1. For the second time in just over two years, I was in Melbourne on work. I was slightly more used to the place this time, and didn’t mind wandering around by myself as much. I had good pho at Mekong, visited Nobu a couple of times and realised the truth behind the advice to enjoy the best in life in moderation and remembered, while walking around one of the mini-marts near the hotel (or was this in Narita or Los Angeles? Darn – now I think it was in Narita, just passing through, when I was being nasty to an acquaintance-colleague) and coming across a display of Dove chocolates, that I used to adore those two-square packages of melt-in-your-mouth roof-of-the-mouth-laving luxury. Now I don’t.
2. Increasingly, I don’t know where to get good caffe latte in Singapore. In general, Starbucks’s has weak foam and no espresso kick. I now have almost all my lattes at Bakerzin – at least the foam there is consistently thick and the taste of espresso occasionally surfaces.
3. Starbucks has BRILLIANT customer service though. I have an egg-white wrap (double-toasted) and a venti iced coffee with a dash of milk nearly everyday at its branch at The Central, and the folks behind the counter there are unfailingly smiley even when they are really busy. (They remember my “usual”, heh.) When absent-minded me lost two Starbucks cards (basically stored-value cards which can be registered at the Starbucks web site and topped up), Starbucks allowed for the cards to be de-registered (i.e. made unusable, preserving the value in the cards), sent an email to say they were sorry I lost my cards, replaced the cards and allowed me to transfer my unused $$ over to the new cards. I didn’t expect all that! This reminds me: I need to put something on its Facebook page.
4. I wanted to write about this before it won all those Oscars, but I really enjoyed The Artist. I thought it was a vision sumptuously, painstakingly, lovingly and comprehensively realised :) (Though, to be very honest, I still think it’s gimmicky :p)
Eudaimonia means “human flourishing” in Greek. I learned it from Alain de Botton, who wrote about how the the study of “The Art of Travel” (the title of his book on the subject) could contribute to it.
I like the concept of eudaimonia – the idea of a world set up for humans to be the most/best/happiest/most competent that they can be – and I like also the idea of studying something so as to contribute to it :)
San Diego this time of year is typically colder, the driver says. The driver drives a van that bears me toward the airport, where I’ll take a flight to Los Angeles, then Tokyo, then home. A few turns into what he promises would be a short drive, he notices someone on the pavement – a flustered woman lugging along a check-in bag and a carry-on – and exchanges some short quick gestures with her. Having determined something from this wordless back and forth, he stops the van – he knows her, he says by way of explanation – and leaves his seat to help her with her bags. I do my bit, sliding open the door. She gets on and settles beside me, grateful to the driver, but not overly so – his does not seem to have been a totally unexpected act of kindness. I learn that she had headed out to the airport via public transport, but her train had been delayed, and she had missed a bus, and was looking for a cab when we pulled up.
A couple of hours later, in LA, I have some time to daydream, and I come to wonder if a driver with the same job in Singapore – sending a hotel guest to the airport – would stop to pick up someone like this, as a kindness. My instinct tells me no, because the traffic in Singapore is too dense and hectic, and everyone wishes to get to some place quick, and there isn’t the space for you to safely stop and not obstruct the traffic behind you. Or at least that is what you would tell yourself, in Singapore, I think.
And I come to think, as I have thought a few times on and off since I’ve had the opportunity to travel to other cities around the world over the last couple of years, that space is an essential part of what makes a city liveable.
The tremendously agreeable weather – a blue sky; smears of cloud like white from a minimalist painter’s palette; a crisp coolness that makes sunshine a tangible, almost benedictory thing – that San Diego has had for the past week would help too.
***
A couple of days before my trip to the San Diego airport, I am in Phoenix visiting a friend. We get along well, but are not close, so the visit is slightly awkward the way something not altogether laid down in the bounds of social norms can sometimes be for me. I bring gifts for her, one from a mutual friend, so that lubricates things. She is touched by the mutual friend’s gift: a piece of wood which is shaped not unlike a snow-globe with an elongated base and which opens up to reveal carvings of the buddha.
