CNY Eve in Manchester

Having spent my Chinese New Year’s Eve in a foreign country and in a country of not Chinese in origin, like UK, has proven not bad at all. I was in Manchester and was lucky enough to savour the important day with the nicest people in my profession. A colleague thoughtfully brought “yee sang” an auspicious dish of shred carrots, radish, pickles, raw fish (like the dish’s name), crackers and other ingredients that bear the auspicious meaning of the dish. We tossed it as high as possible and shouting merrily of our wishes for the coming Rodent year.

Then we proceeded to have a “reunion” lunch whereas, if we were at home it would be a “reunion” dinner instead. Why lunch? It is mostly due to the adjustment that had to be made in our profession.

Before we reached the Chinese restaurant of our choice, we diverted to a traditional English pub named Shakespeare. My supervisor was kind enough to buy us drinks. She bought me my first stout and I was as convinced how good the taste of the fresh stout is as she described. We chatted a little and began to open up. Everyone gradually loosen up to the effect of the alcohol but one guy felt the sedative effect of it. I felt guilty for telling him that we should gulp it instead of sipping when he complained about the bitter taste. I remember a beer connoisseur once told me that we should sip wine but gulp beer in Istanbul. I supposed stout falls into the beer category.

We continued to have real fun over lunch. What a coincidence that the waiter is from Penang, another fellow Malaysian adding to this group of mainly a Malaysian contingent. There is something unmistakeable about meeting your own fellow countryman/woman. We cheers over Chinese tea and parted when it was time to.

I left with a sense of missing the real thing at home but nonetheless, this was no worse substitute.

Swan Bells

Rather recently, I was in Perth, the place where much of my happy memories belong. I took a walk towards the Swan Bells with the company of some colleagues. I pretended to be happy and enjoying their company but I could not help but to feel sad at the same time. Swan Bells was where I last saw my Dad and where I could not fulfil my promise of seeing him in KL.

I told my sobbing story to my colleagues and one of them actually took it with a sly smile on her face. I was disgusted and offended at the same time and my mind went on wondering what kind of person she is. Isn’t it rude to laugh at others’ misfortune? Well, then again, it’s no surprise to me. In this world, there are many kinds of people. She just happened to be not one of my kinds.

Then again, I realised that, it takes another person to understand another person’s feeling if they have both gone through similar experiences. Being empathy is not a gift but a cultivated feeling drawn from enriching experiences. I must say, I am lucky enough and thankful to all my experiences in life that have made me to have this advantage. I continue to wish for people to be kinder. It is really sickening to see that a pure kind act today can be misinterpreted and out of the norm.

Belief System

I finally made the blunder. I have always vowed to keep 1,3 or 6 postings a month but on Jan 2008, I managed 5. An another odd number that I have to deal with. Really, like a friend had said, with a blink of an eye, we are already in the second month of the year. And it’s too late to put back the figure 6 to January...

One thing that I must mention that happened towards the end of January is this. Like most Chinese believe, the soul of someone passed away will be brought back in the form of a butterfly. I remember that, as my Mum told me that when I was very young. Well, I remember most of what my Mum had told me although I only had the luxury of spending 10 years of my life with her.

This faithful incident happened in the morning when I woke up and wanted to bring my laptop to the living room. Then I saw a big gigantic butterfly, brown in colour in the balcony. It stood there for a very long time and my instinct told me that, it could be Dad. The butterfly looked very calm but the occasional breeze made its wings cluttered like it was about to fly away.

I continued surfing, enjoying the company of the butterfly. I did not manage to record this at that time but I called Bro and he advised me to take a picture of it and show it to him. Or he suggested I should write something about it and post it to this humble blog.

As much as I want to believe the belief of the spiritual realm, I did not rule out the possibility of a mere coincidence which might have a scientific reason behind. This is my rational mind at work but I continued to question myself. Am I happy with my speculation that due to some scientific explanation that a butterfly could be found hanging out in my balcony? Should I stick to what Mum had told me?

I continued to reflect on this and why am I in the position to contemplate on my choices of belief. Well, I must say, it may be due to the generation that I belong to. I still had the luxury of spending time with a stay-at-home Mum when I was young and most of her teachings had significantly formed the very foundation of my belief system at that time. Then, when I went to school, I met my friends who shared similar backgrounds and we exchanged stories of what we had learned from our Mums. We felt that, the stories made sense and we were often amazed and reinforced by the workings of the mystical.

Then, as we continue to further our education, we were exposed to many schools of thought but I must say, they were mostly suited for the Western context. We began to get confused a little and questioned our belief system. I struggled with that confusion for quite sometime that I almost hated my Asian identity and wanted to fully embrace the Western culture and belief system.

But I was lucky enough to learn from the very people who are so enlightened and they taught me how to appreciate who I am and how my critical encounters ( from my upbringing and experiences ) affected who I am today. They taught me how to view them ( the critical incidents) critically and objectively before applying them as learning points in life. They have taught me my very way of making decisions and understanding that there is no one belief system that is more superior to the other but we must be able to justify why we made certain choices. And of course, the choices must not be detrimental to others.

From this approach, I have learnt that, I should not discard my origin but to appreciate how it has affected me today. I know that if I would want to have a satisfying answer to my question, I can do so but more often than not, it would require some scientific methods of research.

As for now, I think I am more than comfortable in choosing that it was my Dad who came to see me. It is his journey before letting all his attachments to this material world go, so he can finally rest in peace. I know that I am about to make another blunder by choosing that explanation before putting my academic training to good use, to prove or disprove the above statement.

Like many philosophers since the beginning of civilisation, they have questioned “what is the truth?” and the debate still goes on as “the truth” can be what majority think it is “the truth” or “the truth” can be whatever that is proven scientifically and has not been disproved yet. I must say, “the truth” to my above statement is based upon the result of my cultural bearings. It might appear to be wishy-washy as it lacks scientific explanation but somehow it made sense to me and based upon my belief system. Isn’t science another form of belief system?

“There are so much unknown in this world that only human arrogance would defy that” – Stephanie Lim