Bangkok, and in the arms of another woman

He couldn’t believe what he had heard. So I repeated myself, that this would be my very first trip to Bangkok. 

My long-time friend from back in college days, EL and his wife had settled in Bangkok some ten years ago. After countless promises that I would visit, I finally found myself there, together with my youngest daughter K. We were on a short four day holiday. He found it incredulous that I had never before set foot on this sprawling mega-polis, the capital city of Thailand, just over two hours of flight time from our island city. So near and yet for me, so far.

Jaw-dropping but it's true. Jenny and I, well-travelled as we were, have never once visited this city, at least together.

So what made me go this time?

Well I had annual leave to clear. And much in need of a break from work also. Still, it took a lot of dawdling on my part to summon the will power to make the flight booking. I could spend my leave at home, or I could fly out for a short trip. With only 4 or 5 days a short getaway holiday destination could be to Siem Reap, to see the famous Ang Kor Wat, or to Penang Island. None of these destinations excited my travelling partner, who would be my youngest daughter K, the only one of my 3 kids free enough to join me. But when I tossed the idea of Bangkok, she went wild with excitement. “Ohh! I love you Dad! II've been dreaming of going there!”. She made no bones about it. Bangkok is a shoppers’ paradise.

For me, this trip was to fulfil my promise of visiting my old friend, EL, a promise I had lost count of making. It was in fact getting to be an embarrassment each time I sheepishly shared with anyone that I had not once been to Bangkok. I have received enough of expressions of shock and awe to tell me that it is about time to break the duck and go.

The City was exactly what I had expected it to be. Colourful, bustling and crowded. Traffic chaotic but the people, gracious and friendly. Why Jenny and I had not visited in our years together was a mystery. 

After all, Jenny would have loved the shopping.  No guessing then on whose genes my daughter K had taken on. She spent a great deal of time at the Platinum shopping complex - two entire buildings, each  with several floors of countless stores selling an infinite range of cheap apparel and other assortments to stoke and satiate the appetite of shopaholics from all over the world.

But I found it tiring and boring. Tonnes of merchandise on display and offer. But not a single item worth parting my cash for. My long-time immunity against impulsive buying held firm. Jenny had long found me a major turn-off when it comes to shopping. Sometimes, she would insist that I should at least buy something and I begrudgingly obliged. But most times she knew that I would be better off planting myself at some coffee joint and burying my face into a book. She could then attack the stores at her own time and liberty.  Without the burden of a dampener like me in tow.



A flurry of sights and colours along the streets of Bangkok
 

So I found myself spending an inordinate amount of time nursing my paperback companion at various cafes that could offer brewed coffee and air-conditioning comfort. Relaxing, the way I like it, while allowing ample time for my daughter to satisfy her shopping needs. We also found time to stroll through the streets together, sampling the street-food offering, one of which was aptly named “gruel”. Surprising it actually tasted quite good.

We even caught a ride on a long river-boat, powered by a bone-rattling motor of immense horsepower that tore us through the Chao Phraya river at terrifying velocity. Fortunately the rapid speed meant that the journey was also a brief one. We ended at the Wat Pho Buddhist temple complex with its gigantic reclining Buddha housed in a building just large enough to shelter it from the elements. My daughter had to don a robe as her dressing was not sufficiently modest by Buddhist standards.

The Wat Pho temple complex was really quite impressive!
 

But the part of this holiday that would be most memorable and one which would have Jenny squirming with discomfort was the Thai massage experience. At the behest of my host, EL and his wife who were members of the Health Land club, we joined them for what I was told, a traditional Thai massage. Two whole hours in the hands of a muscular female Thai masseuse. We (my daughter and my couple friends) were all robed and laid side by side, on mattresses in a single elongated room.  There was much giggling from my daughter.  Understandably, as she was a first timer.

But believe it or not again, this was also my very first time experience of getting a massage! Again, I am not sure if I should be proud of or embarrassed at sharing this little known fact about myself. 



A bone-crushing time in the arms of a muscular female

So for two whole hours lying on a mattress with unaccustomed company, within a dimmed up room, a Siamese woman twisting and contorting my limbs in awkward angles, throwing her body weight to loosen every locked-up joint in my body and stretching every stiffened sinew, I realised that I had not gotten so physically closed to a female ever since Jenny was stricken with illness.  Not that there was any intimacy in this encounter. There was certainly more pain than pleasure for sure.  She was crushing me with all her might whilst I submitted my limp body to be kneaded and crumpled like dough. Resistance was futile. And it would only make the work harder for her

If only Jenny was there to see me being worked on. 

