or the clouds or his brothers and... you know.

And before I think of anything you may ask me about this lazy brother number three, I stop myself. Because I've been kind of presumptious about the questions you may ask. I apologise. I'm sorry.

So do you think, you can imagine this lazy brother number three, or all three brothers (might as well) in your own head? Then if you have any questions regarding the stuff they do, or not do, and their motivations, or even for wanting to hear something ridiculous, you can ask them directly?

And because I'm curious if the brothers in my head will reply with the same things when they're in yours, could you please help me ask the brothers in your head:
a) if they also really zo all the bo they zo (read: they really do all the shit they do), just to notice something that they didn't notice before and go, "wow, that's magical",
b) if they shall also live happily, ever, after?

Thanks. Let me know, k?

Expressions of Spontaneousness

For each of the many phenomenons (or phenomena, as some would prefer it) in the world, there are different expressions.
For example, there are at least two different kinds of spontaneousness (or spontaneity) that I shall attempt to illustrate below.

Abigail

Abigail was a girl who didn't like to plan, and went with the flow. People who knew her admired her for her spontaneousness, and really wished they could be as cool as her. She would skip school to fly over to Africa for a holiday (her parents could afford it). For breakfast, she could be chewing on a lap cheong (chinese jerky of sorts). One of her favourite antics was going for school assembly with a helium balloon tie to her pony tail. (It was to irritate her teacher for confiscating her colourful hairband. Her school did not allow colourful hair accessories for their students as part of their school uniform code. So, she got a black helium balloon with a black ribbon to tie to her hair instead.)

When she fell in love, she was also spontaneous and went with the flow and had unprotected sex with her boyfriend. She got pregnant, spontaneously. And her parents hunted down her "true love" for her, and "enticed" him to marry her. They had their "unannounced" wedding in Bali, "suddenly". ("Oh so spontaneous! So romantic!" But actually it was to hide her showing tummy.)

One day, her parents spontaneously lost their fortune due to some spontaneous market crash and bad luck. Abigail had to go to work and be a mother to her children (she had three more by then, one with a different man from her then-husband, who found out and became her ex-husband). She didn't have much chance to plan much anymore because there was not much room for manuveuring between working and feeding the family, anyway, besides occasionally dreaming about how she could have gone to some other country to do some social work.

Betty

Then there was Betty, who planned and was fastidious about her time, money, and everything else. Everyone who knew her, admired her for being so organised and careful, but did not really wish they were like her.

"Live a little, Betty!" they would say. "Be free, like Abigail!" 

But Betty shrugged and confessed that she didn't know how to be like Abigail.

"Betty, you're no fun!" they said, "We're gonna hang out with Abigail!"

And Betty would shrug and go home by herself. She'd spend her afternoon alone at home, watching tv (whatever channel), cooking or buying her own lunch, sleeping or daydreaming, doing her homework or read a book, or surf the net, or daydream, or cut her nails...

In my way, I'm also free, what? Betty shrugged and thought to herself.

When she fell in love, she was also swept off her feet, made out with him and stuff, but did not get pregnant because she insisted on using birth control. The relationship didn't work out, due to some differences, so she shrugged and moved on by concentrating on her studies then went for an exchange programme somewhere in Europe. In Europe, she had a crush on one of the Ang Mohs she met in one of the backpacker's hotel, and had a thing going on for a while. Then she had a crush on some other guy but it wasn't serious.

She then started working for a while and then changed her jobs in a year or two whenever she didn't like what she was doing anymore. One day, she decided to propose, plan, and implement some corporate social responsibility initiative at her workplace, and during the course of making it happen, she met her husband and got married...

Claudia, Dawn, Edna...?

What about them? What were they doing with their lives?

Maslow's hierarchy of needs?

Sardines are very insecure by nature - they have a very strong need to belong. This need drives each sardine to do what the next sardine does, and motivates each sardine to need what the next sardine has.

A bunch of dolphins understood this, and decided to capitalise on it because pollution and over-fishing by human beings had made times quite hard la, and they had to find new ways to make a living somehow...

So, they applied their wits and business sense to making some money to buy some food from the humans instead.

They had a stock of abandoned flippers (from irresponsible divers and general waste), and they marketed the idea of wearing or living in them to the sardines.

"Tired of skirting Helter Skelter? Get shelter! Safety flippers for sale! (Made of 100% recycled material.)"

It was a big hit.

The sardines snatched up the flippers with the money they earned by selling intelligence on the whereabouts of secretive sardine schools to the human beings.

Red Tape

There was a boy who was very helpful. He tried his best to help everyone around him to do everything they asked him to help them with. He did not think too much about it. He was neither very proud about it, nor did his actions spring from an inferior-complex need to make anyone like him better. He just helped in anyway he was told: tabao chicken rice for his family's dinner from the kopitiam downstairs, massage his mother's shoulders, mend the hole in his father's underwear, change his sister's diapers, clean his grandfather's dentures...

Then, he got old enough to go to school.

So he went. And made "friends". And helped his teachers to carry books here and there, and got labelled as being a "por2" (apple polisher). And helped his "friend" to tie her shoe-laces, and got called a sucker. And helped another "friend" to touch the teacher's backside, and got into serious trouble.

"Why do you always help them do these things?"

"Because they said that they needed my help?"

"Have you ever wondered if they were lying? Just making use of you?"

"But, what if they were not lying?"

"You do so much for them, what have they done for you in return?"