We talk a lot. She talks about her research into spirituality and materialism and how the two intertwine. She is doing her PhD. For a while, I had thought about academia as a career too, and now I feel a pang of jealousy, but it is distant, buried deep under current comforts and indolence and inertia; I know too much now about my disinclination to withstand discomfort and homesickness to be genuinely envious. I think.
She warns me about the leeching dryness of the desert, tells me that drinking water is important, and that if I have a headache, it is probably caused by dehydration. An image of my brain squelching to a stop from lack of water makes me laugh.
We talk about companionship for the long term. She had recently parted ways with a long-time boyfriend. I mention how I am lazy to do things that I like when I am on vacation because there is no one to share the joy with – as my tongue rolled to form the words, I am a bit surprised; I had not known I thought this – and she says she understands.
***
She says that this process towards a doctorate, including the research into the intertwining of spiritualism and materialism, is part of her self actualisation.
My self actualisation mainly takes the form of satisfying my appetites for food and goods, I say as a glib half-joke, then as a realisation. Compared to my haphazard and aimless daily meanderings, her introspective and purposeful search for who she is, in itself a process of self definition, is a worthy pursuit.
What is self actualisation to you, she asks.
I think about it. How do I actualise me, maximise me, bring out the potential in me, express the desires in me to be… a me I am happy with.
Hm…
***
She brings me around to places she frequents, to supermarkets and food places, to where she works. I meet her advisor, the professor for whom she decided to come to Arizona and who now supervises her work towards a doctorate. I shake the professor’s hand; she holds a chihuahua in her other hand, maternally cradling the dog to her chest with her arm.
***
Days before I go to Phoenix, I am at work meetings and staying in a La Jolla resort alongside a beautiful bay scooped into the side of California, with the calm Pacific waters lapping and mildly frothing at its edge.
The road leading to the resort is lined with palm trees, ridiculously tall and straight, and understandably so, given the abundance of sunshine. Ducks and geese roam the resort, and one of the sights of the trip was a small flock of ducks silently and suddenly bursting into the air, then turning left, becoming a different entity as the rays of light catch their feathers in a different slant, heading off to another part of the resort to enjoy the afternoon.
On the last day of the meetings, I am told that “La Jolla” means “the jewel”. Quite right.
Later in the trip, the flight to Phoenix brings me out over the waters off La Jolla. At that height, the deep blue is stippled by waves and the glint of sunlight, and looks like a luxuriant swathe of leather.
So, I haven’t blogged since that last past about Bali. That’s a gap of more than eight months.
I’ve wondered why. Simple laziness is the tempting and probably substantially correct answer, but I feel there’s more. Maybe part of that is busy-ness, though goodness knows I haven’t been too busy to eat a lot and sleep a lot and read a bit and cruise the Web in near-obsessive, increasingly desperate hunts for pointless utterly pointless sports news. Maybe part of it is the sort of busy-ness that squeezes mental stamina out of you, the sort of mental stamina that then has to be replenished by idly allowing your face to be tanned by the light from your desktop LCD screen over the weekend. Maybe part of it is just lack of inspiration, or the self-perceived version of same (but when is something not self-perceived anyway?). And maybe part of it was the (self-perceived) meaningless-ness of whatever I would have written. Or maybe, the question is the wrong one: I wondered why I haven’t blogged; maybe it’s more apt to ask why I should have.
Hmm. Well. I should have, because I thought I liked to blog. I think I like to blog. It’s troubling that there was that long period of time during which I apparently did not want to blog. *thinking thinking thinking* Blogging is writing, yes? So, maybe I wasn’t writing well at work. Or was writing too much.