She probably would have insisted that they sent me a male masseuse instead. I would then not have to deal with me being all wrapped up with another woman. I couldn’t even imagine how she would have felt - her dearest hubby getting physical in the arms of another woman! That would be hard for her to process.  But what fun I could derive, seeing her getting all annoyed. She would pretend not to be jealous.  But I would see through her. I rarely got to see her being jealous, during all our years together.  We have always been faithful, never straying from each other.  But for this massage session, at the end I am pretty sure, good sense would prevail. She would be rational enough to know that it was only a massage, Thai style notwithstanding and nothing more personal. She has not lost her beloved husband to another woman for sure.  

So, even as my body was bent and twisted like a piece of dough, my mind was hovering around Jenny. Wondering how she would feel. She would also be going through this massage, right by my side. This experience for us would then be such a rare treat. When it was over, we would have much to share with each other. I would have fancied seeing her getting flustered as she tries to mask her resentment. Me, engulfed within the arms of another female. And right next to her too! I would need to comfort and appease her wounded heart.  A reason to be extra loving.

But sigh, once again I was lost. Lost in wishful thinking.  She was not there with me. Only my daughter and two old time friends to share the experience with.  We said goodbye to our masseuses after handing the tips. Kop Koon Krup. Thanks for the good time.

So first time in Bangkok and my first encounter in getting a full body massage.  Holidays abroad open up the world a little wider, bringing forth new experiences.  A different country, different setting, smells and sound. But for me it is the same. Wherever I emplace myself, without her by my side, it is the same familiar feeling. Empty and incomplete.

  

 

 

Share your heart even if it is broken

This morning, while browsing through the papers my eyes caught the picture of comedian actress, Amy Poehler in the front page of the Recruit section. Head-lined as “Share your heart”, the article featured the entire transcript of her convocation speech for the Harvard College graduating class of 2011.

I read through the article and was impressed. I later did a search and found the link to play the video so I could watch and listen to her speaking.

http://gradspeeches.com/2011/harvard-university/amy-poehler

In my line of work in the education business, I have attended more than my share of graduation events. Ms Poehler’s graduation speech was by far the best that I have heard. She treated her audience with a stream of beautifully crafted personal messages, delivered with humour, great aplomb and well-timed punchlines.

While obviously written for young aspiring graduands, the part that struck some resonance with me was "Continue to share your heart with people even if it has been broken. Don't treat your heart like an action figure wrapped in plastic and never used." 

Tell me about sharing your heart.

Alright, she was probably referring to heartbreaks from crushes or maybe career setbacks that many young aspiring graduates might have gone through. Less of the scale of bereaving a loved one or as in my case, a wonderful spouse of many years.

If I could be so bold as to comment on Ms Poehler’s advice, dipping into my own tragic experience for good measure. I would add that if your heart is truly broken, you would not keep it under wraps. You would have this need and propensity to share, to speak to people and lay bare the pain.

The internet has provided a convenient outlet, which explains the many grief sites I have chanced upon. And I too attempt to share my thoroughly “used” and broken heart, through my regular postings.

But where it comes to sharing in real life, reality presents a few obstacles.

I found that very few people really care or try to understand.

From these past five months of my limited widower experience, I have come to accept that nobody, unless they had suffered similar bereavements, could really fathom the impact of losing a long-time spouse.  More so, most people I know preferred to skirt around the matter. I could sense their discomfort in conversation. But I do not blame them. I think they are anxious and fearful of saying the wrong thing and upset me more. I have lost track of the number of times with various friends, associates and even relatives when I tried to talk about my belated wife, the conversation would get stone-walled or deflected towards something else.  Most people are clueless as to what to say or how to respond. There is no frame of reference to turn to.

But I think the real reason that most people do not really care is because we are basically made that way.  We are biologically programmed to be self-centred. The well-known evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkin in his book entitled, “The Selfish Gene” has expounded that our human race are basically “survival machines, robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes”. Hence, we are “born selfish” out of necessity to keep up our own survival rates.

Or it could be I am getting what I really deserve, after all how much genuine care have I given or shown to the people around me? Instant Karma, as the late great John Lennon has put in song.


More likely it is a little of all of the above.

It is useful for me to put it all in perspective, so I would understand myself and others better. That way I would not harbour any anger or bitterness and learn to deal with coping with the grief largely on my own. After all it is my life and Jenny was my wife, so it is really my burden to bear.  It will be a long and lonely journey, I pretty much know this by now.

