Half full or half empty: 02 (London / Singapore)

When I was made redundant at age 58, I was traumatised.  The betrayal factor aside (pushed out by conniving rather than the budgetary constraints put forward by them), I was too young to retire (and claim my tiny state pension) but too old to get back into mainstream (no PhD, no publications).

    An ex-student was working for a pub chain, so I asked her to make enquiries for me.  She said it was brain dead work, just dispensing drinks, delivering food, collecting empties.

    I did get in, more than a year after the initial enquiry, and found it an easy enough way to earn something (albeit peanuts at minimal wage levels) for paying my bills, especially at my age and without any experience as a waitress.  Even the physical side of it, walking six miles in my eight-hour shift, was treated as paid gym sessions, as I put it to customers who commented on how hard I worked, as I seemed to be the only one pacing the floor, they said.

    This half-full attitude help sustain me for six years, adding to my tiny income pot, which is better than nothing.  (I have no work pension.)  Kept me fit too.  Got me out of the house.  I had lots of laughs with the customers.  The interaction kept my brain active.

    This attitude stems from my childhood days.  Upbringing (家教 jiā jiào / “home teaching”) is so important for later life, I’m finding increasingly as I get older and observe the bad behaviour of people.  Blame the parents, I often think.

    Sundays at home when I was a child would tend to be party-food days, i.e., not the routine rice plus four or five dishes (meat, veg, fish).  Party food would be things like poh piah (薄餅 báo bǐng / “thin pancake”, the S.E.Asian version of spring rolls) or fried rice vermicelli, a nice change from the norm but with lots of ingredients to get ready, and lots more work.  For example, bean sprouts would need the roots pinched off (even though they were clean), therefore as many hands on deck as possible, or the ingredients wouldn’t be ready in time.

    The way we did it at home was: put the huge pile of bean sprouts in the middle of the table; parcel out big handfuls to each person at the table (the women, of course); then “ready steady go” and we’d start the “race” to see who could finish her pile first.

    There was no rush or pressure to it, nor proper score keeping as such, even though it sounds like a competition the way I’ve put it here.  The “race” was only a bit of fun injected to make it less monotonous than just sitting there, nipping off root after root after root.  The adults would chat, we children would listen, it was all relaxed and fun.

    To this day, I still look upon such repetitive, so-called brain-dead chores as relaxing and meditative.  That’s definitely half full.

(London, 2012–2018; Singapore, 1960s)