(Heh, funny how I came to “work” as a reason for not blogging. But maybe it’s not so funny – “funny” as in “strange” – maybe it’s not so funny, since we work for so much of our lives. If there is a reason I haven’t blogged, it’s probably linked to my work, just based on the universe of reasons in my life it can possibly be linked to.)*
###
Anyway, while I have not been blogging, I’ve collected some thoughts to blog about. A lot of these surfaced during my various work trips. I was in Brussels earlier this year, and when I came back home and cleared out my suitcase, I found a red-tipped matchstick, nestled amongst my clothes. I don’t smoke, the hotel room I was in was a non-smoking one, there was no sign that anyone had tampered with my suitcase, so it was a complete mystery how a red-tipped matchstick ended up in my suitcase. But maybe what happened was, the lady who cleaned out my room smoked and carried around loose matchsticks and inadvertently dropped one in my open suitcase. Something innocuous and non-esoteric like that. Maybe.
###
I think it was during the second-leg flight to Santiago. I ran through the in-flight entertainment system’s various contents, and there were two Jason Mraz albums, a studio album and a one with songs he performed “live”. Both had the song “I’m Yours”. I’d of course heard the song several times over the radio by this time, but listening to the “live” version in a artificially closed personal space – with the crowd going wild after the first two notes of guitar twang and Jason Mraz’s free-wheeling slightly raw style – was a more moving, more buoying experience, and something I credit for keeping me sane during that flight. (I then listened to it on repeat nearly the entire way back to Singapore.)
I saw a few sides of Chile. Santiago looked a little unmaintained, but walk-able and open, with wide wide streets. Wine tasting at the Concha y Toro vineyard was an… experience, with the sommelier brandishing his classic sommelier’s nose and the likeably pretentious sommelier’s jargon, and truly in my view enriching our enjoyment of the bottles of red and white on show. Valparaiso looked in many ways like a modern European seaside town, with posh developments all around. We had lunch at a restaurant along the Valparaiso coast, and the appetiser of lightly blanched white fish, clams, crab meat, prawns and squid, fresh from the sea and drizzled with lemon juice, hit the spot!
###
Long-haul flights offer one time alone, to be introspective. I think that’s the only enjoyable bit about them.**
###
I spent many hours with my bosses during these work trips. One of them, retiring soon, is a generous, opinionated man who’s been doing his job for longer than I’ve known about Transformers. Recently, back in Singapore, he was in a meeting, at which several briefings had been scheduled for very important and busy people who’d just joined the ministry. The briefings were overrunning, as they do, and near the end of the day, even though it wasn’t his turn, my boss gave his briefing. What he did not know was, there were some colleagues from another department outside the meeting room, who had been waiting and waiting for their turn to brief, and that in fact they had been scheduled ahead of my boss. When it turned out that my boss’s briefing would be the last one these very important and busy personages would be around for that day, the colleagues from this other department were understandably quite upset.
This department is located on the same floor as ours, and, once he’d settled some matters in his office, my boss walked over to this other department to apologise to each and every colleague who had waited for their turn which never came partly because my boss took up some time to do his own briefing. His was the good-natured sort of apology, “sorry about it”, with a smile, unreserved, un-phony.
I gave my boss a hard time about skipping the other department’s turn (well, as hard a time as I could – I know my station in life) – how could you!, I said to him. When I heard about his apology afterwards, I really had to shake my head, in admiration. Will miss him.
###
The influence I wield over the lives of colleagues that I supervise/manage/lead is unexpectedly heavy. This struck home when a conscientious new (well, sort of new) colleague called me on the phone to tell me, in between choking sobs, that her dad had been diagnosed with cancer and the doctor had given him only six months to live. As I held the phone to my ear and listened to her crying, I could only cast about for something to say, something comforting and decent and supportive and helpful and which did not betray the fact that one of my first thoughts in the mess of things, as I remember it, right alongside “what must she be feeling now?”, was “how about her work?”.
###
A couple of things I have enjoyed these months, that I’d like to share:
1. Theme song from “Cheers” – Over the years, I think I’ve enjoyed other sitcoms more. But not other theme songs. Poignant and meaningful and true.
