yujiawrites

[yujiawrites]

Speakeasy

The woman passed on quietly in the night. Between her two sons, Arthur lived closer to the funeral parlour, and was tasked to collect their mother’s ashes. His elder brother John had attended her online funeral and sent a digital bouquet to be displayed along with the urn. He said he could not come as he had work.

Most funeral parlours had gone online-only, or were assisted by androids, but the traditional one their mother had chosen still had a father and son duo who handled the cremation and customer service respectively. They did try to jump on the progress bandwagon by installing a digital screen on their front desk, but it looked like it was one wire away from falling apart.

As Arthur finished signing the paperwork, the son, a meek looking youth with matted hair, met him at the front desk. The pitter patter of fingers on a keyboard rang out, and the digital screen spelt out his message: found this in her pocket.

The son slid a slim cream card with a red rim onto the counter. It was one of those old credit card types that could fit into physical wallets. Below the logo, bold red type printed: Speakeasy Member’s Card, with a small handwritten sentence: please return if found.

A Speakeasy? Arthur’s cheeks grew hot.

A pandemic had ravaged for years, and since transmission was highest through speaking, talking in public was soon banned. All communication now took place through handwriting (though not often), typing and transmission through screens. It started with the official speeches, then teachers’ lectures in school, then the day to day conversations in sundry shops, and soon, even the most tender and quiet of talks.

People who couldn’t accept it had let their dissatisfaction bubble up in the form of hidden “speakeasies”, small coffee shops where patrons defiantly spoke face to face. The term was coined by the first journalists who had discovered it some ten years ago, and despite authorities’ regular raids, it could not be stamped out. Citizens mocked the existence of the dark basements decked with sparse furniture, lit only by neon lights and the occasional window, but everyone heard stories of someone who had at least attempted to sneak in.

Rogue schoolmates, rough uncles who passed out drunk at the void deck, daredevils with spiked hair and no regard for the law. But their mother, who spent all her waking hours at home, cooking and cleaning and washing? Who watched the typed news bulletin of the government-owned media every night religiously at 10pm?

At first, right after the ban, their mother had continued talking at home. She recounted tales of her day, how she was finding it difficult to deal with the new screens that had popped up everywhere, how the markets had fresh fish, and as always, ending with asking about her sons. Arthur still responded in the first few years. But John was a policeman, who felt the weight of responsibility, and was a particular stickler for the rules even within the four walls of the house. As John spoke less and less, Arthur learnt to play his part as a law-abiding citizen and loyal brother, and pretended he was used to it too.

Soon there was no need to pretend. It was natural to tap away in his safe, neutral zone, and unnatural to risk his health, or worse, the scarier prospect of others’ responses through real life conversations.

His mother struggled more, but eventually learnt to type. Though he remembered her weeping on John’s wedding day when they couldn’t speak during the tea ceremony, it only lasted for a brief moment.

The funeral parlour’s young master rapped his knuckles on the desk. As Arthur looked back at him, he pointed right opposite the misty glass doors of the funeral parlour. There stood a grimy shophouse, with a peeling facade and a faded monochrome sign: Lee Automobile and Repairs Co. The heavy-looking metal shutters were pulled shut.

Perhaps strategically, the cameras in the narrow alley nearest to the automobile shop were turned outwards. From where he was, to the closed shutters was a complete blind spot just two short metres away.

For the first time in a long time, Arthur moved by compulsion. He reached the metal shutters, and feeling like a fool, slotted the card into the paper-thin gap between the shutters and the floor.

He felt a pair of eyes on him. Then with a quiet creak, the right side of the shutters pulled open.

There was no dingy basement. This was a two-storey shophouse, with the second storey sealed off, and the ground floor wide and inviting. Hazelnut panelled walls, flanked by shelves of books and pictures on its sides, formed a cove that sheltered people of every colour and kind. They sat on teak chairs, their elbows, napkins, cups of coffee resting on dark tables, their gazes matted by a gentle scattering of sunlight.

The voices seemed to blend together, but one could hear individual parts; a man’s gravelly voice, a girl’s light whisper, a lady’s generous laugh. At a corner, a lanky teen with a guitar slung over his shoulder crooned an acoustic number, his silky voice filling in the gaps of conversations.

What were they talking about? What could be held in the air between people, with their faces inches from each other? He saw their smiles, their frowns, how it reached their eyes. He knew the words should come as natural as breathing, but most of what he had communicated over the last ten years was typed, and now his throat rattled like an unused machine.

Out of the corner of Arthur’s eye, a slender woman with an apron tied around her waist walked over. He saw she was about his age.

“Are you Arthur?”

It was the first time someone had spoken to him in years. He instinctively shifted back, pushed away by the immediacy of her presence, the weight of her brown eyes upon him.

“Sorry. Auntie Jessie — your mom showed me a picture before…

Oh, Arthur. There’s so much you don’t know.”

He slowly turned to look at her. She was looking downwards, biting her lip, her arms crossed, and for a moment Arthur couldn’t understand what was expected of him. Was it possible for someone to look sad and embarrassed all at once? The uncertainty gnawed at his throat, and he looked away again.

Thankfully, she broke the silence. “Stay for coffee, Arthur. She would have wanted you to.”

The mug was already in her hands. It would have been rude to leave. Arthur tentatively sat down, as she cleared her throat and did a quick wipe at her eyes.

“I’m Mabel. Actually, I’m quite new to this speaking thing too. My dad got me a part time job here, and I had to pick up bits and pieces from listening to how people talk. After one year, I think I’m quite good now, yeah?”

Arthur shifted in his seat. A couple beside them was holding hands, leaning in and whispering; another group of 50-something balding men reclined on their seats, chortling in laughter. He turned back to Mabel but found he only dared to stare at his hands.

Mabel must have thought he was nervous at the illegality of it all, for she followed up eagerly: “Don’t worry. You see this little lever there --” she pointed to the wall nearest to the acoustic singer, where a moustached man was standing guard -- “if anything happens, this entire floor gets pushed down to the basement, and the actual car workshop above comes down in seconds. We’ve never been caught.”

So the two floors had their purposes. And the story about basements might have been true. Arthur swallowed, imagining the times his mother had hid underground while authorities prowled the place.

Leaning forward, Mabel continued, her eyes sparkling as if letting a best friend in on a long-held secret.  “You know, the first time Auntie Jessie spoke to me, I was so shocked, I only nodded, and then hid in the staff toilet for an hour to avoid talking. And when I came out, she laughed and said she knew young people were like that, that her children didn’t talk to her anymore, and stuffed 10 dollars in my hand, saying she hoped we could chat more soon.”

The revelation circled as an accusation: her children didn’t talk to her anymore, that was why she turned to the Speakeasy. But didn’t they? Didn’t Arthur? Everytime he came back home from work, he would slouch onto the sofa, scrolling on his screen, and his mother would be tucked into the armchair, fanning herself in the evening heat. He couldn't remember if she spoke.

Mabel suddenly stopped short. Her brows furrowed, as she looked down again: “I’m sorry. I can’t really get a hold of expressions yet, they say. I must have said something wrong.”

The ensuing silence, equal measures of awkwardness and guilt, was too much to bear. Arthur flailed around for something to do, something to say. Out of desperation, or perhaps a dormant instinct, he cleared his throat and pushed up his glasses. When Mabel looked up, he willed himself to look back at her eyes, and was surprised to find them filled with tears.

Her lip trembled as she spoke again. “Actually, she was the one who taught me to talk. My father had tried the hard way, by asking me to memorise vocabulary books and phrases and watching videos of old news channels every night. It was boring. But it was Auntie Jessie who made me want to talk. Because I knew no matter how badly I said something, she wanted to listen.

And so I told her about how I was scared of making coffee. How the milk and coffee was so hard to control. And then I told her about arguments with my dad. And then I don’t know why, I told her that I had failed my exams and couldn’t go to university, and that was why I was doing a part time job. And she said it was alright. It was so kind. You could just hear it in her voice, you know.”

He tried as hard as he could to remember that voice. A little lower than you’d expect, warm and sure of herself, nagging at her boys to wake up, soothing them to sleep. Telling them stories, especially the one about how she ran an illegal makeshift flower stall near the temple, and how their father was one of the young inspectors who did daily rounds to chase them away. One day, before she could run, he bought a rose and gave it to her. Her sons knew this story by heart, but when the ban started, she repeated it like a broken record, as if afraid her memory would also be gone with her words.

According to Mabel, his mother would turn up at 10am every morning (right after Arthur left for work, he noticed). She wore sleeved dresses in every shade and would never touch monochrome. She was usually alone, but once she stepped foot inside the Speakeasy, she would flit around to the staff, and dance to the songs on the radio. They put on her favourite album -- a collection of classic hits by Leslie Cheung -- whenever she requested.

With a start, Arthur remembered those same melodies playing in their apartment again and again over quiet afternoons.

Rules, he could keep. Even up till now, he had not known what to do, ever conscious of actually saying something, and being held accountable for it. Logic, he could make sense of it. He had always believed thoughts were best processed alone, and in the security of a space without another’s judgement, the fullest conclusions could be drawn. But this moment he could not describe. In the haze of these few days, this shared space between them was the clearest he had remembered his mother.

Without thinking, the words came. “Thank you.”

Mabel’s eyes widened. “You didn’t hide in the toilet! You’re better than me.”

And then they were both laughing, the kind of laughter that flowed without inhibition, that circled with warmth and familiarity, wrapping each other in a cocoon of safety. When their eyes met again, they were both crying, but not the kind that wept in silence; their mourning was now shared, and pain understood.

Strange and magical, this moment, and Arthur knew why thousands had risked their necks to be here.

Nobody noticed them crying. Perhaps they were used to such emotion. The teen at the corner was now singing Moon River, his tender, low voice every bit like Frank Sinatra: Two drifters / Off to see the world / There’s such a lot of world to see. We’re after the same rainbow’s end / Waiting around the bend…

Live music was one of the things banned during the pandemic. It never returned to the bars, clubs and lounges it belonged to afterwards. The crooning of a warm voice, like an old friend, plucking at the guitar strings with skill, filled the room. Arthur did not realise then, but long after this day had passed, months and years after that, this song would mark the day like a scar upon his skin.

If he had the words, he would have told Mabel all the things that were coming to his mind now. Things he did not know he had forgotten. That he too, could have been the one playing the guitar in this speakeasy – oh yes, it was coming back now, his father slouching on the sofa teaching chords with jabs of laughter in between – that for months after his father passed, he played that one song at home everyday just to see the curve of her smile; that in the evenings where they were all at home, he and John would take turns to tell her stories about their friends and escapades. Oh, how she always had the deepest of graces for them.

Soon then, in a bitter rush he could not run away from, he saw the sight of her clad in white, trembling in a room too big for her, no one to speak to, no one to cry to, no one to hold in those very last days.

