The Train Reader #6: And the world spins on

Saw the trailer for “The Iron Lady” online two week ago. Meryl Streep had me hooked and all excited about the movie in a span of two minutes.

When I told Peh about it, the first thing he did was to shove a book into my hands – Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World by Margaret Thatcher.

Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World by Margaret Thatcher (cc-nc-nd)

Yes, I have been given a reading assignment. Peh is making me read my old birthday present before the movie arrives at our local cinemas in February 2012.

Peh gave me the book years ago. He isn’t a political person; he just thought I would agree that a book by a prominent world leader like Thatcher made interesting reading.

I haven’t quite gotten around to opening the book all this time. He probably realised that.

Since then, I’ve been bringing this yellowing book onto the train everyday, inching through a couple of pages at a time. (My train journeys just happen not to be very long.)

My slow progress aside, I have also been wondering if I am reading the book a little too late.

You see, I like to check the publication dates when I read my books. And I realised that this book was published in 2002.

Look around us now. Almost ten years on, the world has undergone tremendous transformation. The Cold War sounds like a page from the Babylonian history. The Asian values debate is like a forgotten tune from the old 1990s CDs.

I haven’t come to the chapter that captures Thatcher’s thoughts on the formation of the European Union, which interestingly seems like a timely topic as the Eurozone crisis continues. Though of course, the chapter title, Europe – Dreams and Nightmares, already gives a strong hint at what’s to come in Chapter 9.

So, can we say that the world has truly changed since this book was written?

At every flip of the page, this question pops in my head. Whatever the answer may be, it’s definitely going to be useful for me to read more in the next 366 days and have an enriching new year.

The kitchen ant-thropologist

Just read this article on the New Scientist website, about a naturalist who lived as a “Mother Turkey” for a year. He even picked up the language of the wild turkeys and discovered the complexity of turkey talk.

Though not quite related, I suddenly thought of two tiny ants I spotted some days ago in my kitchen sink.

No, I didn’t play “Mama Ant”.

The ants simply amazed me with how differently they responded to the same situation.

I had turned on the faucet without realising that these little fellas were happily running around my clean kitchen sink – yes, there were no crumbs or leftovers waiting for them – presumably looking for drinking water in the hot weather.

By the time I turned off the faucet, there was a tiny puddle threatening to encircle them.

One went into a frenzy. I seriously thought I could feel its panic as it darted here, there and everywhere, except towards the dry spot that was right in front of it. Took it quite a while to figure its way out.

The other one, however, was calmly navigating around. It found a dry opening in no time and made its way out to safety.

It struck me that perhaps, even the smallest creatures are like human beings, each wired in a different way. We just don’t understand all the creatures around us enough to know what goes on exactly in their heads and their lilliputian worlds.

Does that mean we are stupid?

* By the way, the scientific study of ants is called “myrmecology”.

雨中的幸福

两人在滂沱大雨中撑着小折伞过马路,结果自己只淋湿了裤脚,而你的头发和上衣却湿透了。

原来这一路一直有你为我挡风遮雨。

Rose in the backyard

Dad's little wax rose bloom.

Dad loves plants.

There are lots of them in his garden that I can’t put a name to.

This was one of them. And it wasn’t even growing in the garden.

Apparently he ran out of space – at last count, there were at least 30 pots of bonsai plants and herbs of various species and sizes in front of the house.

So he ingeniously decided to start a mini display of more potted plants in the backyard, where Mum hangs out the laundry.

Well, of course, nobody would be there to admire them other than Mum.

But he seemed really excited when this one bloomed and had to show me his latest pride.

Apparently, this is a tropical shrub belonging to the cactus family – I didn’t  know that cacti have this sort of green luscious leaves.

Commonly known as “Wax Rose” (scientific name: Pereskia Bleo), this plant is used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat female and stomach ailments.

It also has an intriguing Chinese name “七星针”, which literally means “Seven Star Needle” and is inspired by the way the thorns are clustered along its stem.

Learnt something new. In my Dad’s backyard.

High five for life

Watch the world pass us by / Four of you and a snow-haired I (cc-nc-nd)

One, two, three, four, five
Dogs and people trotting by
See them going round in circles
Makes me wonder what they’re after

Sunday morning’s better spent
Sitting on this little wooden bench
Watch the world pass us by
Four of you and a snow-haired I

Grow, grow, grow

Time to break my long silence, and give this barren blog some tender loving care.

Let it grow, let it grow.

Happy birthday. And happy growing.

Marshland Rhapsody

Mangrove trees at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, Singapore. (cc-nc-nd)

I once read somewhere that human beings are becoming more and more out of touch with the rhythms of nature.

Won’t be surprising if that is true in this built-up city, since the first sound we hear in the morning is not the melodious serenade of a bird by the window sill, but the rude, mechanical scream of the alarm clock on our bedside table.

Our eyes are not on the quiet blooms lining the concrete pavements, but on the next Facebook status updates that pop up on our touchscreen gadgets. Most of us probably won’t know the names of the trees and shrubs that we walk past everyday – and I’m guilty of that.

So I was rather eager to regain my connection with the natural world when our friend Ron invited us to join him on a weekend visit to the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve.

I have long heard about the marshland tucked away in the northwestern corner of Singapore – I might have even interviewed someone about this place before when I was still hosting radio programmes. But not once have I set foot on this part of the island.

Ron, however, is no stranger to this mangrove paradise. He happens to be a nature lover who can spout scientific names of flora and fauna. He is not a trained ecologist but he knows an endangered plant species when he sees one. He writes avidly about them too on his blog: tHE tiDE cHAsER. And he did a great job introducing us to this tranquil habitat teaming with wildlife.