I would share my thoroughly shattered heart with anyone who can spare the time to listen and lend a shoulder. 

But then again you would have chores to do and dinner to prepare, so never mind, I will be fine for now…

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

If time is a doctor, then this doctor is a rather poor one. Probably a quack of sorts.


This whole week, I felt like Jenny had just died yesterday. But in fact it has already been 5 months or 154 days to the exact, since she left us.

I have accepted that my grief journey would be like a roller coaster ride. Or some kind of a yo-yo. With all the lows and the highs. But for much of this week the yo-yo cord got overstretched and the spinning disk was stuck at the low end.

Jenny kept popping into my field of view.  Even when I was not looking at her pictures, now ubiquitous features around my domicile and office space.

I suppose absence makes the heart fonder. 

In fact, I recall telling her exactly that.  It was many years back.  Back, when we were tenderly younger, unmarried and amidst the heydays of our courtship together.

I was then a full-time student and residing in the hostel within the university campus, located remotely at the far-end of our island country. We would date only on Saturday evenings, which was all the time I could spare to maintain our relationship. As a mature student at the tail-end of my twenties and on full-pay scholarship, I was under serious pressure to chalk up good grades so all week long I would be too absorbed in my studies to spend time with her. Flunking the course would put me into dire straits. I could not even imagine the consequences. In local terms I became the ever “kiasu” or afraid-to-lose kind of nerdy student.

So a week of classes and relentless mugging was never enough time for me. I was always hard-pressed to complete tortuous piles of tutorials and assignments. Jenny on the other hand would be waiting earnestly  for my phone call to her home or office so we could arrange our week-end rendezvous. Sadly, as a residential student holed up in a remote corner of the island, it was a lot harder if not impossible for her to reach me.  Mobile communication was of course non-existent in those ancient days. For her then, working in an office job, the week must have been agonisingly long.

“But absence makes the heart fonder, dear”, I told her on one of our weekend dates, speaking in as comforting a tone as I could honestly muster.

She was feeling somewhat insecure. And it was plain for me to see as she chose not to hide it. With the campus rife with hordes of warm-blooded female young things in close proximity, I could be easily distracted. And a lot could happen in the course of a week.

“It’s more like out of sight, out of mind”, she replied.

She was clearly unpleased about our frequency of meeting up and how our relationship was panning out ever since I took up the scholarship and started on full-time studies.  Admittedly, I was too wrapped up in 3^rd order differential equations or finite element analyses to be zealously romancing about her.  Or to fool around on campus also.

As it turned out, our love stayed the course, even as over that crucial year after I had embarked on full-time studies, we saw less of each other than what she had wanted.

Come the year-end vacation we received news that the apartment we had applied for was ready for occupation, so shortly after the key collection we tied the knot and got married. No more of that horrid hostel stay for me. I was to complete my following two years of study in our newly acquired abode, a beautiful executive flat with two levels of dwelling space. I was now safe in her arms. Or at arms-length at least.

And from that point we would be always together, build a family, living happily ever after. Or so we wished. Until she got struck by cancer and left me early.

Too early.

And now I could not get her out of my mind even if she is plainly out of sight.
 
So Jenny Dearest, I was right and you were wrong.  Out of sight does not necessarily mean out of mind.  And absence did make the heart grow fonder. How I miss you now.  There is a constant ache inside that I could not shake off. I feel stressed, panicking even whenever it hits me that I will never be able to see you again, much less hold you in my arms or run my fingers through your long flowing hair.

I suppose I have only myself to blame. I have put up enough of her pictures on various parts of the house and my office so every which way I look she is almost always in sight.  My screen-saver pushes out her digital images, a new one every ten seconds whenever the computer goes into a lull. Most of these photographs were taken on our year-end holidays, happy and carefree moments forever locked in time. In the streets of Bali, along the beaches of the Gold Coast and the central town hall in Brussels and Bruges, she struck up her best poses. Smiling radiantly, she had the world at her feet, clueless that those happy days were well numbered. And that for me and the kids, life would soon be a sideway drift.

It is clear that I am not working hard enough on getting her off my mind.

Rooting for the Opposition

Well, the General Elections had concluded with the ruling party (People’s Action Party), sweeping close to 70% of all the votes casted.  Tears for the opposition parties and cheers for the PAP.  They scored a landslide victory that took everyone, even themselves by surprise. But it was the people’s choice. Singaporeans, being pragmatic were going for the tried and tested. 