What were the ways to say that you recoil at yourself? That for years, nothing and no one – including yourself – was as it should have been? Arthur felt the dampness in his shirt collar, and tried to fight off the suffocation, fight back the tears. Of all the things he wanted to say, the one that burned on his tongue was a plea, or perhaps a confessional, for someone to know his worst mistakes, his utter remorse. The sum of all his choices and triumphs and monotony and confusion and clarity. He experienced all of it but never had another to see it. Now he saw that he had been alone.

Perhaps Mabel was slowly understanding expressions after all, for with a sad smile, she reached across the table for his hand. “It’s okay.”

The touch jolted his whole being. But before he could respond, something else shook beneath his feet, and suddenly the tables were trembling, coffee cups and spoons jangled like chimes, as the whole floor descended into pitch black darkness.

The crowd, made up of regulars, knew well enough to hush themselves. What was once a bustling hub moments before was now a silent mass. Arthur could barely catch his breath, willing himself to stay quiet. He did not know where Mabel was; she seemed to have melted into the darkness.

Suddenly, a crack of light appeared at the side. It seemed to lead outside, and as people quickly filed through it, Arthur understood it was their escape route. Its destination was completely unknown to him, but if the Speakeasy’s patrons trusted it, he would have to.

Someone pulled his hand and pushed him in between two people who were already walking forward. They marched on, footsteps soft and steady, along a tunnel that seemed to stretch for the length of the whole street. The row of people seemed to thin after a while, and Arthur realised they each chose a random exit punctured throughout the tunnel, so that the crowd was dispersed, their nameless faces blending into the streets. All sorts of thoughts filled his mind; he shuddered at the thought of the authorities descending on him, cuffing him, but yet for what he had just experienced, it might well have been worth it –

Sunlight. The person behind him had pushed him out. Arthur found himself in a small alley in between a convenience shop and an antique store, tinged with the smell of incense. Without thinking, he started walking, then running, away from anyone who might have noticed him.

He rounded the corner. Then stopped in his tracks. Right in front of him, clad in an austere dark blue uniform and holding a rifle close to his chest, the broad shoulders and cropped hair both authoritative and familiar, surely doing his patrols, and of all places, sent to guard the streets during the raid: John.

The elder brother let out a startled cry. But compelled by training, he quickly regained his composure, and looking his younger brother up and down, he took in the ruffled hair, the wild eyes, the smell of conversation on his clothes. The shock turned into disbelief, but as Arthur stepped forward, he saw the eyes that looked too much like his own, filled with grief.

Their roles were nothing, the rules were nothing, the distance was nothing, as he walked over and slung his arms around his elder brother, speaking rebukes, apologies, memories, all of it sounding like a prayer, clinging on for dear life.

[yujiawrites]

Cynicism and Hope

As we grow up, we tend to be dull. Most of us are not dull by choice, but by what we view as an incessant moulding by the waves of reality, that smash against innocence, imagination, and hope, and makes us grey, unfeeling, though solid rocks. Growing up can be unbearably painful as responsibilities and difficulties mount. Every day becomes an uphill battle, and over time it’s easier to just give up and let the waves shape us the way they want it to be, and then blame the waves for it.

“There’s no point in trying or dreaming”, “I’m caught in the rat race”, and “reality is like this, what can I do?”

You see it in the adult who tells the kid not to wander off to the beach to pick seashells. You hear it in the exasperated man who slits open the bills every night and swats off his child trying to share with him the story about his Lego bricks. You feel it in your gut when you are treated unjustly, yelled at, given a dressing down or had a bad day.

I guess the material of that grey rock we’re becoming, is cynicism.

Came across this article: “12 rules for life – from a 45-year-old”(https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/entertainment/12-rules-for-life-from-a-45-year-old). Most of the rules were downright funny, to sensible advice gleaned from years of experience and common sense. One of it, however, struck me particularly.

“Somewhere around that same eighth-grade mark, where we all experimented with being mean, we get the idea that believing in things makes you a sucker. We believe that good art is the stuff that reveals how shoddy and grasping people are, that good politics is cynical, that "realism" means accepting how rotten everything is to the core. The cynics aren't exactly wrong. There is a lot of shoddy, grasping, rottenness in the world. But cynicism is radically incomplete.

Early modernist critics used to complain about the sanitised unreality of "nice" books with no bathrooms. The great modernist mistake was to decide that if books without sewers were unrealistic, "reality" must be the sewers. This was a greater error than the one it aimed to correct. In fact, human beings are often splendid, the world is often glorious, and nature also invented kindness, charity and love. Believe in that.”

The aching identification I have with cynicism really jumped out at me as I read it. Cynicism – the belief that the most real and final version of life is meaninglessness, that all dead ends do not simply just stay dead, but have been meant to be dead all along and we’re just discovering it, that there is nothing beyond the sum of our disappointments in life.

Perhaps it’s also something that comes along as we grow up. Is it a cultural force of cynicism that sweeps across our very well-connected world where bad news spreads like wildfire and dulls our heart to any hope? Is it more of the things we see in our lives that become increasingly complex and difficult to solve?

A few years ago, I used to think that being able to talk about problems and describe them in the realest and fullest way possible, was a triumph. I believed that by stating – sometimes even in the brashest, most honest way – the issues that long plagued the environment around me, to be able to rant and be #real and relevant, was what the whole of “superficial society” needed.

But what people need is not just relevance. We clearly, and deeply, already know the issues that we face. Being able to voice it out is not a full triumph. The clarion call of the times is not cynicism, but Hope.

Anyone can call out cynicism in life. But not everyone can point out Hope and point others to Hope.

As I face more and more uphill challenges in my life, the temptation and tendency to retreat into cynicism grows stronger. Yes, 'retreat', because I believe cynicism is just a hiding place for us, an excuse to avoid an issue and face it squarely like it needs to be faced. It is often the manifestation of fear and pain. If something scares us too much to tackle, or is too painful to think about at all, it is far easier to ascribe the issue to some unsolvable issue and rest in our sighs, our “it couldn’t be helped”, “the world is always going to be like this”, and “things are never going to change, so I might as well live with it”.

We think we are pounding on the ground and exposing the hard truths. But we are simply dulling and numbing our own hearts to pain.

Allow yourself to feel pain. Allow yourself to be disappointed. And then allow yourself to believe in hope again. All this is far better than the monotonous chime of cynicism, one that protects yourself from getting hurt, and shields yourself from actually being human.

After all, reality isn't just the sewer, but also the roads around it, that must surely lead to somewhere.

[yujiawrites]

Grad thoughts: how did I get here?

Graduation’s around the corner. I can safely say that if I told my younger self where I am now, I’d never have believed it.

In all the plans I drew up for my life, I had never contemplated writing for the Chinese papers. It felt well beyond my ability. I even told a panel of interviewers that my dream job was to write for the English paper, never for the Chinese one, because “the English broadsheet reaches more audiences” (a nice way to cover up the fact that I had no confidence writing in Chinese, ever).

Yet here I am, eight months in as a Chinese reporter. To tell the story of why I’m here, I think I need to go far back. I hope that through sharing this, I can testify to how this is undeniably an act of God’s provision ­­– and great faithfulness.

So, let’s turn back to clock to four years ago.

“I’m going to apply for this scholarship,” 18-year-old me, fresh from junior college, full of passion and enthusiasm, said this to my parents with fire in my eyes; so sure that I knew where I was going to go.

I had just attended a sharing session for an English journalism scholarship that I really wanted to apply for. Having grown up with a love of writing, coupled with a curious personality, a job which could combine both writing and discovering new things daily was a dream. Writing for an English newspaper – where else could I even want to be?

I remember many things about that day. Like my heart beating so fast as I attended the session, feeling very sure that yes, this is where I want to be. Or the huge building I was in, looking around and thinking to myself: this is where I could be in the next few years; could I believe it?

If I was to be completely honest, I distinctly remember something else about that day. A still small voice, the one I had always grown up with, saying: you aren’t asking Me about it.

When we speak of shining for God, it’s almost a no-brainer that attaining achievements in the world is a blessing. Why should we reject it? Why should we even contemplate about taking it up? Living out my passions and fulfilling my dreams is the point of life, right?

I was adamant about this. And I had always felt that because of various church commitments throughout my growing up years, I missed out on many other opportunities in life. Serving and ministry were fulfilling, but the ambitious spirit in me clawed for more.

Soon after the scholarship talk, someone asked me if I’ve ever considered attending Bible school after graduation from junior college. The thought floated in my mind, but I brushed it aside. The internship timing clashed directly with Bible school, and it couldn’t be done simultaneously.

But someone else asked the same thing again. This time, indignance rose up in me.

Once again, I’d have to give up my desires to serve, to do “ministry stuff”. Was I even able to say no? I mean, God is supposed to have priority over everything in my life, right?

But even this? God, this is my desire. This is what I want for my life. I was so furious that people were asking me to let it go.

They assured me that going to Bible school was never the point. It was about hearing God’s will and living my life according to what He wants me to do, instead of charging ahead with my own plans without even asking Him.

Yeah right, I thought to myself. God’s will = the church’s will = the ‘spiritual’ thing, right? Why would God even tell me to not go to Bible school? And if you had put it that way, why would His will ever be for me to go for the ‘worldly’ scholarship?

I was so frustrated that I sat down, took out my Bible and said adamantly to God: ok, it’s Your will right? You show me.

I read the book of Ecclesiastes, where Solomon was lamenting about his life as an old man. It speaks of his experiences trying to find success and happiness in life.

Yet, he says in Ecclesiastes 2:11 – “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”

It spoke of the futility of man doing anything without God. Everything started of our own accord may end up just being meaningless; I could toil hard on my own, yet achieve absolutely nothing.

On the flipside, there is true fruitfulness and eternal significance when man does God’s will.

I felt the Word sink into my heart. This time, it was different from what “others have said I must do”. It was a nudge, at a truth that I didn’t want revealed for the longest time, that the foundations of my life were not God and His will, but just me and my will. And a growing feeling that if I went ahead with the scholarship, I would be steering a ship alone.

I stared in space for a bit, not quite believing what He had said. Well, God, You could have just given me peace to just accept the internship. Why must You give me something so hard?

Here I must emphasise that it isn’t a simple dichotomy of church vs non-church things. It is not true that God onlywants us to do ministry-related things, church things, and simply by virtue of them being related to the church, it is exactly what we should do at the moment. God owns the entire world (Psalm 24:1). Everything in it was created by Him and for Him, and I am sure that He could have called someone else to take up that internship and scholarship, yet also called someone else to take up another job, or called someone else to ministry. This is not a template of what “He would have you choose”, but rather just a journey of how I asked Him about my life.

When I spoke of my decision I could hardly believe it myself. I was on the way to Bible school, extremely unwilling, but knowing that somehow, it was the right choice for me.

On the first day of Bible school, I sat there, heart still sullen, brooding over what could have been. Sitting there listening to hours of teaching, while I could have been in an office writing, I felt like I had just given up on something great and I was foolish for doing so.

In the first few weeks, after a lesson on the Holy Spirit, our pastor encouraged us to actively pray and seek His presence. We stood up from our chairs, and I remember a shaft of warm sunlight filtering in by my side.

