Small world or what?!? (London)

When I was at university, I went to where Laura (a year above me) usually sat, to drag her off to tea (she studied all hours and never ate lunch, nibbling carrots instead at her library space).  An Oriental chap was sitting with her so he was invited to join us.  

He’d spoken to Laura because he was surprised that a white girl was reading a Chinese classic (紅樓夢 / Dream of The Red Chamber / Story of The Stone, published 1792).  

He turned out to be from Singapore, so the focus switched to him and me.  

He said he was actually on study leave to Sussex University but came to my library (School of Oriental and African Studies, SOAS) because of its reputation for its collection of Japanese books.  So, he wasn’t even from SOAS, which is another small-world fact.  

He said he usually lived in Japan and had been there for a while.  Which university in Japan, I asked.  Tōhoku 東北, he said.  Ah, I said, my uncle went to Tōhoku in the 60s on a scholarship for a year — might he know him.  

I gave his name: Tay Mui Kwang.  Man said, “If Tay Mui Kwang is your uncle, then what is Chng Nguan Kim to you?”  I said, “Oh, Tay Mui Kwang is actually my mum’s cousin.  Chng Nguan Kim is my mother’s brother, therefore a more direct uncle.”  Man said, “Well, Chng Nguan Kim’s wife and my wife are sisters.”  I said, “Ah, so your wife is Aunty Hiang!  I’d heard about the two of you since a child: you and Aunty Hiang being perpetual students, going for one degree after another in Japan, staying on and on for years and years.”

Now, what are the odds of meeting someone I’d heard about since the late 50s, then meeting him in London in 1979, and through Laura too, therefore indirectly, therefore could’ve missed him if I’d not gone to get Laura to go for tea at that moment...  He wasn't even based at SOAS but Sussex, and only came up to London to use our library.

(London, 1979)

Thinking outside the box: 05 (London)

A student on the evening programme in the 90s had to go to Istanbul on business last minute so she was going to miss the exam.  Told me how much she wanted to do the exam as she’d put in so much work and didn’t want to wait until the re-sit in August — no tuition after end of school year in June so she’d get rusty.  Asked if I could find a solution. 

I suddenly came up with this idea: go and sit the exam at the British Embassy invigilated by a staff member. We’d just send the paper over, the embassy is a perfectly trustworthy authority for invigilating an exam. The only problem might be if she had a query about the contents but I could be on duty in London for that, i.e., be ready to take a phone call if she had one. So, all angles covered.

The embassy agreed to this, and it went smoothly.  And I was saved the hassle of having to set a re-sit just for one person.

(London, 1996?7?)

Why sit next to me?!?? (London)

 

Something that annoys me a bit is how people insist on sitting next to me on the bus, wherever I might be seated.  

The seat immediately behind the middle door is the most obvious: they want to be close to the door for getting off.

But I could be on the other side of the aisle (the far side from the door), and they’d still come and sit next to me, often making me move my bags of (food) shopping onto my lap.

Ditto if I were in the second seat behind the door.

Yesterday, I suddenly discovered the visual reason for this.

I was in the second seat behind the door, therefore not the most obvious one in terms of proximity to the door for disembarking.  A woman came and sat next to me in spite of there being only one woman in the seat behind the door, and only one man in the one the other side of the aisle.  

It was only then that I noticed how big the two Westerners are, taking up more than half the seat.  

It was something I’d only realised two months back, looking at a photo taken at a meal with my students.  I was shocked to see that, even standing up, I am barely taller than a student (from Malaysia, not a beefy Westerner) sitting down.  

Then, a classmate from RI (Raffles Institution) sent a compilation of photos from the last 40 years, and I saw that even against my Singaporean friends, I’m the smallest.

No wonder these people on the bus all want to sit with me: there’s a much bigger space next to this tiny Oriental.

(London)

Politics vs Friendship (Taiwan)

 

Lee Kuan Yew, then Prime Minister of Singapore, went on an official visit to Beijing in May 1976.  When I read about it in The China Post, Taiwan’s English language newspaper, I was green with envy, because it said his daughter, who was my year at RI (Raffles Institution), had gone along.

I went off to tell Mary, my colleague at Conoco Taiwan.  We were the youngest (aged 21) members of staff, with our birthdays three weeks apart, so we had a sort of special bond between us.

