Zhong Qiu

The day that was : 12 September 2011

It’s the Mid-Autumn festival, or Zhong Qiu festival . There were not much activities in the office and my work routines progressed at a rather snail’s pace. Allowing myself some breaks, I surfed the internet and read a heart-rending post by a blogger dedicated his writings specially to his close buddy who was killed during the 11/9 tragedy. And it’s been 10 years since the catastrophe, but as memory of images of twin towers slowly disintegrating and crumbling to the ground being brought back to mind, there’s somehow a sense of relief to know that this very same place which was once shrouded in utter fear and chaos in the aftermath of 9/11 has seemed to somehow regain a semblance of normalcy.

But with the passing of another anniversary I pray that those who have been affected by the tragedy will be dragged a little further from those painful memories, and instead choose to remember this very poignant event in their lives by embracing the days ahead with renewed hopes and dreams.

Because putting personal tragedy behind in order to move forward, albeit taking one tiny step at a time, is a prerequisite for living and, above all, an intrinsic part of life.

But death is also an intrinsic part of life...

I saw my boss descending the stairs clasping a newspaper under his arm at about 4.00pm and I ‘d wonder whether he’d decided to go back home early to celebrate the festival with his family.

If only he would allow us to go back 1 hour and 45 minutes earlier, it would have made us very happy.

But sometimes, you can’t expect too much generosity from your boss.

Zhong Qiu should be a time for merry-making and happy feelings but being affected by this one post I have read , I came to ponder about my own mortality and death in its own sense and decided to sneak a little time in between the mundane tasks at work by writing a letter to a Venerable Tze Fu who is now in Burma.

Dear Tze Fu,

Amitofu, how are you?

Time really flies while we are busy with life, now that it’s been close to one year since you left for Burma, I would not have noticed the swiftness with which time moves have I not stopped in my track for a while to ponder about people around me , and about you.

Just last Saturday I went to City Vege Restaurant and met with Lee Fang Tze Jie and asked her about you and how’s you’ve been doing. It’s nice to hear a little about you from her and the fact that you have been and are doing well in Burma. I believe you must have shown so much progress in your quest for spiritual attainment.

Indeed, both Yee2 and me ( I have related the news to her) are happy for you.

Yee2 is currently sill in the village. In fact she rarely comes down to KK unless there’s a need to attend to some urgent matters. She told me while she hasn’t yet determined as to the path to tread on she would treasure her time by paying more attention to her spiritual practice. Indeed the quietness and serene atmosphere in the village is a conducive environment to practice the Buddha’s teachings. Within weeks from each other recently she has received news of the passing away of her two close friends from Yuan Kuang, one a Tze Fu and the other her course mate, both gone before their time due to cancer. I sensed her sadness upon hearing the news but while she has to bear with the lingering loss she told me it also helps to strengthen her resolve to not waste time and to diligently follow the spiritual path.

I must admit the news of the deaths of her two friends have somehow also affected me and it made me think deeply about the impermanence of life and how we must not waste time to strive to add meaning to our lives by performing good deeds for the good of our own, and of others.

Last month Yee2 and I have together with family members and friends made a trip to Santavana Hermitage to make offerings to the monks and we were happy to be able to meet up with Kai Ying Tze Fu and the rest of the community of Bhikkhus and Bhikkhunis as well as to have a little chat and it’s indeed nice to be able to see them again.

Today being ZhongQiu festival in Malaysia. Do the Burmese people celebrate this festival in Burma too?

Till then, wishing Tze Fu a happy `Zhong Qiu’ and may Tze Fu be well and happy.

With Metta,
CJ

In the evening at my apartment, I thought of loved ones back home while eating my bowl of hastily prepared instant noodles and gazed at the full moon outside which was partially hidden behind some moving black clouds, it’s still looked beautiful despite the veil of darkness and I naively thought maybe I could capture a glimpse of its image via the lens of my digital camera but just as I returned to the balcony with the device the moon has already disappeared into the dark horizon.

Ah the transience of all things beautiful, soothing, and comforting..

This Zhong Qiu despite without its requisite elements, did bring forth in me a sense of calm, and contentment.

For it’s been a meaningful journey for me so far…

Of 4D and a million ringgit

I bought RM8 worth of lottery tickets in Beaufort, my hometown while going back to visit my parents on a weekend. My bet was a 4D , and 6D Toto (my first time), the 6D being a combination of numbers made up of the birth dates of my siblings and myself. I sheepishly asked the lady at the counter whether that was how I should arrange the numbers, to which she nodded in an unperturbed manner, while an elder Chinese man behind me glanced over my shoulder with somewhat a look of slight amusement on his face.

I have been placing bets on these lottery tickets on some weekends these days. Without luck of course. I remember my first and only win dated way back in the 90s where I bought two tickets upon spotting the number atop the bus on which Keanu Reeves was on while trying to save a group of hostages inside a city bus which contained a time bomb set by a terrorist, in the movie SPEED. In 1994 to be exact.