We began to invite the Holy Spirit to come; to ask for a tangible encounter with Him. I didn’t really know what to expect at first. Growing up in church, I equated encounters with the Holy Spirit with “that touching feeling you feel when you hear an amazing worship song”, “the feeling that makes you cry when you are touched by God’s love”, and all of these summarily basic ways we understand God. But I still settled down my heart, and asked Him to reveal Himself.

Up till then, all my understanding of God had been an intellectual process or an emotional encounter. But this time it was different. I sensed Him here. Right beside me; like a gentle dove landing on my shoulder; His tangible presence was undeniable. It was a reckoning of reality — that God is real, that all the ways I had known Him so far was, perhaps, child’s play, and how much more there was to discover.

For the first time, I felt a genuine shift in my heart. What’s the best thing in the world? I found myself asking as I stepped out of the classroom. Being here and being known by God, I found myself answer.

Those 7 months turned out to be one of the most precious experiences in my life. And I can say, with all my heart, that I have no regrets at all about choosing this path.

Life with God, with this closeness of being with Him, hearing His voice, was so much more life-giving than years of striving alone in my studies and just trying to strike it out on my own. It was not easier. But it was sweeter and deeper.

University came around and I chose to pursue journalism still. In my second year, facing a limited list of module choices, and having to complete my credits, I chose a Chinese journalism module.

I had a background in writing and studying Chinese. Being in the Bicultural Studies track in secondary school and pursuing China Studies in Chinese in JC did give me a solid foundation. But it was two years since I had touched anything related to Chinese.

In that module, I stumbled through presentations, apologised for typos, typed out entire scripts even before I spoke a single word, and struggled to piece together a Chinese news article with the right words. When the module was done, I was relieved beyond words.

Then an opening appeared in the campus newspaper. I was hoping for a position in the English news desk, but they were looking for Chinese writers. Nah, not my cup of tea.

The emails came again and again. Soon, the lecturer also asked me if I’d like to join the team of Chinese writers. This time, I prayed about it. There must be a reason why these chances were coming.

Crazily enough, I actually took it up. I finished one semester as a Chinese writer, and two semesters as the editor of the Chinese desk. In a blink of an eye, two years swept past. Surprise, surprise ­­-- I absolutely loved it. There was something about the freedom we had in our reporting, in the fun we had with the stories we covered, and the friendship within the team. One semester, we even won Best Desk.

When the end of Year 2 rolled around, I looked up for the organisation’s mid-term scholarship. It was an odd feeling looking at it again, but knowing that I now saw it through a very different lens – God, not mine, but Your will be done.

The first reply I got was a call. I had indicated both English and Chinese journalism on my application form, but the HR staff said I could only choose one.

Suddenly, I thought back to that moment after the scholarship talk, thinking and dreaming of my name on the English papers. And the other option, wading into something completely foreign and unexpected — writing for the Chinese papers.

The HR staff pressed on. Your portfolio is mainly filled with Chinese articles, she said. I’d say you have a better shot at Chinese journalism.

And suddenly, in this split second, a choice was offered to me. Felt like all my plans were thrown out of the window once again. I took a deep breath. Thought hard. If this is Your will, let’s see where it goes.

I’ll try Chinese, then, I said.

Incredibly, the doors began to open, one by one. I passed the writing test, and then the interview, and soon I was to live out what I dreamt two years ago: an internship at the same company. But it was at the Chinese language broadsheet, instead of the English one. Funny where God takes us.

The five months on internship was life-changing. In both the positive ways, and in the days of struggling where I doubted whether I was meant to be here.

There was, of course, the language. Google Translate was my best friend and I made errors in so many places. I even struggled to talk to my colleagues properly. My writing got better over time, but man, the learning curve was steep. I was debating with God: well, I told You I can’t do this.

Chasing stories was also incredibly tough for a rookie journalist. I remember squatting on a small stool in Tiong Bahru market, rushing to complete a story about rising fish prices for Chinese New Year, hovering around annoyed vendors to detail down the price of every fish. I ran back and forth in the market, the sheer stress of the morning bearing down on me, trying not to break down while typing at breakneck speed.

But there were also days where I sat down with a person with a mental health condition, and listening to the person’s struggles with isolation, pain, and how they found hope. There was only so much the person could express with their words; they were stumbling, tripping and expressed in bits and pieces.

I will never forget how the person looked at me – with fear, and hope all the same. Fear, because the journalist holds in their pen the ability to mis-represent a situation, to reduce a person to a mere description. Hope, because the journalist holds in their words the ability to share little known stories for the ones who cannot speak.

“Please share my story,” the person said. And I realised I would gladly do so.

So I took up the mid-term scholarship. Unexpectedly, the next years of my life are about to be spent writing for the Chinese papers. 

And it’s like being given an air ticket to a country I’ve never heard of; but once my feet land on the ground and I’m given time to explore the area, I like what I see. 

The job brings me to nitty gritty stories in our society that I don’t think I’d have a chance to write in English. There are a lot of Big News to cover every day, about policies and events and Important people. But here – I will listen to your arguments with your neighbours. I will sit with you in hospitals and hear as you grief. I will walk the corridors of housing estates to chat with the aunties/uncles and hear their concerns.

It’s deep into the heartlands, and I’m glad I’m here.

Many times, I’ve been asked why I write for the Chinese papers instead of the English ones. I reply that I was simply given open doors. And through these open doors, I discovered a world that I never knew I would like.

Do I still struggle with my work? Yes, many times and in many ways. Are there days where I’m still beyond lost and confused? Of course. 

But right now, I know the struggles and questions I had at 18 have come full circle, somehow. It’s not where I thought I’d be, but I can say it’s very much a fulfilment of or even better than, my wildest expectations. My Father knows my heart through and through. So in response I say, I trust Him again and again.

[yujiawrites]

Movie Review: A Sun 阳光普照

In one sentence: A quiet masterpiece about family that will break your heart.

Favourite scene: The last conversation on the hill between Mr and Mrs Chen.

Rating: 4/5

I did not watch A Sun on a sunny day. In fact, it was rather cloudy, with the evening sky carrying a hint of rain. Turns out it was perhaps the best weather ­– the film proved to be just as melancholy.

The winner of the Best Feature Film in the 56th Golden Horse Awards, this Taiwanese film tells the story of a youth offender and how his family is rocketed by the news of his detention in a juvenile home – a premise that definitely doesn’t promise happy endings. Still, I (naively) thought it would be an uplifting tale of how a family bonds together in crisis.

A Sun chooses a more realist view. Crisis not only brings people together; it breaks them too. Instead of bringing a narrative of how “all’s well, ends well”, the film brings you to a shattered vase, examines the broken pieces, and invites you to consider how sometimes a family does not need to be whole to still be a reflection of love.

The film deals with heavy topics. Yet its touch is always light, even polite. (Lin Sheng-Xiang’s gentle, understated soundtrack is the perfect accompaniment to the picture). For the most part, it is silent – quietly observing the things that happen to this family, the decisions that each family member makes, and the relationships that underscore it all. Much like a typical Asian family; silent, stoic, distant and unexpressive. The characters’ lives are real lives; especially for Asian viewers, you feel so keenly that you’re watching your own family on screen.

We are shown the Chen family with its relationships tied up in knots. A-Ho is the black sheep of the family – in the first scene alone, armed with a parang and charging into a restaurant, he makes a choice that throws his already tense family into chaos. His father Mr Chen, a conservative-minded patriarch and driving instructor who epitomizes tough love, tells the judge that he has given up on his wayward son. Mrs Chen is gentler, but weary from dealing with her rebellious son.

And then there’s A-Hao, the elder brother of the family, and the entire opposite of his younger brother A-Ho. Decked in pure white for most of his screen time, he is gentle, kind and an outstanding student aspiring to enter medical school. Though he doesn’t say much, there’s nothing much to be concerned about. His warmth and ever-ready smiles comfort his parents and makes his father proud, who even tells his driving students that he only has one son.

Along the way, hints are dropped that both sons are not all they seem to be. But we never think through enough of it – if you see life according to stereotypes of good and bad, of happy and unhappy, simple cookie-cutter lives, what comes next is almost unimaginable.

At the halfway mark, everything blows up. As the Chen family reckons in the aftermath; they ask themselves: how much do we know those we love? How do we love those we know, even when we see all of their weaknesses and failures? And perhaps the question that motivates all the characters in the second half of the film: how much am I willing to go for those I love?

Everyone in the family is forced to respond. The result is a tour de force of emotions. The film, which felt like tepid waters for the first half, ramps up like a trip on stormy seas for the second half. Especially so for Mr Chen, who has to face the fact that his old way of viewing his sons through the categories of black and white, good and bad, has fallen apart.

Perhaps this is how most of us view the world too. From young till adulthood, we’ve been told to shape our world through clear lines. Doing certain things are bad. Accomplishing a list of things are good. There is always a model student, just like how there is always a school dropout.

Whatever happens in the middle, all the shades of grey in between, we do not find words to phrase or face them. There is no vocabulary for successful-but-suffering, hardworking-and-depressed, rebellious-but-genuine.

A Sun lays it out plain for its viewers: if life could be defined in categories, we miss the nuances of the human experience altogether. We’re all seeking for goodness and sunlight, but fail to recognize that not everyone can be bright all the time; that there is night as well as day. As A-Hao puts it in a particularly painful monologue that illuminates the title “阳光普照” (literally translated as “the (good) sun shines upon everyone”: everyone has sunlight and shadows, but the sun is always upon me, and I have nowhere to hide.

Perfection doesn’t exist. But what then? What happens when we the neat boxes we define life by disappears all at once? The tenacity shown by the characters in A Sun shows us there is a way to face this discomfort. They grieve, weep, but ultimately choose to protect and embrace their family. We learn that maybe, despite the imperfections of life, there is still this thing called love that never fails.

And the magic of A Sun that causes its viewer to really see this – not just think this or feel this – is its closeness to reality. Their lives are our lives. Their decisions could very well be our decisions. There is no need for dramatic build-ups and ultimatums and weeping in the rain. Monotony hits closest to the heart.

In the last scene, Mr and Mrs Chen ascend a hill and look at the sunset that spreads across the city. They have a painful conversation reflecting about how they’ve each brought up their sons. Mr Chen shares a revelation that serves as the final twist of the film. But he delivers it with such jadedness and calmness, almost not befitting of a climax, that it feels like just another conversation. We’re just listening and feeling his pain without any other embellishments, and slowly, in him, we see ourselves.

At that moment we realise. So even if our families aren’t perfect, we could love them so deeply. And if we could love so deep, why wait for a tragedy to do so? Maybe right now, we could throw away the black and white. Press into the darkness of someone’s pain. Walk with them in the dusk as the light wanes. Trace their silhouette as the morning light breaks. Life’s not always sunny, but maybe the real sunlight we need is the warmth of another around us.

[yujiawrites]

A River in the Desert

The man stopped in the centre of the desert — or so he thought to himself, this must be the centre of it all. Maybe he stopped because the lines of the sand dunes on the horizon never seemed to edge closer to him. Or maybe he stopped because of his thinning breath, growing shallower by the minute.