"I should be happy and count my blessings that I've not needed their help so far. But if I need their help one day, they'll help me too?"

"What if they say they forget you've ever helped them before?"

"Then I'll help them remember...?"

After getting into more and more serious trouble repeatedly, until his teenage-hood, and the people around him had less and less respect for his moral high-ground, the boy started to keep a log book, in which he would record down whenever people ask him for help, and how he helped in return. This became a habit that he could never stop. And he suffered for it and perhaps from the anxiety and doubt that people may forget about what he has done for them? And perhaps from the stress from being cheated and getting his heart broken too many times?

By the time he was an adult, he was logging in requests from himself, because he did not have a lot of friends nor was there a lot of people who would talk to him.

It started with: "I asked me to help me to buy chicken rice."

Then it gradually grew to become: "I asked me to help me buy chicken rice, and I asked my left hand to hold the spoon and the right hand to hold the fork to help me eat it."

Still, he managed to get himself into the most serious trouble he'd ever get himself into:

One day, as he was eating chicken rice, and busy logging in his request to his mouth to spit out the stuff it contained, and his throat and lungs to cough, and his legs to get up and run to the toilet, and his hands to hit his chest or flail around for help...

Grandmother story: On finishing a novella

(Written on 25 April 2012, Wednesday)

Finally, I've clicked sent and passed up the work.

It's a manuscript of a novella, that I've worked on for over a year, the working title is The House of Millie's Dreams, the word count, a little over 35,000, and it is supported by the Arts Creation Fund from the National Arts Council.

It feels a little surreal that I've reached this milestone... but also not so super exciting because it's just a manuscript, and I've finished it too many times in the past few months, and especially in the past week: proofread, edit, edit, proofread but itchy-hand and edit some more... format and spot typo... alamak should I proofread again...? 

But maybe since I've not touched the work for two days now, I've somehow mustered the decisiveness to just send it in to NAC la. Maybe because today is a good day. Maybe because I really can't bring myself to read it again. 

I could try to sense some accomplishment... But then I also don't have the mood.  

I visited my uncle today, and the journey to his place, where my grandma used to live, and its view of the Chinese Garden pagoda at sunset, reminded me of the times when I used to visit her. 

There were two kites being flown in the sky. I couldn't spot the people flying them. I saw a small monkey running across a field chasing something. But I can't remember what it was chasing.

My grandma's bed had since been replaced by my cousins' study desks. 

If she were still around, I'd climb into her single-size bed and squeeze somewhere beside her, and tell her that I finally finished the story I was busy writing. And she'd be happy for me, regardless of whether she can understand the story or my summary of it in broken Hokkien-Mandarin translation. 

"它是个微型小说，故事是讲述 一个女人，她有一些迷离的梦。比如梦中有一种树，树上没有叶子，在叶子应该在的位子，长了鸟儿。梦中也有一个僵尸，而特别的是 在于他的脸是一个时钟。好像你的墙壁上的那个咯。还有其他的怪东西啦。

故事刺激读者  考虑真假的区别，和 逻辑与理智 在生活里的重要性。它拿 现代红毛 (ang moh) 与科学  的想法 和 华人传统 的想法 做比较。 比如 解梦方式 - 红毛 用的心理学理论 和 我们的庄周和周公。

其实这个故事满抽象的。我也不知道读者的反应会是怎么样。有点紧张。。。"

"It's about a woman, who has strange dreams of a house with strange things like birds growing on trees in place of leaves and a zombie with a clock for a face... The story provokes readers to reconsider truth and falsehood, and the role of logic or rational thinking in their lives. It draws parallels between Western and Chinese cultures - like with dreams - between pseudo-psychology with Zhuang Zhou and Zhou Gong.

"Basically, it's quite abstract and I'm not sure how people will respond to it."

When my grandma was still around, I had told her about previous drafts before, and although they were equally, if not more, absurd and abstract, she took them well. Though she was not highly educated, she's pretty cool with such things. She might have thought that they are weird or amusing, or that it was common for people to write nonsense like that nowadays. Anyway, she wouldn't be too bothered. Maybe because it's just a story after all.


She seemed more curious, or even concerned, about why I had to go through all the trouble to write it. Especially since it was unlikely that the story would make me a lot of money. Especially if it seemed like I lost weight over it.

*

So I offered her some joss sticks at the altar and paid my respects to her (or what's left of her?) and told her, in my heart, that I've finished the story. And I imagined that she was happy for me. Regardless of whether she'd understand the story or why I wrote it, I was sure she'd be happy for me. Then I caught my thoughts, and I remembered that I ought to be wishing that she had already left this world and her worries and concerns, including me, behind, and she had gone to a better place. 

I think of all the time I could have spent with her if I wasn't squandering it on writing a stupid story that I don't know if anyone would even appreciate. But maybe, if not for the writing, I wouldn't have learnt to appreciate time as much, and I wouldn't have matured enough to appreciate her company as much? I could have squandered time on drinking, or learning drawing, or sleeping, or watching TV or movies, or shopping, or working overtime at my cpf-earning work? 

Well, nevertheless, I tell her again, in my heart, that I'm sorry. For not having spent more time with her. And I imagine, her to call me "gong3 gia4" (meaning silly child), and to remind me that everybody has to die eventually, and that ah ma is already very grateful for everything she had, and she had been praying for the time to come for her to go, and I should be happy for her that her wish finally came true. And she will stroke my face with her palm, in the way she used to do, and tell me not to cry anymore.