Jenny would have been dismayed.  All the years I had known her, she had always been rooting for the opposition. During our first election together as a married couple, I recalled her asking me which side I had voted. We were walking back from what was our first trip to the polling station together.

“My vote is secret”, was my polite and discreet reply.

“I knew it – you voted for the PAP.” She then went on about how gutless I was. How I had succumbed to fear by not daring to put in my vote for the opposition, much as I had constantly griped about the parliament being a bunch of “yes-men” and how much we needed an alternative voice. In truth, back in the bad old days, many people, particularly those who were in public service felt compelled to vote for the PAP, not necessary out of conviction but possibly out of fear.  Fear that the identity of each voter could be traceable and woe be to your future if you had made the “wrong” choice.  Real or imagined, the fear was omnipotent.

I never really understood Jenny’s sturdy and faithful disposition for the opposing political parties. Perhaps she was inclined to favour the underdog.  She had complained of the PAP being arrogant, with which I could not disagree.  But for all subsequent elections, I was clear on my choice of lending support for the opposition. The PAP has performed well over the last 50 years in power.  But too much power, I feel is not a good thing. Absolute power corrupts. We need a genuine system of check-and-balance, an alternative voice to probe and question so that policies developed will be sufficiently robust.

So with this and in many previous elections, the opposition got my vote. No more accusations of cowered spinelessness from the wife.

I gave my vote to each new incumbent who had the guts and gumption to stand against the behemoth party.  Even as I knew, like in all elections past, that they would lose. With Jenny’s demise, the opposition is now deprived of one more vote. Not that it would have mattered, as they would have lost anyway, losing big-time too for this round.

Given the rising tide of resurgence for the ruling party, I was glad I gave the opposition my vote. They needed my support more badly to keep the dream alive. One day, slowly but surely, Singapore will have a true multi-party system.  Jenny has not lived long enough to see it and probably I would not too as we do not expect this to happen soon.  But I have at least done my part, which was to cast my vote in support. 

Majulah Singapura.

 

 

Going to the Polls

Today our country go to the polls.  Held on a weekday, instead of a Saturday as in many elections past, some see it as yet another ploy to generate more “feel-good” votes. Cynically, a further boost to the ruling party’s share of votes.

In Singapore, the election season, once every five years, never fails to generate an entire gamut of reactions, from emotionally feverish, to skepticism and dead apathy.

But Jenny would have been thrilled. Not for the chance to vote but for the holiday. I could still remember her grumbling in previous elections. Why can't polling day fall on a week-day instead and allow everyone a day off from work? She was never the typical politically awakened member of the electorate, though she could reserve her most stinging remarks on sloppy-looking politicians who do not fit the bill.

But of course, she is now missing on this election spectacle. And for all future ones to come too.

And if memory served me right, this might be the first time I had also gone voting without her.  In my younger days, it was common for the ruling party to return uncontested.  Over the years, after we got married and on most elections whenever voting were required, we reported to the polling station, always as a couple.

So in the afternoon, together with my oldest two children, now of voting age, we trudged to the nearby polling station to cast our votes. I could not say I felt particularly sad, not having Jenny in tow. Voting was really fuss free. There was not even a queue to allow me to mull over.

But Jenny would certainly have relished this extra day of holiday.  As I had. But whether that could buy her vote for the ruling party would be questionable.

I started the day in fact with an outdoor hike. Together with an old school-mate friend, we trekked into the Tree Top Walk in MacRitchie, taking the shorter route from Venus Drive. It took us less than an hour to walk to the suspension bridge, a free-standing platform, 250 m in length and wide enough for one direction traffic.  This was the first time I had gotten onto the Tree Top Walk, a highlight of the MacRitchie reserve.  Towering above the canopy of trees one gets a bird's eye view of the tropical forest.  But midway on the shaky suspended walkway I found myself feeling queasy. I never had nerves for heights. But I supposed that helped make the walk a more thrilling experience than what it was fashioned to be. No offense to my old buddy trek-mate, but I was quietly wishing that Jenny was my walking companion instead.  She would have much to say when she sees me walking gingerly with both hands grappling the two sides of the bridge as I made my way along the swaying deck of the bridge.

So this is another spot in our tiny island we call home where Jenny had not once stepped foot on.  There are many more for sure as she was not particularly an outdoor person.  I will for sure be making  more of such mental notes as I venture more around the island and discover new and interesting areas that I wished I could also share with Jenny.  This island of less than 720sq km is small but I suppose she could have lived longer to cover more of it.

Could have and should have. Sigh.