All across where he could see there was nothing but beige sand, turning into a foreboding shade of mustard, where shadows and humps cascaded into darkness. For too long, there had always only been this palette. He was beginning to think that his eyes might only recognize the shade of the land and nothing else ever again.

Above him was a bright, blazing sun that never seemed to relent. His lips were parched and peeling. With a trembling hand, he slowly traced the cracking and feathery skin on his arm and tried to raise it to his eyes to shield himself from the sun.

Suddenly, he craved the rush of water.

Then he remembered again that he had once desired it, and asked for it, but water had never come.

If only the merciless sky would open up its gaping white mouth and grant him some droplets of water! If only the stark expanse of horizon would finally gather its clouds from faraway ends and brew up a mighty thunderstorm. 

He could not recall for sure how he came to the desert, but he knew for sure that it had been quiet for so long now that his ears were dull.

The muted despair gave way to an indignant anger. Why should he die here, in an insufferable dry land where there is no drink? Why should he die now?

Rain, the man croaked up into the sky. Why have I asked but not been given?

Rain.It was a coarse and futile grunt. He swung both arms into the air and fell to his knees, collapsing with the effort.

Rain, God, Rain. His kneecap cracked. Pain shot up his leg. His hands tried to clasp it and he wanted to scream, but there was no voice.

Try. Try. Gingerly, as if forming a crystal chalice in a temple, he cupped his hands together and raised it to God. For a droplet, a shower, a storm. Or I will die.

The sky remained empty and silent.

He blacked out and fell sideways onto the ground.

As he lay there, the sand began to give way. Around his dormant body, it sunk in deeper and deeper like a cavern, all its beads pouring into a deep hole, and in came the sound of water.

A trickle, then a stream, then finally a rush.

All at once, as if the desert had a chasm and the earth split on its foundations, the sand gave way to a long, winding river all across to the horizon without end.

The man’s body rested lightly on the sapphire surface as the waters carried him downstream. He still had not woken up. He was dreaming of a river; yet in his dream he had stood up suddenly in it, ankle deep, and felt the glorious water dripping from head to toe and trickling into his parched throat.

It was water unlike the rain he had craved for. Not fat drops of gratification but smooth streams of unending providence.

He put his fingers in it and it ran over his hand like silk. The man jumped, euphoric, wade out further more and sank in deep.

He dreamt then, of another Man, of a figure really larger than a man, who stood by that stream and watched him in the waters. He could not really tell the Man’s expression. It was rather sanguine. Maybe he was smiling.

Then the dream ended and he opened his eyes to sand, sand and nothing but sand all around him. His touched his knee and found no sign of injury. He looked around and there was no one to be found and no rain from the sky. The sand beneath him was curiously cool now. And then, a quiet voice: why ask for rain when you are standing in a River?

[yujiawrites]

The Tree Man of Pioneer - a short story

I first heard about the Tree Man from Ah Gong, who had these annual specialised hiking trails with a group of his neighbours to pick up fresh durians.  It was durian season, and we sat together with rows of bright yellow flesh and pungent, sharp-smelling fruits spread out across the concrete floor on newspapers. Ah Gong hiked his leg up to his chin as he held a pound of sticky sweet durian to his mouth. I knew that stance meant it was time for a story.

“There’s a crazy man who lives in the forest behind the house,” he said. He paused and ate the durian, as his mouth went squelch squelch. He licked the remaining strands of yellowy flrsh off his thumb and continued. “They say you throw rock at him, he also won’t move one.” He found it very funny.

I leaned forward. “Really ah?”

He told me about the rumours of the Tree Man. Apparently he had set up house on a tree in the 1960s, but no one knew how or why he got there. People used to call him a savage, assumed that he had been brought up in the jungles, lost and disoriented, taking up animal characteristics and howling like a wolf in the night. Tales and legends spread like that. Though Ah Gong hadn’t seen him, neither did his neighbours, but from the way he spoke about it, it seemed like a confirmed fact in urban ‘knowledge’.

“You got try to find him before?” I asked.

“Siao ah. Don’t go anyhow disturb him la. The gahmenwill get him down sooner or later.” Ah Gong wiped his hands on his shirt, then continued: “They going to build a new flat at the forest there. Got Tree Man, any man, confirm chase out one.”

I had stopped eating the durian by then and had begun pondering all sorts of things. You see, I had always fancied myself an adventurer, of the unusual kind. When school friends brought erasers to school to battle, I was the only one who brought an arachnid in its makeshift matchstick box. (I gained lots of bravado points for that.) While my classmates lost themselves in after-school chatter, I slipped out via the back gate to steal mangosteens from behind the school grounds. And the school caretaker never caught me.

My most recent achievement was in the Scouts seniors’ camp. They challenged a group of us to find a haunted quarry in Pulau Ubin. All five people in the group chickened out, except for me. I came back with handful of watery moss, still dripping wet, to prove it. They called me the crazyone from then on.

So this— this was something. I decided I was going to see the Tree Man for myself, before anyone took him away.

The next day, I made my way to the forest after school. It was past the cream HDB flats that the workers lived in, right behind the short, grey factories that they worked in, rising with smoke every morning. I had heard of classmates who lived in Clementi town who boasted of bright new orange HDBs and a new community centre, but for Pioneer we just had our few white flats and drab factories and then nothing but forest. It was this rather wide piece of greenery that would stretch across the town’s west side, not just a few sparse trees. Ah Gong said it would be gone by the nineties because the Prime Minister had said it in his National Day speech or something about development and upgrading; but I couldn’t quite believe it yet.

It was easy to find a way to enter; I climbed on my bike and followed a straight, winding road leading away from Pioneer’s coffeeshop at the edge of town. As it went further away the concrete road was soon paved by tall and thick green trees. A few metres on, the road ended abruptly, its brutal concrete cutting into the forest floor. I stopped the bike there and walked into the forest. Ah Gong had said that there were several of these durian trails around the end of the road, and it seemed like I was starting on one.

But once I was inside the forest, it was not easy to navigate. I wandered the sparsely spread out trees for a good half hour before I even saw anything. Dry leaves crackled under my shoes, and the musty smell of condensation and wood hung in the air. Flecks of small leaves and twigs scratched my arms, and I could feel some stuck on the back of my neck, mingling with my dripping sweat.

The road then split into two muddy tracks, one wider than the other. On the left was a narrow road that could fit at most one person, lined with jagged rocks and rows of unruly weeds. On the right, there came a thick and sweet aroma of durian. A trained nose would have followed it and come back with a worthy haul in no time at all.

I considered this divergence for a moment. The durian hunters never saw the Tree Man when they followed their trail. It was time for mangosteens and arachnids and watery moss — time for me to do things differently.

After three minutes, the narrow path was shrouded in semi-darkness just by the sheer amount of huge, fan-like leaves overhead, as if the trees were wild creatures, unregulated by man and Nature. My feet were beginning to sink in deeper in the mud. I felt it stick to my soles, as if pulling me to stay.

The shrubbery suddenly gave way to a growth of thick, old trees, with lines of afternoon light shining weakly through its branches. It felt like the enchanted forests of Enid Blyton books I read as a kid suddenly came to life — a little surreal, in an urban setting like Singapore. But a thrill went down my back; this was my own secret discovery now. Imagine my schoolmates’ faces if I told them this!

In the middle of the trees was a particularly old and ornate one, with gnarling branches spread across the space of ten young trees. Every branch splintered into smaller, crooked arms that cut up the sky like a mosaic. Its leaves were a dark jade green if you looked at it from the top, and lighter, almost amber yellow, when you looked at it from the bottom with sunlight streaming through. It clustered together, knitting an inseparable cloak for its body, rustling but stoic in any breeze.

Here and there, like hidden gems, round and bulging yellow fruits hung in the thick of the tree. I sniffed the air around me. There was the unmistakeable, one-note sweetness of mango, but not quite— it was sweeter still, even overwhelmingly pungent. It smelt like the sticky and cloying bandungdrink the Scouts chefs served in paper cups during camp, which most of us just turned up our noses in disgust at, and poured away without drinking a drop.

There was a tent in the tree. Someone had pegged one end of his tent to the end of a right branch near the trunk, and cast the other side out all the way till the left branch till it sat squarely in the middle of the tree. Bingo.

I kept myself at the periphery, hiding my body partially behind another mid-sized trunk. Carefully, I crept around the circumference, keeping one eye on the tent — which seemed to flutter slightly in the breeze — and one eye on measuring the weight I put on every step. The tent was in a murky shade of olive, like the kinds I supposed they used in the army where everything was the colour of mud. It was triangular at the top, and rectangular in its width; a sizeable tree house.

Further up right, hooked on one of the highest branches, were two plastic cans the size of my head. It was in a sickly, faded yellow, with peeling packaging that read in red block letters: PLANTA MARJERIN. I remember seeing it emblazoned on the small container of margarine Ah Gong used to spread on my bread everyday, but the one on the tree looked different. Like a relic from a few decades ago.

The little additions to the house got even more varied. Near the plastic cans was a long line cutting across the leaves; like the rough white twines I remembered knotting and pulling at during Scouts’ camp. A faded white cloth was draped over it. At least I thought it was a cloth — I squinted nearer and tried to make out a sleeve, or buttons. But it looked like any common dishcloth.

At that moment, a figure emerged from the flaps of the tent onto the thickest branch on the tree. He was only wearing a pair of faded looking and torn black pants, and had browned skin with dark, uneven streaks. His head of gray peppered hair shone in the afternoon light. A thin, sparse beard covered his face till his neck. I observed him for a bit. Steadily, as if it was just crossing a room, he stepped across the length of the branch and reached for one of the yellow fruits hanging low amongst the leaves. Holding it in his hand, he sniffed it and then took a bite, spitting out the fruits’ pits. They landed with a thud on the ground.

He looked almost sixty years old, but seemed to have none of the old age beer belly or cellulite symptoms plaguing him — the lean figure leaped easily from one branch to another, routing around his tent like a leopard staking out his territory. He went to the margarine can and peered into both of them. Water sloshed out and dripped down the sides of the can. The man immediately caught the drops of water with his finger and licked it off carefully. Then he put both hands inside the can like an act of prayer, scooped out some water, and drank it hungrily.

I suddenly remembered that it had rained just yesterday. In Scouts they always taught us that rainwater was dangerous. But I had always wanted to try it anyway — and in an old, grimy Planta can? The Tree Man was really a daredevil!

He went to the clothesline and picked up the cloth, which I then realised was a shirt of sorts, from the way he was holding it by a round, ragged collar. He held it to his nose, then shook his head and flung the shirt back onto the twine. He took another yellow fruit and munched it slowly. After a while, he sat down with his legs crouched near to him, arching his head slightly to the right and observing the rays of the afternoon light carefully.

The mystery of it all gripped me. He looked like he didn’t want to be disturbed, but I couldn’t resist.