I said, “Look, Wei Ling gets to go to mainland China, when the rest of us can’t.”  

Singapore had no official diplomatic ties with mainland China at the time, so it was not easy, if well nigh impossible, for Singaporeans to go there.  I’d been intrigued, especially since I love travelling, by films and documentaries made by and about mainland China: the ones where they speed-skated on frozen rivers, where smiling young women picked apples the same colour as their rosy cheeks — all quite different from my tropical childhood.

“And,” I continued, “she got to go to New Zealand last year when her father went on an official visit.  She’s so lucky!”

Mary Fu’s face was like thunder, “I thought we were chums, yet here you are, envying her for being able to go over to the other side.  Don’t you know they are our arch-enemy? How could you!!??”

I was taken aback, “But what’s that got to do with our friendship?  I’m only envious that as the prime minister’s daughter, she gets to go to places the rest of us mere mortals can’t.  Didn’t I also say I was jealous of her for going to New Zealand as well?”

Mary refused to speak to me for three weeks.

Then, she rang my extension one day, “I’ve thought about it, and I can see that I shouldn’t have put our friendship and politics in the same category.  Can we be friends again?”

My reply, “So you’re ready to be friends again, are you?  Well, I’m not.”  And I left it for another three weeks.

Years later, she’d recount this incident as one of the biggest eye-openers for her.

(Taiwan, 1976)

Cockeyed (Singapore)

I was sitting with some people at one of the tables in the old RI main tuck shop (not the small one in the annexe next to Science E) when this chap came up and spoke to us.  

I looked up, and he seemed to be talking to me as one of his eyes was looking at me, but I didn’t know him. I looked at the other eye and it was looking at the other people at the table.  Yes, he was cockeyed!  

I ended up listening and nodding to the end out of politeness, even though I couldn’t understand anything of what he was saying, because I never found out who he was addressing.

*old RI = the old Raffles Institution site at Bras Basah Road before its move to Grange Road in 1972

(Singapore, 1971)

Students' witticism: 04 (London)

I texted a few people with this:

Quote

Haha, just heard on Radio 4.  There’s a town called Whynot in Mississippi.  A letter got returned, with the note:  “Not Whynot, try Why.”  

I’ve googled: there’s no Why in Mississippi.

Unquote

Ex-student Kevin texted back:  Yeah lots of ‘i’s no ‘y’ 🙂

Took me a while to work it out...

(London, 2021)

Simple folk remedies: 09 (hay fever) (London / Vermont)

 

I used to suffer very seriously from hay fever.  

Not only did my season start earlier and end later than most people’s, my symptoms were also quite severe.  

Apart from the usual sneezing, runny nose and itchy eyes (but constant in my case for all three), my scalp would itch (even right after a hair wash, so no, not dirty hair); my ear tunnels and the back of my throat would itch way inside, making me want to stick my hand right inside/down to scratch.

One November day, I discovered a greengrocer’s that sold bags of fruit cheaply — sort of bulk discount at £1 for a bag of 10 or 12, a new thing in the mid-80s.  I’d buy a bag of lemons every Saturday, and spend Sunday squeezing them for my week’s supply of lemon juice.  To sweeten it, I added honey.  Every morning, I’d pour out about 2 inches of this lemon-and-honey concoction into a litre bottle and add water.  (In the summer, ice cubes instead, for a cold drink as the ice melted through the day.)  

Come March, when my hay fever didn’t happen, I thought it was because the pollen count had been low, but a student said it’d actually been quite high.  

It then occurred to me that it must’ve been the lemon-and-honey concoction I’d been drinking the last few months.  (Hay fever jabs are meant to be done in November or December, way before the season starts, or it’ll be too late to be effective.)

Then I came across a little book written by a doctor in Vermont in the 1950s.  He said he noticed the farmhands didn’t suffer from hay fever, then observed that they chewed a piece of honeycomb throughout the day.  

He went on to make a concoction that’s marketed as honegar.  (It’s just honey and cider vinegar, so it’d be much cheaper to buy the separate ingredients and make your own.)  My own concoction is honey and lemon, so it must be the honey that’s the active ingredient.  

I came up with this theory: if bees spend all their time sticking their noses into pollen and yet don’t sneeze themselves to death, they must’ve built up some resistance, which then gets transferred to the honey they produce.

(London, 1980s; Vermont, 1950s)