Here are some of the creatures we met this morning, seen through the Nikon D200 and 70-30mm f/4-5.6 lens that Peh was teaching me to use. (‘M’ is for ‘manual’ and ‘S’ is for ‘stupid’, according to Peh.)

If mudskippers could talk... (cc-nc-nd)

Spot the Horseshoe Crab. (cc-nc-nd)

A squirrel enjoying a meal of fresh coconut meat after a morning of tedious gnawing at the tough fibrous husk. (cc-nc-nd)

A resting Monitor Lizard finds itself in the company of an army of red ants. (cc-nc-nd)

 

Most of the migratory birds have left the habitat for their temperate homes. We only had the luck to spot a few Common Redshanks. (cc-nc-nd)

It is always a joy to have friends of diverse interests. Some open your mind to a whole new perspective of the world we live in. Some can show you things you never knew you already have.

Thanks to Ron, I now know some of nature’s remaining treasures on our little urban island.

A rock from the past

Once upon a time, I wanted to be a geologist.

That was before I experienced an ill-timed mental block during my final geography examination and saw all possibilities of my getting into the local university’s geography programme disintegrate like a piece of crumbly sandstone.

Yes, females are fascinated with rocks. Usually of the sparkling kind.

I was captivated by the rugged allure of the unpolished types, existing in bands sometimes, but of a different sort. Preferably buried under tons of earth waiting to make a grand seismic entrance to the surface, or left naked on the desert floor or by the sea, sculpted or polished by the elements instead of the dexterous hands of a diamond cutter.

When it came to geography textbooks, the chapters on rock formations were to me, the best parts. Nothing beat the epic stories of their births and declines.

Geography lessons were also my favourite. I remember how as my classmates scurried out after class, I stood lingering around the undistinguished row of humble rock samples in our school laboratory so that I could have my one minute of delight, identifying and admiring the inconspicuous samples of sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks.

Memorising the periodic table of elements for chemistry class was a headache, but it quickly became a joy when I realised that some of these elements and their compounds actually existed in rocks and affected the characters of these rocks.

I have never quite figured out why but yes, rocks had me spellbound during my teenage years.

Alas. My fascination could only stop there. As years went by, like a pebble shrouded in thick moss, I have forgotten that it even existed.

Then some days ago, I found out that the father of a young colleague at my office was a geologist. That was the closest I have ever gotten to know a real-life geologist.

Suddenly, I was reminded of that row of rock samples on the laboratory table and my youthful aspiration of yesteryear.

Maybe it’s time to pick up that yellowed geography textbook that still sits faithfully on my dusty bookshelf.

Have a happy new day, everyday

I have been learning to slow down.

Kind of strange to be saying this, especially when you are supposed to be in your prime. But of late, I have been noticing how much I have missed as I lived my life in a hurry.

Take for example, the bountiful life forms in a small field near my apartment block.

As I broke my long spell of inactivity and resumed my slow morning jog around the neighbourhood, I suddenly realised that a field was more than a patch of green earth.

The edge of the field was lined with the beginnings of slender lalang stalks swaying elegantly in the morning breeze. Clusters of mimosa huddled close to one another and shut their timid leaves at the touch of a passing stranger. Butterflies of brown, grey and orange hues fluttered their tiny wings amongst the dainty pink blooms of weeds pretending to be regular blades of grass.

All of these have escaped my notice until this year. And I have been walking past this field everyday for over three years.

As I slow down my pace and take in the details, I begin to understand that small things, unremarkable as they may seem, do matter. That every breath of air I take is something to be grateful for. Every drop of clean water I take is something to be thankful for. And every sunrise ushers in new opportunities to live my dreams.

At the dawn of a new year, there is nothing more that I hope for than to be able to continue to find happiness in the simple things in life.

May every tomorrow be a happy new day. Happy 2011.

Make Belief

A long time ago when I was still doing radio shows, one of the regular guests on my shows was a cosmetic surgeon.

Every week, he would come onto my programme and speak about the curious world of nips, tucks and lifts. And he would always amaze me with his stories of how people, celebrities and ordinary folks alike, transform themselves into more aesthetically pleasing creatures.

One of the enlightening things I’ve learnt from him was that they have a measurement called the Golden Ratio that could mathematically define the perfect human face.

Sometimes I wonder, if indeed all of us could achieve the perfect look, won’t we end up resembling one another?

Some days ago, I chanced upon some YouTube clips comparing photographs of Korean and Japanese celebrities taken before and after they had nose or eye jobs, face lifts, or even jaw reduction surgeries.

Seriously, some of them look like twins or triplets.

So I wrote a song.

And this is how the lyrics go:

 

Make Belief

By I-Ling (@myvanillaworld)

Your big, round eyes

And that lovely nose

Long thick lashes

Wish I had those

Those endless legs

Looks that turn heads

You had me believing

That’s the way to be

 

My dreams are big

But they say I’m too short

There’s no way I can climb onto

The stage or catwalk

 

This body in the mirror

Needs more than a tuck

It is so hard to be like you

I don’t know where to start

 

But how am I to think I am beautiful

When you are always showing me I am not

And how am I to learn to love the way I am

If they adore you ‘cos you’ve changed everything

 

And how am I to believe I am beautiful

When you are always telling me I am not

But how am I to learn to love the way I am

‘Cos they love you when you are not yourself

‘Cos they love you when you are someone else

 

And I came up with a tune for it.

So now it’s up in the ccMixter universe, waiting for some GarageBand gurus who would be interested enough to perform their “surgeries” on it.