“Hello, Uncle,” I said, making my way to the bottom of the tree, carefully avoiding the mouldy pits that lay haphazardly around it.

His head darted around, and he shot up standing on the tree – again, unwavering, as if his physique already knew how to balance on the structure of the tree. His eyes searched for the source of his disturbance. Finally they landed upon me, the fierce eyes of a soldier with his shield, staring down an enemy. He made a noise that I couldn’t make out, sort of a halfway between garbling and shouting. But then I could hear two words:

“Go away,” he growled.

We stood like that for a moment, him staring me down and shaking slightly, and me rooted to the ground. Then he scrambled into the tent and pulled the tent lines taut, sealing it fully.

I was startled. I had imagined a kindly, portly old man, staking out on his tree like it was North Pole and he was Santa Claus, enjoying his magic tree house. I tried to soften my tone.

“My grandpa wanted me to pick some durians. Could you tell me where to go from here?”

Silence from the treehouse. I went around the tree, observing its old ridges, and calling out to the Tree Man several more times. He had made some carvings on the trunk with a blunt knife – I could see where the blade got stuck and left chipped pieces of wood hanging. They were straight, vertical lines, and I counted them: twelve.

“Uncle, where are you from?” I tried again, while tracing the carvings with my hand.

There was a menacing grunt from the treehouse. “GO,” he spat out.

This would not do. Who was going to believe that I actually saw the Tree Man in the flesh? The legend of Pioneer, the stuff of myths? If anyone could claim credit for this, it would have to be me. I took out my camera, adjusted the lens, and quickly took a few shots of his tent. The film whirred.

Suddenly, there was a clanging and knocking from the tent, as if the Tree Man was rummaging for something. I poised my lens at the tent doors, hoping to catch a prize moment of his shadow – when he suddenly burst out of the tent and ran up the side of the tree, brandishing a long branch at me. It was pointed at one end like a spear. He glared at me and yelled no, no, no. Go!

I remember I ran so fast that the mud from the floor was spraying up into my face. When I finally caught my breath and reached my bike at the road, my heart was pounding with excitement. Now this was a real adventure. I couldn’t wait to tell Ah Gong what I had found.

But Ah Gong didn’t believe me at first when I told him I had seen the Tree Man. He struck up a cigarette after lunch, lazily surveying the photos I had developed on film, the ones of the Tree Man’s olive tent perched on the tree. He frowned and said it was a fluke.

I began describing in great detail how the Tree Man looked like, his gruff actions, and how he had threatened me with the branch. Ah Gong nodded along, following my story, then he puffed out some smoke and began to laugh.

“Boy, I know you like this kind of adventure thing. But no one see him before, how can be you one person see him already? 16 year old boy somemore. Nice story, but don’t need prove to Ah Gong la. Ah Gong know you are brave already, ok.” He patted my head.

I shook it off, disgruntled, and told him I would go and get more pictures. He laughed again and said if it was true, he’d sent the pictures to Shin Min Daily or even the new Lianhe Wanbao andand get their $20 reward for news tip-offs. I said he could look forward to it.

He raised his eyebrows and lay back on his rattan chair. “Well, if we get it I’ll treat you durian, good quality kind,” he chuckled.

So a week later, on a Sunday morning, I went back to the Tree Man’s abode. I also lugged a full bottle of water, a loaf of Gardenia bread, a milo tin can, and a few tins of canned sardines, luncheon meat and baked beans. We always gave them out in our school community service projects for the elderly, so I figured he would want some too.

Because I was carrying a heavy load, I only arrived at the clearing in the afternoon, arms aching and head pounding from the afternoon sun. Salty streams of sweat trickled down my eyes and stung them. Clearing my voice, I shouted to the tree: “Uncle! I’m here.”

With a deliberately loud thud, I unloaded everything I had onto the leaf-filled floor. Tree Man heard the noise and came from behind the tent, his knees cracking audibly as he came to the branch nearest me. No pointy branch weapon this time. Before he could say anything, I made my move first.

“Food,” I yelled towards the Tree Man. “Food. Eat. For you.”

He frowned at me, and grunted in disapproval. But the bags behind me caught his interest. I shuffled closer to him. He had deep-set lines carved on his face, from his temple to the sides of his cheeks.

I pointed to the bags of groceries. In reaction, as if to prove his self-sufficiency, he reached out towards the hanging fruit nearest to him and plucked it down. He pointed at it.

I was not to be deterred. Carefully, I opened the bags and took out a loaf of bread, holding it up high by its wrapper, and presented it to him. He looked at the fruit, then to the bread, and blinked a few times. Decidedly, he took a bite of the fruit, and the juice dribbled down his beard.

But his eyes were fixed on the bread. I held it out toward him, a peace offering.

He reached out for it. The loaf almost toppled as I lifted it above my head to him, but he wrapped his hands around it and caught it just fine. Victory, I thought.

Slowly, I showed him the contents of the bag like we were at an auction. He seemed to let down his guard a little, and even nodded at some of the items. Up went the water and the canned sardines and the baked beans.

When it came to the Milo tin, he took some time observing it, turning it around in his hand awkwardly as if not used to its weight. He touched the curved green tin gingerly, tracing the printed brown words and peering at the sporty athlete on the packaging. I watched his eyes well up a little. Or it could have just been the morning light.

Offerings presented, I guessed I had earned my way through to his sacred hideout. I patted the rough thick trunk of the tree, finding a ridge or bump I could hold on to hoist me up.

“Go away,” Tree Man immediately snarled. He held the Milo tin with one hand and slapped my fingers furiously with the other. Well then, step by step. I had the whole afternoon to spare.

I felt in my bag and yes, it was there: my worn copy of True Singapore Ghost Stories, Book 1. I bought it at first because no one in class had dared to read it when it first came out, so I bought one to read during Reading Period just to prove a point. But soon I really liked the ghastly and mysterious stories. I even queued up at Popular to get an autograph from Russell Lee. He sat there in a black shirt and black suit, with his black fabric mask covering his whole face and dark sunglasses obscuring his eyes, and caused all our classmates to speculate about who this author actually was.

But the mystery just made me more gripped with the series. Now I took it everywhere I went. I flipped to my favourite story about the haunted basketball court and dug in.

About twenty minutes later, Tree Man realised I was still there. He leaned over, hanging his head over the branch, and I could sense he was looking at my book right behind my shoulder, but I didn’t make a sound.

The rest of the hours passed just like that with him behind me silently. Sometimes I would hear the leaves rustle as he shifted a little around the branches as if to find a more comfortable position. I flipped the pages ofTrue Singapore Ghost Stories slowly, wondering if he could understand it. I tried to read too, but I was half absorbing the adventures and supernatural tales of Singapore and half wondering about this very odd adventure of mine.

It was almost dusk when I finished reading it. I heard the Tree Man cough, a series of wheezes, and then it sounded like he was going to say something.

“Why do you want to stay here?” I asked. Perhaps the crickets caught my voice, because they started chirping back in a constant hum. I turned to look up at him. But the Tree Man climbed a branch further out, away from me.

This time, however, he didn’t go back into the tent. He lay in a half-upright position between two branches, sitting there right in the shadow of the tree’s canopy. He sat very still, with his head arched high, staring out at an unknown horizon in the trees.

Cautiously, I went behind him, under the shelter of the branches. I took out my compact camera, turned off the shutter sound, and took a few pictures of his silhouette outlined by faint light. In the darkness, he was frail and hunched; a lone figure weighed down by an unspeakable weight. His knobbly fingers were clasped tensely on top of his stomach. I couldn’t see his expression. It reminded me of how Russell Lee looked upon the crowd, face obscured in a mask and shadow, an enigma to all.

Slowly, he turned around again. I shoved the camera behind me and picked up my book, pretending to dust leaves off its cover. I asked him if he liked the book, but The Tree Man just sighed. I could sense he was still looking at me. The silent gaze was unnerving.

Nervous, I began to chatter about my own life. I told him that I lived around here, that there was a durian trail around the other side of the forest, that this was just one of my many adventures and that I was not scared of him. I described how Pioneer town outside was like for him, with its neat concrete squares and the bustling coffeeshop that opened till late night and sold the best bak chor mee, and about the plain HDB blocks that were painted unassumingly white and black. He squinted his eyes, as if unable to imagine the sight.

Then I remembered what Ah Gong had said about the new housing and the forest. “They might build something here soon. Maybe you can’t stay here anymore,” I said.

His head jerked up in surprise. Alert again, he scrambled to the other side of the tree, searching around frantically. He began to make unintelligible sounds which scratched the air, and began clawing at the tree bark and at himself. “Eiurghhh, eiurghh,” he screeched. “Eeyaahhh. No, no, no go.”

I tried to follow him around on the ground, but he was pacing too high and too fast on the tree. He kept going, at a higher and shriller pitch. “Not today, not now, Uncle,” I tried to reassure him. “You still have time. You can still stay here.”

He shrieked even more, and grabbed tufts of hair on his head in agony. I lifted my hands instinctively in a sign of surrender, of peace and goodwill, to placate him. But he went near to the front of his tent and pulled open the flap sharply. Then, with one last piercing glance at me, he withdrew into it. The tent lines snapped as he pulled it shut.

It took me a while before I could walk away. The image of his eyes searing into mine shook me. It made me think of unbearable grief, of hatred, of something very bitter and very sharp. For the first time, I was afraid of the Tree Man. The compact camera grew heavier in my hands. I felt like I shouldn’t take any more photos.

Two weeks later, Ah Gong brought home more durians again (“sweeter ones, small seeds,” he had said). But I did not show my camera to him. He asked about my Tree Man adventures again. I kept myself busy with the fruit and looked down, mumbling that I hadn’t seen him lately.

He raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Wah,brave boy never go adventure again huh?” I shrugged.

“But anyway the forest there, the flat start to build already. Got bulldozer park around the road near the forest. Big ones. Don’t anyhow go to the forest boy. Later police catch.”

A pit of dread rose up within me. The Tree Man’s flailing arms, his wild eyes and screams of agony and confusion seemed stuck to me, and suddenly I couldn’t eat the sticky durian anymore. The sweetness of the fruit started to smell like the piercing bandungsmell of the forest clearing. I tried to swallow it, and also swallow the fear in my mind, but I knew — the Tree Man needed to hear the news of his uprooting from a friend, and not when they suddenly descended upon him.

So I packed my bag and went to the forest for the third time. When I reached the tree again, I looked up and around the branches. He seemed nowhere to be found. I put down the bags of new groceries I brought — prawn crackers, canned soya bean milk and another loaf of bread — and called out for him.

There was no reply. I circled the tree, looking up at the tent, which was firmly shut. His frayed clothesline and plastic margarine cans were swaying slightly in the wind, but they were empty.

“I’m sorry Uncle, if I scared you that time,” I said cautiously. “I’m here to help you. Come out and talk to me.”

I even tried settling beneath the tree and reading my book, to see if he would come out. But one hour later, with my neck aching from the effort of craning back and forth to his tent, the Tree Man still had not emerged.

