streetperson

I walked along the streets of chinatown, it was a warm sunny Tuesday afternoon. Across the hot tarmac, with the fruit vendors watering the piles of longans, mangoes and dragonfruit, keeping the moist and inviting. A group of elderly folk sat on the benches that were scattered on the pavement, next to the boisterous smith street market, trying to out do each other, wildly gesticulating with exaggerated tales of the exploits of their grandchildren.

I savoured the smell of freshly roasting chestnuts in a pan of coffee beans, mixed with a tinge of baked bread from a neighbouring bakery. With Portuguese egg tarts kept warm next to stacks of dim sum baskets, steamed char siew baoz and lor mai kai, yu-tiao and butterflies fresh from the pan, char kway teow with generous servings of see-hum, chee cheong fun and ba-zhang, hot and cold desserts that cost a dollar a bowl, just round the corner and up the stairs at one of the most massive hawker centres that I know.

Wandering through the maze of little shops with strange wares, toys I once knew, brought back memories of a time long ago, and how i took them apart to satisfy a childhood curiosity, and trinklets from days gone by; it’s like time had stood still, cassette tapes and an old opera tune playing, breaking through the banter of the aunty haggling over a rattan basket with the storekeeper.

I like Chinatown, with it’s rustic simplicity. I sat down on a bench next to an old lady peddling used currency-notes.

from the web site.
[27 March 2001] A colleague told me that she was very happy in the company, then she told me that she was leaving. One of the people whom I least expected to hear that from.

“Why?” I asked.

She was perhaps one of the few people who really shaped the corporate culture. She sent an email out to the company.

ge wei kuan zhong,
wo yao zhou le.
last day is 6 april.
tian xia mei you bu shan de yan xi.
ge wei bao zhong

After one and half years of working with her, getting through the difficulties and enjoying the little pockets of fun, it was hard to think that one day soon, I will come to work and she won’t be there.

We’ll still be friends and just a phone call away. I’ve known other people who have come and gone, but yet, why did I feel so much that I would miss her? Why was it easier to let go of some people and not so easy for others?

tian xia mei you bu shan de yan xi. All happy banquets must come to an end.

Was I being too sentimental? Do happy things have to have endings? She told me that she’s got things that she has to do, and that she’s got to move on. Despite being very happy here in the company.

Life is confusing.

If all happy things eventually have to come to an end, does that mean that happiness will always evade us or that it’s not permanent? Does it mean that we have to keep starting, each time at different points in our lives? Will that be the same for all our relationships?

People we love?

People we hold dear to our hearts?

I don’t think that Karen and I exactly are the closest of friends but I think there is a lot that we know of each other, of having gone through patches of work that have been difficult, and little things that we know of each other’s lives that to me makes it difficult, to know perhaps that I have taken the friendship for granted. Never thought that it would ever come to a close.
Things change. We don’t like them to because they upset what we have come to be very comfortable with. It’s painful but I guess in the same regard, necessary. It wakes us up and it pushes us a little bit forward in our lives.

As much as I want to be happy for her, and understand that she’s got to live her own life, which will not always be in the company, it’s painful. To say goodbye.

You think that you’ve got it all when you can come to work, with a group of people you can call your friends. That you look forward to every morning, and know that it’s all worth every moment — people with whom you can both work and play with.

I’ll miss the little gripes that I can make with her, and the bak-kut-teh that I’ve grown to like that I never used to, the frustrations that I share with her, the funny sound of her laughter when she’s tickled, her gripes when she’s frustrated. Because when I come to work on the 9th of April, her seat will be empty.

Things change.