2. 戒不了 – I enjoy this Malaysian writer’s little pieces of whimsy and philosophy. (They are in Chinese, which in my opinion can carry boundless nuance in a small space in a way that makes one marvel at the human capacity for creating meaning.) Try these two: http://kitcheah.blogspot.com/2011/09/blog-post.html (title loosely translated as “Only for a little heartbeat”, about why one writes) and http://kitcheah.blogspot.com/2008/05/blog-post.html (“Reason for being happy”, about how one is no longer another’s reason for being happy)
*There have been some changes at work – five new colleagues since March. And more changes to come. Big, scary monster-type ones.
**On one of these flights, I saw a flight attendant who behaved in the same way I’m sure a colleague would have if this colleague had been one. (It’s times like this when I think there may well just be a finite number of types of people in the world.)
You probably don’t know me, and that’s okay. I just want to tell you a little bit about the time I spent at this villa – I’ve just come back to Singapore after a week-long stay here with my family.
Things to know:
1. The villa’s amenities include wireless broadband. The password can be found in the brown information binder you’ll probably find on the dining table or coffee table at the sofa.
2. Prepare for surprise visits by critters. We saw leeches – my brother pried a fat one off his foot, and there were a couple of rather more slender ones looping around – as well as a titanic gecko that, amazingly, moved along the walls as agilely as its smaller brethren. It looked as if it should plod rather than skitter. There were crabs scuttling all over the place – some like to play dead, and then once you seem to have lost interest they would skedaddle away – and many frogs and toads “serenaded” us every night.
3. Prepare for mosquitoes. I don’t quite know how – I just treated mosquito bites and itches as a matter of course – but maybe a malaria jab may be useful?
4. The locals were friendly and helpful. I never once felt in danger from them as I walked along the streets and paths at night. If anything, the condition of the streets and paths and the fact they were typically poorly lit were more dangerous – so bring a torch.
Things to try:
1. The villa’s very own barbecue dinner is worth it at around 60 USD for our family of five. Try the seafood one (there’s also a just-palatable beef option which my non-seafood-eating sis had) which for us came with king prawns, red snapper and squid (oh the squid!! *drool*), as well as steamed rice, stir-fried veggies and sauteed potatoes. Worth trying just for the squid, which was grilled to mouthwatering just-rightness :)
2. There is an Italian restaurant called Ultimo’s that opens at 5pm. It’s about a 30-minute slow walk from the villa, along Laksmana. Try it. The spaghetti vongolle (with other seafood – when I was there, it turned out they didn’t have vongolle and substituted with squid *grin*) came in a generous portion with many whole (small, but whole ;p) scallops and freshwater shrimp and diced capsicum, and was very yummy. The almond parfait was perfect the first time we were there, but was a bit soft when we next went, likely because it was a busy night and the fridge the parfait was kept in was opened too frequently :p
3. Tanah Lot is worth visiting. Great views. Pity about the tourists and their littering.
4. And one thing to not try. The babi guling (roast pig) at Ubud is overrated, and not worth the aggravation of queuing for and the poor service, in my humble opinion :)
That’s about it I guess. All the best for your stay :)
P/S. I would likely not have written this if my sister had not written an actual letter to the next occupant of the villa and left it in the bedside drawer of her room.
If I were a compulsive updater of my Facebook status, here are some of what you might have seen over the last few days.
Sim Li Chuan likes his colleague’s new haircut!
Sim Li Chuan is on a one-Haruki-Murakami-short-story-a-night-before-bed diet.
Sim Li Chuan will remember to prepare for meetings in future.
Sim Li Chuan just had extremely shiok! bak kut teh – soup was hot and peppery; tenderloin was tender; kidney was cooked just right; salted veges absolutely hit the spot – and the kungfu tea was… extremely skilled :p
Sim Li Chuan is happily catching up – hang on, need to talk to colleague I haven’t seen in a while – with a colleague he hasn’t seen in a while.