I decided to take things into my own hands. Reaching out for the nearest branch above me, I grasped it and scrambled up the tree, feeling the scaly bark scraping my palms. Once I was up there, it was rather easy to walk — the main branches were broad and flat, perhaps moulded by years of the Tree Man’s treading. I stepped cautiously towards the olive tent. It was uneven in colour, with dark patches on sides that had endured the rain.

It was as if all light was cut off in that dark enclave, a modern Neanderthal’s cave. I stepped forward, and smelt a nauseating odor from a corner of the tent.

I was beside him in seconds, shining a torchlight and illuminating his pained face in harsh light. He was crouched at a corner, hands folded and knees tucked in, holding on tightly as if shielding himself from an earthquake. His hair was wild, matted with sweat and swept unkempt by winds, straggly and spread across his lined forehead.

His trembled in fear, and his eyes burned with the intensity of a torch. I stood stunned there for a moment.

“No go, no, go,” he repeated. He wrapped his arms around himself and shook his head.

I sat down slowly next to him, trying to swallow my fear and confusion. “Uncle, I just want to be your friend,” I said. “You can tell me anything.”

He looked up at me, and then as if something broke within him, suddenly began to speak in bits and pieces. Most of it was gibberish, and I struggled to put together a few sentences.

“Scared, scared. Go out, bad.”

“What are you scared about?”

“Sun. Sun gone. Sun no more,” he said. I paused, not sure how to respond to his delusion. I pointed in the direction of the tent entrance, where some sunlight was streaming in. “It’s still here, Uncle.”

He frowned and looked at me again, heaving with frustration. He shook his head again, and held out his hand beside him, measuring a certain height and then pointing at me. “No, no. Sun. Sun like you. Sundie.”

“Oh.” Son.

“Sun sick. Move house, sick. Cough, cough, no stop. Hot. Here —” he gestured to his forehead — “here hot. House only me and sun. I try help. I run.”

“I ask friend stop, friend no stop. I keep run. I ask friend, no, no. No stop. I go doctor. Doctor far, far away. I give money, ten dollars, this all I have. Ten dollars. But doctor laugh. Laugh at ten dollars. I go back. But Sun, sun die.”

His voice started to break. I tried to say something, but found nothing good enough to say.

“Sun gone. I walk and walk, I see tree here. Build house here, here safe,” he said, tapping the wooden floorboards with his palm. “Here no friend. There, people bad. Here big tree, safe.” He clutched his heart. “Here, safe.”

It indeed kept him very safe, away from people, away from the pain they brought.

“Twelve year, here. But you, friend. You, like sun,” he said, his voice softening.

A bright light, like a searchlight in a storm, shone from the front of the tent. I turned and held my breath. Two policemen clad in dark blue rolled up the corners of the tent till the full evening light shone in. The authorities never left anything to chance or free will — it was now or never. As the orange-yellow light hit the Tree Man, he recoiled.

“Sir, you need to leave this place now.” Their voices were firm and uncompromising. “Or we will have to take you away.”

I expected the Tree Man to put up a fight, to spit at the policemen, or even to pull the tent down upon all of us. But as I braced myself, the Tree Man turned to look at me. He grasped my wrist with his thin, weak fingers.

“Oh, oh,” he cried. “Take me away.”

The policemen wasted no time. They hoisted him up and staggered to the front of the tent, where a tall ladder was leaning against the trunk. I made my way down by the side of the tree quickly, stepping on the familiar boughs, and took every chance to see him as he went down the ladder. He paused at each rung, his hand flailing, trying to find the next place to balance. His whole body was trembling, and it made the ladder clatter unsteadily.

Finally he was down on the floor. The policemen dusted their hands.

The Tree Man scrambled forward a few steps, then fell to his knees. On all fours, with dried leaves stuck to him, he pounded his hands around on the ground. His knobbly fingers raked the mud, and he bent down with his eyes shut.

As we watched, streaks of tears ran down his cheeks, and his dark red lips blubbered with the effort to wail, or speak — I couldn’t tell. Then a guttural howl rose from his throat. I suppose he was truly becoming like what the legends made him out to be, but at that moment, I had seen no truer self.

[yujiawrites]

In Love

As we sang, Jesus, I'm in love with you, a collective song of adoration across the hall, a question came to me:

 Have you ever been in love?

 You drag your feet to dates. You forget his favourite drink. You miss his text and reply two days later. When he wants to talk, you just feel bored. You'll swat his hand away and continue on with your own life. You can't be bothered to do anything for his birthday, and the thought of making gifts is tiring. It takes time away from your own life, you see. Sometimes, once in a while, you'd think of him, but the thought is so occasional that it simply drifts off. When friends ask you about him, you hesitate and shift your eyes away. I guess you don't really know what to say, except that it's not bad, but it's not good either. But somehow you plod on, date after date, and every single time the both of you sit in silence.

 Have you ever (truly) been in love?

[yujiawrites]

Hannah and David

Came across a beautiful piece of Scripture about the prayer of Hannah, the mother of prophet Samuel, in 1 Samuel 2:1-10:

Then Hannah prayed and said:

“My heart rejoices in the Lord;     in the Lord my horn is lifted high. My mouth boasts over my enemies,     for I delight in your deliverance.

2 “There is no one holy like the Lord;     there is no one besides you;     there is no Rock like our God.

3 “Do not keep talking so proudly     or let your mouth speak such arrogance, for the Lord is a God who knows,     and by him deeds are weighed.

4 “The bows of the warriors are broken,     but those who stumbled are armed with strength. 5 Those who were full hire themselves out for food,     but those who were hungry are hungry no more. She who was barren has borne seven children,     but she who has had many sons pines away.

6 “The Lord brings death and makes alive;     he brings down to the grave and raises up. 7 The Lord sends poverty and wealth;     he humbles and he exalts. 8 He raises the poor from the dust     and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes     and has them inherit a throne of honor.

“For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s;     on them he has set the world. 9 He will guard the feet of his faithful servants,     but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness.

“It is not by strength that one prevails; 10     those who oppose the Lord will be broken. The Most High will thunder from heaven;     the Lord will judge the ends of the earth.

“He will give strength to his king     and exalt the horn of his anointed.”

On first reading, I thought it reminded me particularly of the book of Psalms. The literary level, the beautiful descriptions, the perception and understanding of God - the parallels were clear.

It got me thinking a while. I was caught by surprise, because I thought the Psalm-style language only existed in King David’s diction and the vocabulary of his other poets. Similarly, I had believed that great declarations of faith, elaborate prophecies, would only be found in the book of prophets. I assumed prayers in the other books would simply be personal ones, cries of desperation, the laments of common man. Whenever we read about exceptional, bold prayers, it was usually from the mouth of Israel's great leaders.

 But Hannah wasn’t a “conventional” leader. All that the Bible says is that she was the wife of a pious man, whom herself was dedicated to the Lord. As compared to sea-splitting Moses and land-conquering Joshua and giant-slaying David, Hannah was a barren-womb lady who lived an ordinary, and even painful life being taunted for not being able to give birth. 

 And yet, the depth of her prayer is astonishing. She recognised that the whole world belongs to God; that God is a God of justice; that God saves His people. These are themes that I wrongly believed only the "intellectuals"/"great warriors of faith" would know and talk about. I had believed, somehow, that deeper revelations come with intellectual depth, which gives people an increased spectrum of expression.

 But no — God is not a respecter of social class, intellectual depth, or status. Hannah’s prayer shows me that everybody, and really everybody, is given the same access and possibility to know God intimately. Nothing is hindered by social statuses or even ability. If a person wants to know God, he will know Him. That’s how level the playing ground is, as compared to everything else in society that is stratified and demarcated by social lines. Everyone can know Him, and know Him well if they desire. 

 And it got me thinking about what really matters in life, and what God looks out for. We’ve all heard the familiar verse: man looks at appearance, but God looks at the heart. We know it, but still we evaluate people by how they look, how they behave, their abilities and skills. We group them into categories and even choose our associations sometimes because it makes us more comfortable to be with similar people of a certain ability or class. We may extend kindness towards those who are different, but we still recognise differences based on each other's appearances.

 Meanwhile, God looks past all of that. He’s evaluating hearts, the unseen, the hidden, the trait that is arguably of most precious worth. Sometimes, because of subconscious prejudices, I still look at someone and think I know their entire narrative with God. But this realization has opened my eyes and I really see: everyone is fearfully and wonderfully made by God, and every one has the potential to know and love Him. It should never be denied.

 I sometimes wonder if God has a completely different way of evaluating people that most of us wouldn't expect — a way that would make the poor, rich in the eyes of God, and a way that would make the unknown, small person, a beloved and mighty warrior. And if we have spent too much of our lives pursuing things that can be seen — status, glory, power, might, even if in the name of God and for God, but then neglecting the things unseen; it'd help to remember what God is really looking out for.

 A young shepherd boy alone in the hills, tending to his flock.

 A timid yet faithful woman crying alone in His temple.

 A great King ruling over Israel.

 A woman granted fruitfulness and favor.

 Hannah and David — different, but with the same heart after God's heart. Even if we feel absolutely different from someone else who seems to be "mightier" and "stronger", let's remember that God looks out for none of that. It's a heart that captures His heart, a spirit that grasps His spirit that He will bring into the depths.

[yujiawrites]

Giving / Giving Back

When I was making the decision to attend Bible School 2 years ago, there was a struggle within me. I knew the Lord was calling me to SOT, but I was like an unwilling child dragging her feet, disliking wherever she was being brought to. The one thing I struggled with giving up was: a scholarship, which I would have to forsake to attend SOT.

 That was 2 years ago. Today, in the littlest of things and biggest of decisions, I still find myself contemplating how much to give to God. Praise the Lord that my willingness to surrender has grown more and more over the years and that I am quicker to obey, listen and follow Him - but the question still remains: how much do I give?

 The question comes when it feels uncomfortable to surrender, or if there's "too much at stake." Often, these take the form of very real choices: if I go for this church meeting, I'll have a few hours lesser to finish my assignment - and this assignment's deadline is the next day. Or if I take time out to pray and read the Bible, it seems like I'm taking away precious time from work. Or if I choose to serve in a ministry, I won't have as much leisure time to myself anymore - say bye to Netflix and Korean dramas and late-night entertainment.

 Is there an extent, a "cap", a maximum limit to our surrender and giving to God?

  But a look at Mark 12 - the Parable of the Vinedressers, and this perspective is turned on its head.

 The parable presents the world as a vineyard. The owner built it, protected it, provided a way for reaping, harvest and growth. He leased the vineyard to people to tend to.

 But seeing the luxurious vineyard after working on it, the vinedressers began to take ownership of the land. They saw everything as theirs. They had a sense of entitlement and believed that this life, though not given by them, though not made from them, though not created nor started in any way by them, somehow belonged to them.

 The owner calls for some fruit of the vineyard - and the vinedressers refuse to hand it over. They plot to kill the owner's son, so that the inheritance can be theirs (the irony is that they know it is someone else's inheritance, not their own, but yet they still act with so much authority).