I can still remember the thrills and excitement of watching the movie with a friend. How I adored Keanu Reeve (and still do!) and Sandra Bullock then after watching them for the first time on screen.

But time wisely executes its own SPEED while the majority of us are toiling away in obscurity, dealing with LIFE’S various issues , events big or small , without even pausing to look back to where we are.

And if we ever decide to make a little effort to really pause, that previously unnoticed fact in an instance immerses to stare right back at us with glaring intensity .

Of the swiftness with which time moves.

I digress.

The fact that lottery outlets have throngs of people lining up everyday willing to spare their hard-earned cash to bet have undisputedly testified to us of its charm to entice us into believing that we all have the opportunity, however thin it is, to strike it rich.

Because we never want to lose hope that one fine day luck will finally find us, and the winnings will undoubtedly help us alleviate whatever financial troubles that we are experiencing at that particular time.

Perhaps to redeem our lost pride of so frequently having to tread behind the shadows of success and opportunity, which often times elude us, yet granted amply upon others.

Or to help us pursue whatever dreams that we may not be able to realize due to monetary constraints, in addition to nestling in the lap of luxuries and live the life we desire.

But even though the odds of winning is as slim as the possibility of finding a lost needle beneath the deep ocean, it does not stop us to continue betting, hoping against all odds that one day, the angel of good luck will indeed pay us a visit.

Even though hope and dreams are like that mischievous little child often times hiding behind the veil of distorted reality.

Now, if only I can win a million ringgit. Sigh.

But I will continue to bet .

Just because one fine day in 1994 a dear young me had had the taste of winning RM180in lottery tickets, which in that moment made her feel like a million ringgit! ^__^

Spiritual food for thought

On a quiet evening, just to remind myself, we are far from perfect, and in our effort to seek improvements within ourselves, and strive to become a better individual, we also learn to accept and embrace the imperfections in others..

When you find yourself judging someone,
Look for what in yourself you are not willing to accept..
hold that part of you more gently.

-Robyn Posin-

Chaotic maze

The day that was : 27 March 2011

A nephew bought a plastic bag of fresh water prawns from a stall on way back to my parents’ house in kampung after a trip to the cemetery during Qing Ming. These prawns were meant to end up as a dish for lunch. I took a peek and saw some of the prawns were still alive, wriggling and gasping for air. which I assumed they were caught not long ago. I was actually thinking maybe I could still save their lives by releasing them into the river not far from the house however agonized as to how to relay my intention to my nephew, him being a Muslim (my cousin himself a convert Muslim) and has little knowledge about fang sheng.

When I returned from collecting some pandan leaves nearby and had by then already made up my mind about telling my nephew of my intention to purchase the prawns from him, I found it a little too late as my aunt was already half way through getting the prawns ready for cooking. But I managed to secretly scoop up the few remaining wiggling ones and put them in a small basin of water , then made my way into the river and released them.

I slipped and fell while climbing up the muddy river bank, my track suit and slippers collected plenty of mud and I got lost while navigating my way home. I was in a daze , unable to believe that what used to be an endearing playground in my younger days has now been completely transformed into a foreign territory, of sort.

My siblings and I used to frequent this river almost on daily basis to bath and play and collect drinking water during drought seasons. I have not been to this river for so many years since I left home to pursue my studies later work in KK, but what had been a familiar sight and route has now turned into a pretty different sight, the river has changed its topography and I no longer could identify the place where we used to playfully ride on our neighbor’s sampan or helping my mother to wash the laundry while sitting on the rakit placed beside the river bank, with my mother listening to stories of our cheekiness in school told by our primary school’s teacher, who happened to be our good neighbor.

It used to be a well-tended path surrounded by rubber trees leading to the river, but it is now sadly being replaced by some overgrown bushes to the extent I could no longer tell the whereabout of the only house which used to stand where it was.

I came away from this slightly chaotic maze of confusion, but not without a lingering sense of melancholy that things and places, just like people and life itself, are subject to change and evolution, and what remains akin to only shattered glass shrapnels here and there, but which when pieced together, would form a big picture providing inadvertent clues to fragments of stories from the past.

Because time ironically stands still amidst the meandering shadows which we long left behind.

And that which we treasure and cherish is only a memory of what it used to be…

The river

some photos from Qing Ming:



We are one big family.

Papa offering a prayer for my late ma.

Me, laying some food for offering for a dear aunt, who passed away in a car accident more than a decade ago.
Niece Kewei using a brush & red paint to attentively rewrite the inscription on the tomb.

A story of zhenzhu nai cha

It was a Friday.