Sim Li Chuan is enjoying a roadshow by some colleagues and admiring their presentations and poise.
Sim Li Chuan will absolutely remember to prepare for meetings in future. Goodness! *Angry at himself*
Sim Li Chuan is looking forward to late night coffee/dessert with his pal.
Sim Li Chuan is disappointed.
Sim Li Chuan appreciates the talks he has most nights with a too-generous-and-good-natured-for-his-own-good colleague.
Sim Li Chuan is opening an ill-deserved gift.
Sim Li Chuan makes a resolution.
Sim Li Chuan is impressed with himself. He remembers who Dan Roam is.
Sim Li Chuan is enjoying talking to a colleague and relating the time Calvin said, “By my troth, I’m off!” and his mother said, “Whither goest thou, young rogue?”.*
Sim Li Chuan and his colleague agree that it would have been even more surreal if Hobbes were the one speaking in Shakespearean with Calvin.**
Sim Li Chuan just had a quite satisfying prawn bee hoon-mee dinner, and is trying not to have some more food before bed.
Sim Li Chuan is mulling over something his boss told him.
Sim Li Chuan just had more food.
Sim Li Chuan marvels at his former colleague’s ability to wrap a gift.
One was a device placed over a sink. It holds a bar of soap. Below the soap is a grater, and you can use it to scrape soap shavings onto your hand when you want a quick wash. I think that’s really smart, and economical and environmentally friendly :)
Another was this interview with Sherry Turkle that Fast Company did. Sherry Turkle is an ethnographer who studies how people interact with technology, and has written about it in her new book “Alone Together”. Her words convey her research findings in a very genuine and accurate way. She speaks of how the speed and frequency of incoming information have led us to shorten our interactions with others, that “[w]e’re not necessarily putting our investment in the ties that bind; we’re putting our investment in the ties that preoccupy”. She speaks about how the metaphor of addiction is misused when we apply it to our relationship with technology, which is abundantly useful when used “in accordance with [one’s] social, professional, and personal values”. She speaks of how this relationship with technology has created a “constant connection”, via social media or always-on email, which results in a sense of loneliness when one is not connected – the connection is the drug one could get addicted to then, maybe? – and a loss of the capability to be alone without being lonely.
And another was Laura Schroeder’s blog post about why people would work for House, everyone’s favourite brilliant misanthrope doctor, and even hang around after they’re kicked off the team. (I appreciated the post so much partly because I’m a huge Hugh Laurie fan, from Blackadder The Third times :p) She comes up with a very plausible answer :)
Oh, and this game too was I thought clever. Trailer for your viewing pleasure below.
I was quite early at a colleague’s wedding last month, and picked a good spot, directly looking at the live band. And so I got to see the live band play, and it was a good band, versatile, could sing in a few languages (appropriate since my Malay colleague was marrying a Chinese), enjoyable to watch.
About two thirds into the night, the band began to ask for guests to join them on stage to sing. One guest did, performed ok for an amateur; and then another went on stage, and really just stole the show. It was clear that this middle-aged chap was used to performing with a band, and this band all strangers were just another group to jive and make music with. And so he did, improvising a jazzy up-tempo version of some song I’ll remember later, and he did it so joyously, he was so into it, that the band, bland and professional earlier in the night, began to flex and stretch themselves too, and put their energy into it, so that, when the second and last song ended with a flourish and the chap departed the stage to rapturous applause from the band and an audience roused from its postprandial doze, I couldn’t help but think that, if the bride and groom find the sort of happiness this mat rocker did making music with his newfound friends, they would be together for a long time indeed.
*****
I was in Solo, Indonesia last November for work. And was disproportionately joyous when I saw bolsters on my hotel bed.
I used to write letters, inspired by a friend who liked to write too. I knew the exact sort of pen I liked to write letters with. I remember the aching and crimped fingers at the end of a long one, and the lazier calligraphy that would accompany that tiredness.