 But herein lies the fallacy and blindness of the vinedressers - why the struggle with God for control and authority? Why struggle to surrender, to give in and to pour out your life? None of this came from any vinedressers' hands or labour. They tilled and worked, but it was God who made the fruits grow.

Human beings often wrestle with God for autonomy. We desperately want to live a life away from His authority and His plans. We've built this world with our own hands, we think, and as we look around, we dread God coming to shake this "man-made" world upside down.

To its greatest extent, refusing to surrender is the ethos of the world today. I have control over my own life, and no higher power can tell me what to do. Is that not the battle cry of many people today, the echo: you do you, no one decides your fate except yourself, no one has control over me?

We've always seen it as giving to God. But we've been seeing it from the wrong end of the vineyard. If none of it came from us, we're not giving our lives to God, we're simply giving it back.

 In the same way, everything that we have is not created by us. Every single day, ability, talent and skill we have is a gift from grace from God. He gave us cognition, the ability to love, the ability to contemplate. Nothing we have belongs to us because nothing was created by us.

 1 Corinthians 4:7 comes in handy at this moment: "What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if everything you have is from God, why boast as though it were not a gift?"

 Right after the Parable of the Vinedressers, Jesus goes on to say in response to the Pharisees' question, that "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

 Simply put, we do our best in the system we are placed in (the things that are Caesar's) - our education, academics, workplace, and daily life. We give our due diligence and put our best effort. But we must render to God what is God's - so if Caesar's coin bears his image and inscription, what then bears God's image and inscription?

 Instead of a coin, it is our souls. Our soul belongs to God, so we render (give) to Him what is His. And that's why everything we do in our lives must be aligned with Him and His will - give back every breath you have to the God who gave it.

 When we begin to see that our lives are not our own (1 Corinthians 6:19), giving over our lives to the Lord is not a struggle anymore. Everything we have from the start to end belongs to Him. Who else can we give it to? Who else should we give it to? It's just a giving back, of every breath, every word, every thought, every action. I'm not giving over what belongs to me... I'm giving back what rightfully, was always His, to begin with.

 I pray that if you feel a call towards a particular ministry, or called to serve and give your time to a certain cause, or even in your own devotion to God, there will be less dragging of feet and more willingness. It's an endless and limitless pursuit, actually - we can't ever give more to Him than what He's already given us.

[yujiawrites]

Creative Writing and Newswriting

This semester, I took two vastly different writing modules - Introduction to Creative Writing, and Newswriting.

 I've always loved to write. It is the one real interest I have known from a young age, amidst other fleeting interests that would stay for a while and then bid adieu. This craft - of forming words from alphabets and sentences from words and stories from sentences - has always struck me.

 When I was young, I limited myself to creative writing only, thinking that creative writing was far more superior in quality and content than all the commercial and journalistic writing out there. All those sell-outs, betraying the art of meaningful words for commercial purposes!!! I thought.

 It soon became apparent that creative writing was too limiting. I don't just like writing, I realised - I like words themselves. I like the art of honing and crafting words, be it in puns, or really making serious quotes like Instagram captions (ok I kid. I mean, really serious work). I like it when the right words are chosen carefully to convey the exact meaning I have in my head, or the exact thing I see, or the exact feeling in a moment. It's wondrous. And so I realised that to pursue this craft, one has to go beyond simply creative writing.

 That led me to journalism - and the queer experience of taking different types of writing modules in the same semester.

 I often imagine these two types of writing as siblings. Creative Writing is the quiet younger brother who likes to lock himself in his room, patiently squeezing his acrylic tubes of paint onto a palette and painting strokes of colour on a canvas. He plays baroque music in the background and his room curtains are closed. He never speaks much, but when you admire his work he'd look at you with such (desperate) soulful eyes that seem to need you to acknowledge: there's a lot of deep meaning in this artwork. Say that you see the same deep meaning too.

 Meanwhile, Newswriting is the elder brother who has already found a job, years ahead, and is always decked in monochrome. He speaks very fast and is always on the phone. He always wears a sharp, tailored suit. And a row of five exact white shirts that he wears every day. He's easily irritated at people, but when faced with clients he has the most professional smile and handshake. His room is very clean. And there is no paint - at all.

 Between these brothers, the differences run deep. It's the same words, but the different processes hone a completely different writer.

 When it comes to content, creative writing tends to get very personal, and you could write lines and lines of haiku which no one understands, and still pass because it has a certain artistic element or beauty in it. (There was once we even discussed as a class: Well, so what could a bad poem be?) Your subject and topic is anything and everything, and there are absolutely no rules at all except your own creativity. Write about what matters to you, said my lecturer.

 Meanwhile, in my very first Basic Media Writing class in Year 1, the lecturer said: forget about what you want to say. It's not about what you want to tell others, it's about what your readers want to hear. And although I knew media writing had to be somewhat different from creative writing in my head, here it was fully spelt out for me. Being a journalist or writing for any media means the objective of writing was now completely different. It's no longer about you, but your readers. You are a conveyor of meaning, not so much a creator.

 The way words are treated in both disciplines is worlds apart too. In creative writing, words are a delicate art. Art has no rules. Feel free to break the grammar rules and (gasp!) go ahead with thesauruses to add more complicated words to the poem. If you have to add layers of meaning to your stanzas, shrouding it in a mysterious cloud of emotionally-beautiful-sounding descriptions, then add it - and let the reader unwrap the layers themselves like a gift.

 The journalist would lambaste this kind of writing. Words are a commodity - to be roughened, sharpened, thrown around to pick the best. If you dare add another layer of meaning beyond what is simple and straightforward, woe befall you. In fact, an editor would probably cut this whole piece apart for its grammar and run-on sentences and its appalling over-use of vocabulary. Clarity is key. Adjectives, adverbs, and even verbs with two words simply don't belong in news copy.

 In a creative piece, you might have the liberty to say: He took the rod, feeling its coldness around his hands, and slammed it down on the quivering man. It felt good to meet flesh with fury. Again and again the metal twanged against his screams.

 In newswriting, this is simply: He hit him.

 Let me veer off a little into the discipline of newswriting. In every news copy, the sentences are usually simple to read, and easy to follow. But the words are also strong. That's how newspapers get readers to read one entire article in a sitting - without long, rambling sentences, and with clear, in-your-face content.

 In newswriting class, our practices were pages of long sentences and paragraphs, which we had to completely rewrite to take out redundant words, fluffy adjectives, rambling sentences, weak verbs, -ings and 'there will be' s and correct any grammar errors (but often, no one could identify what those grammar errors were).

 I used to think this meant simplifying. But I've soon realised it is a difficult discipline. The best newswriters aren't people who can't write long, extended narratives and instead choose to settle for short articles and briefs. They are people who understand the complex stories, grasp the essence of it, and present it in the clearest and simplest way. To write long essays aren't difficult - the real challenge is having one whole piece, and whittling it down to the shortest piece possible. And journalists are actually language masters when it comes to this.

 Ernest Hemingway is a curious case. He was trained in journalistic writing, and then went on to fiction writing. The combined art of both made for a never-before-seen beauty, a Nobel Prize in Literature, and books that would probably go down as the best in the history of mankind. I read some of his works for my Creative Writing class, and they've been the most compelling so far.

 It's compelling because the meaning comes quickly (as required for news articles), but the meaning is deep in a way that newswriting cannot explore (as present in creative writing). Take Hemingway's A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for example.

It was very late and everyone had left the café except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light. In the day time the street was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust and the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference.

The discipline of choosing words carefully keeps his writing tight. He does not waste words. Every word has a purpose and place in crafting the story. But he chooses the right ones, again and again, to convey a certain depth in human emotion accurately. What a maestro.

 Newswriting has helped me sharpen the meaning of everything I write. It is the real art of communication - and that's why I think, even if a student wants to major in PR or Advertising, they should always hone their words with newswriting first. Communication means getting your meaning across effectively and efficiently, and newswriting does exactly that - schooling you in the art of words.

 It is not a "dishonor" to the lofty craft of creative writing, as I had thought before. It is word-smithing, through and through, and when smithed, my words become stronger and more accurate - even in my creative pieces.

 Creative writing helps people to express; newswriting helps people to understand. Each has its own worlds and purpose. I think the brothers can live with each other, and each will bring out the other's strength. Maybe then - writing will become clearer, deeper, and more powerful.

[yujiawrites]

Youth: A Manifesto

We are excellent curators of our own art. We are skilled craftsmen by our own right. We are voyeurs glancing directly into sight. We are the tasters of edges over this world's end. We are masters of our masterpieces - chiselled, sculpted Man. We will stand in the middle of streets and dictate our decrees. We will show you what we - no, you, no, we, want to see. We are a song we write in verses and bridges. We are a puzzle waiting for its centre pieces. We are this generation's enigma and the other generation's ire. We are imaginary pioneers of a world, the great one, in which our words will not fade away, in which we will never die.

[yujiawrites]

The Translator

Proficient in all languages

 Grammar of mountain peaks

Syntax of sunlit skies

Participles of pain-riddled pasts

Vocabulary of spirits and sighs

 Fluent in Heartbreak.

 Will translate into prose

And poetry, if you like.

[yujiawrites]

I play the piano

I play the piano. I had quit when I was 16 - or rather, my piano teacher quit me by refusing to turn up for lessons because I had been so inconsistent with practices. On hindsight, I have to admit that it was true. I was cancelling classes at least once a month because I couldn't make it, or just couldn't practice enough. 

 But yes, I play the piano now. During summertime, I was reminded of the unrequited desire in my heart to continue playing music. At first I wanted to pick up the guitar, but the piano at home stared me right in the face everyday. I dragged the issue for quite long, until one day talks emerged amongst the family about "selling the piano" and my savvy younger brother was going to actually put it online. I couldn't bear the fact that this piano, although untouched for four years, was just going to go. Alright, alright, I'll relearn the piano, I said.

 So that's how I ended up in Ms Yap's class, looking at the familiar but strange black and white keys again. And I've come to realise that playing the piano at 16 has a very different feeling from playing the piano at 20. 

 Back then, I would have said: "I know how to play the piano", but I didn't really enjoy it. Perhaps I only enjoyed the kick and pride that comes when I played a piece successfully. But practices were routine and I really dreaded lessons. If I could practice for even half an hour, it was a milestone. 

 But right now, I really enjoy the piano. I enjoy practice. I enjoy hitting the wrong notes again and again while striving to hit the right ones. I enjoy teasing out the nuances of every note - legato, rubato, allegro, staccato. It's odd! But I enjoy sitting down at the piano bench, spending an hour just practicing, and somehow that discipline isn't a drag anymore. I wish I could practice longer, be surrounded by music longer, but work calls. 

 It got me wondering about what caused this difference. 

 Maybe being older actually allows you to appreciate music more. I'm not any one of those child prodigies that are actually gifted in playing, neither am I those YouTube players whose (I once watched) hands don't play the piano - they fly over the piano, and music comes out somehow. I can't tell chords from each other (yet) but being older does develop an appreciation for the nuances of music. 