My niece called as I was about to call it a night, feeling tired and with back pains. She said she wanted to drop by my house to give me something. A while later there was a knock at the door. As I opened it there she was standing outside holding a small plastic bag containing a cup of pearl milk tea. Turned out she had gone out earlier with friends for a `yum cha session’ and on her way back after giving her friend a lift decided to turn to my place to give me this `takeaway’.

I must admit, I felt a little touched by this.

So on that quiet night, I sipped through the straw of the cup of iced Pearl milk tea, alone, but not lonely, with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, comforting myself that all would be well and despite at times dealing with insecurity issues and feeling like a tiny speck of dust amidst this vast humanity, somewhere, somehow, I was remembered….

Not sober

Many years ago, while having a bowl of fish noodle in a kopitiam in Jalan Gaya, a man caught my eyes, and I wrote down my thoughts of him, in a little note book.

On a Sunday afternoon,
what is on your mind, I wonder?
I see five big empty bottles of beer on a coffee table,
Where you sit by, with a companion,
at a corner of a local coffee shop…

The ceiling fan’s spinning furiously,
But it seems to me you have sank back into total oblivion,
perhaps the smooth operations of your senses have been obliterated by the flow of liquor from your mouth, to every direction in your veins?

You are immersed in your own little space,
I initially thought that the glow in your eyes equates a certain vigilance,
but it turns out to be simply inebriated stares,
hidden behind are perhaps a feeling of desperation and hopelessness,
and you are trying to numb these feelings by emptying bottle upon bottle of liquor,
as I can see .

You stare blankly at the noisy crowd, meandering souls around you,
but I don’t think you really feel their existence,
because you have been entirely hypnotized by the very presence of liquor,
which has acquired an undisputed dominion over the space in your life for now…

But you seem happy and calm.
But I figure its just this game of illusion manifesting itself,
by influencing your subconscious mind into translating these expressions,
on your outer skin…

You don’t care about what others think of you,
even I myself have formed this judgment about you,
oh how I shouldn’t.
You think it’s sweet,
on your part, this perceived divine intoxication of the mind body and soul.

I have finished my noodles,
Another empty bottle is added to the table,
I think its going to be an extended session,
You have fallen deep in your drunken slumber,
I wonder, when tomorrow comes,
When the traces of alcohol slowly diminish,
will you again regain sobriety,
to face the day with renewed hope and promises?

I am leaving now,
I have only these few hours left,
tomorrow’s another working week,
I desperately crave a good rest,
There’s certainly no room for drinking session like this,
even if I so wish.

Do have a good time while you are at it.
Its funny though,
my observation of you,
have brought about a lingering emptiness, in me…..
you have slowly and moderately drunk the life out of this bitter liquid,
like a lost and inebriated soul you are,
Yet it’s ain’t poetry…

Feeding pigeons

A few pigeons wander around my balcony early morning while I get myself busy cooking lunch for work, producing melodiously captivating cooing sounds as if to remind me to hurry up. They do it for a reason. I have been feeding these birds with cracked corn feed for quite some time on the balcony of my first-floor apartment. Initially there were only two or three pigeons linger about the space with the frequent presence of sparrows and other small birds. But I eventually had to stop feeding on the advice of a friend as the bird droppings had caused pretty much an eyesore, and unhygienic, plus the fact I did not have time to clean it out every day, yet this did not deter the birds from coming back each morning, waiting faithfully in anticipation for their feed. I felt pity for them and I just didn’t have the heart to turn them down.

So what was only a casual act to ensure the few hungry birds get some food, has now been transformed into a small mission on my part to routinely spread the feed on the ground near the parking area of my apartment block, every morning before I drive to work. But the spreading of the cracked corn has somehow managed to attract the keen eyes of their peers hence it’s now grown into a frock of twenty and sometimes thirty and more pigeons, which can be seen every morning perching precariously on the roof tops and window panes of my neighbors’ apartments, waiting patiently for the time to fly down to the ground the moment I distant myself from the feeding zone.

I do question myself sometimes if my act of habitually feeding this frock of pigeons and other little birds would make them more dependent of easily available feed, in the process depriving them from using their natural instinct to search for food? In some countries for instant there are signs placed in the parks to advise visitors not to feed the birds for fear that they might eventually lose their abilities to fend for themselves especially during winter times where very few people will venture out to feed them.

But I told myself our country is blessed with moderate climate. If one day I stop feeding these birds I do believe someone else will.

So now cracked corn feed is a must- buy item in my sundry shopping list.

But it is also heart warming for me to think that this little act of giving has helped add a little sparkle and shine to my otherwise monotonous daily routines.

And every morning if time permits, I will watch from a distance at these little birds contentedly feasting on their treats, it somehow soothes and induces a feeling of calm in me.

I guess it must be due to this sense of contentment from within, knowing that I am able to give, however little,
and from this at times neglected fact that we receive much more than we give.

The very source of nourishment to our soul..