 The first piece I learnt from Ms Yap was Sonatina, Op. 36. It's a simple song, and you've definitely heard it before, somewhere. I hammered at the keys, practiced till accuracy, and as I looked up at Ms Yap in satisfaction, she paused and gave an ok-not-there-yet smile. 

 "Play what you hear in your heart," she said. 

 "What?" I said, not understanding this seemingly flaky statement. 

 "Sing the melody out. How would you deal with the pitches and the ebb and flow of it?" 

 So I sang it. It sounded a world apart from my piece. In the natural voice, there are lifts and cadences that aren’t present in mechanical playing. I realised then that it’s not about the keys or notes, but it’s the handling of it. 

 Then Ms Yap made me sing while playing it, and the result was really quite different. The song came alive. There were softer sounds and then crescendos, build-ups, staccatos, and rhythm. The nuances make the song. 

 The best kind of playing I've heard from Ms Yap, and the way she encouraged me to play, was when I was not caring about hitting the right notes, but I was more focused on portraying the emotions of the song. Not only did it sound nicer, I liked the experience so much more.

 Recently, I've been playing the accompaniment to 'O Holy Night' and I just can't get enough of it. Even though it's just a few simple chords, which Ms Yap kindly simplified for me instead of the original sheet music, being able to play it while singing really brings out a kind of beauty that I cannot achieve just with my voice.

 Perhaps it was also the process of growing up. Being older, I mused to my friend the other day, I sense a greater ability to commit to choices, and to follow through with them. In the fleeting interests of youth, many choices are made because they are exciting, but not many of them truly last because we don't understand that a commitment is to be honoured. 

 Growing up also trains in you a diligence that is not there in the recklessness of youth. It's tenacity, a sort of steel that strengthens over time - your ability to withstand difficulty. The old adage that people always say, 长大就会吃苦，才会喜欢苦瓜 (the older you grow, the more you can go through bitter things in life and hence, appreciate bittergourd) is actually true. The younger me would have complained endlessly about practice, but now I have no qualms about practice, because I know that diligent determination in this practice leads somewhere. I know it. I know that hammering at these keys and straining to see those beansprouts lead to a smooth and beautiful sounding piece of music. When you're a young kid, having to pound at the keys, we're often impatient for immediate results. It's too difficult, I would have said, after practicing for the third time, I keep getting these notes wrong. What's the point? 

 But as we grow up, we start to be patient, because we can look past the rush and urge for gratification to commit to a piece of work - hard work, put-your-knuckles-to-it kind of craft. It's quiet, but it has developed over the years, and I am surprised that at 20, I see its fruition.

 And so... I play the piano now. Oh and I do like bittergourd now too. Strange. 

[yujiawrites]

the great complex/the heavy load

The great complex of the Christian life - 

The good news is, you don’t have to be in control of your life and be the master of its sorrows, worries and tribulations.

But to some human hearts, that’s bad news - I’m not in control of my life and being the master of all its troubles?

‘Who can I trust, if not myself?’ 

‘If I am not in control and not able to approve of all the things that happen to me, am I not being foolish?’ 

Jesus stands at the side of Man, patiently waiting. 

Man struggles with his load, far too heavy to carry, and its charred edges blackening his shoulders with soot.

The pavement beneath him is rough and sharp. Perhaps it is only because the weight upon his shoulders drive the soles of his feet so deeply into the ground that every step is steeped with pain.

“I’m here. Do you want Me to take it from you?”

The calm voice stirs something within. Man looks up, his vision marred with sweat and exhaustion. There is a faint light. But the pressing need of the burden weighs tangibly upon him - his fingers wrap around the edges of the load, tightening his grip. 

The lines on the load, etched in stone, feel too familiar on his fingers. He has taken years to understand, memorise, master the exact way to grip, handle and adjust it, and it remains on his shoulders like an age-old scar in sunken skin.

Gathering all his strength, Man turns away, in politeness: It’s okay, but I am fine by myself, I don’t need your help. He walks on. 

With every minute it seemed to get heavier, as though it were a sack of stones being flooded by water. It dragged him downwards, and he bent his knees to take it on. With both arms, he pushed the load upwards to shift it a little, straining under the pain. Soon, he could have sworn that the weight of the world was upon him.

“Let Me take it from you.”

The voice again, still close by - He hadn’t left. 

The quietness in His voice contrasted Man’s agony like a streak of white sky across pitch-black darkness. Brighter it remained, and it bloomed in Man a mixture of sudden hope - and gnawing distrust. How would you, in that state of yours, know how to take this load? Pride, at having mastered the manual of life, rang through his words. Perhaps the slightest tinge of anger, too, Only I have known my pain.

“I know it.” The words that He did not speak were - and better than you, too, for Man trusted by degrees and had to learn it in measures.

Man does not budge. Moving ahead is too painful, and also, he cannot find a way to turn away again. He can only look down, his head and neck hanging low, already dragged down from the cumbersome load. 

Show me you can take it, Man issues a challenge. If there was proof, he’d perhaps take it.

“Believe that I can.”

The simple change in words was not so simple after all. It ignited a war. A great turmoil rose in Man, as if he was tugged both ways - one by great love, and the other by great sorrow. Love for the real and powerful, and the longing for his burden to be lifted, and love for His voice - it felt like clear bells in silent air. Sorrow for not being able to trust it in simplicity, and for fear the burden would slip and fall and cut too deep upon his frame, should he entrust it to another.

But the great love and great sorrow were one and the same (and Jesus knew), for Man only experiences a desire, and the struggle from its unfulfillment - and when the Answer stands before him, the choice becomes clearer.

But there is still a choice.

The chaotic struggle in his heart spins around in circles and voices, till it almost implodes - and in that split second of white light, Man knows his choice. He looks up, his eyes still wild, but with one dash of surety, as if he has just lodged an anchor into the open sea. And Jesus draws near (but He was always near) and touches the edge of the load. It disappears into fragments and ashes and then vanishes completely, with all its years of sadness and bitter heartbreaks, amongst a chorus of a thousand voices singing His name.

[yujiawrites]

beholding perfection

if I have ever beheld perfection

it would be in Your house

  standing amidst Your congregation

with the chorus of a thousand voices

joy and wonder resounding in song

rising up with a wave of praises

  Your glory settles like a cloud of stars.

  if I have ever beheld perfection

it would be at Your feet

  a broken and contrite spirit, Lord

You will not despise

i come before You trembling,

yearning for something I can't quite describe

  You speak like clarity in chaos.

  if I have ever beheld perfection

it would be Your heart

  perfect peace and providence

all in that one breath of life

there's nothing quite like it

  (no, there's

nothing

quite like it)

  You love brilliantly and in full.

[yujiawrites]

a glimpse of heaven

a hand raised

 a breath taken

 a heart reaching

 a glimpse of heaven.

[yujiawrites]

academics/education

Some semesters ago, I had a tutorial with my media-writing professor. He announced that it was going to be an open discussion about anything -- we could ask him about writing, or the industry, or anything we ever wanted to know about the media. Our professor is an experienced writer and editor in various magazines and newspapers for decades; and this learned man stood before us in all his wealth of experience, expectant for this group of students to start shooting.

 There was a pause, and then someone raised their hand and asked: "How would you mark our exam papers?"

 The professor sighed a little and answered that question vaguely, and then many other students started asking: "What are you looking for in the exam papers?" and "What are the marking rubrics for the paper?" and "How can we score in the exam?"

 By now the professor was slightly frazzled and bemused. He commented wryly: "Ah, all you want to know is the exam!" This elicited a slight self-conscious chuckle from the class, and then several things dawned upon me.

 Looking from outside the university as a high school student previously, I used to think that it was the pinnacle of learning. I was looking forward to engaging discussions, bright ideas, energetic bouncing off of values and ideas, learning from our teachers' real experiences. Perhaps in the rote learning system of the A Levels, there was no room for learning amidst the rush for the national exams, but in university -- was there not supposed to be an open space for knowledge? Why then are we still so constrained by the examinations?

 I know that the pressure of grades is very real. Grades qualify us for semester exchanges, internships, and honour rolls, which translate into the careers we want. Especially in such a competitive environment within extremely talented people in the faculty, we feel the need to prove that we've done enough comparatively with everyone around us.

 But I can't help but feel... in the midst of this rush, have we pursued academics instead of an education? Have we stopped asking, engaging, talking with each other about the things that really matter? How many conversations have been about our real interests, causes we care deeply about, trading different viewpoints about really valuable things in the world? I believe we all chose this course for a reason, and we should not lose this reason in the midst of the chase for that A.

 I thought back to the Greek philosophers of the past, who gathered in the open public spaces to debate, exchange thoughts and spark discussions daily. Might seem very "philosophy"-ish, but I think they talked about anything that came to mind and learnt from each other's viewpoints from that. If that was the foundation for any early education system, why has it been so warped now? If we are here to learn, why are we here to grab accolades instead?

 Learning can ignite real passion within us. It's amazing to talk to someone who has their hearts on fire for something they are deeply passionate about. They come alive, and anyone who has seen the beauty of it can't help but yearn for more conversations like that. A person is much more than just another student, just another person sitting at examination table with a matriculation number, just another mark on the bell curve. I see your eyes light up when you talk about issues close to your heart, I see your hands cradling a camera you love along with the pictures you take, I hear the excitement in your voice when you talk about video production, although you'd never admit it in all the classes we take. No, tell me, tell me -- I want to know. These are the little precious things that count for much more than that A.

 To be honest, I am guilty of the very flaws I write of. I complain, get stressed out, think about getting my grades often, and I allow conversations to simply be about that. I lose the drive to ask more, learn more, be more, instead of pushing myself to get more and achieve more. It simply seems easier and more relatable to talk about the stress of school than the joy of it. Even though conversations become about the same old thing every time, it is old familiar ground that everybody knows.

 But learning -- the chance for an education is a gift. I know we always say that and we vaguely understand that theoretically but we don't really know the magnitude of that statement.

 It's a gift because studying and learning are part of loving God. The Bible says – to Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength. Also, it says that God’s invisible attributes are made plain through nature – made plain through the world He created. So right now in university, everything I study is an exploration of knowledge – this gift to humankind --, and understanding more and more about this world that God created. Loving Him with my mind is to apply my logic, thinking, understanding to process and learn this world He has placed me in. It can't be reduced to grades and marks on paper... I pray not.

 There must be so much more than chasing academics...! And there must be so much more to education.

 I did raise my hand then, on that day, and took up the courage to ask the professor something unrelated to the exams -- something related to his previous work as a columnist (can't remember what it was exactly). The conversation changed track - from grades to something wider than that.

 After a few moments, someone else also raised their hand, and asked something candid: "Prof, how do you overcome writers' block?"

 It felt like a strained and limited environment was broken at that moment, and everyone was suddenly alert. The conversation went on and on, and the class was abuzz. I remember it so vividly amidst the many moments of mugging. Hoping for more moments like that next semester, where it's not what I get in grades that matter, but what I learn every single day. :)