I told it to him the way I would have if there had been a death involved.
"My friend has decided to go overseas to study."
"Oh, where?" he said, in between mouths of rice and dumplings.
"Australia," adding quickly, "She was the colleague I had lunch with everyday."
"Uh hmm."
"For the past week, everyone who saw me during lunch would say, `You are alone today?' and I would say, `Yah lor, what to do?'"
"Uh hmm. Hey, this fan choi (steam rice with pork) is really big; the one they sell at my school is like half the size."
"Yes, of course. Fan choi is usually larger than luo mai kai (glutinous rice with chicken)."
And so he missed what I was trying to tell him.
I'm used to saying bye at airports -- the heart and gut wrenching goodbye and the sombre foreknowledge that life will never be the same again. When I left the US for good, it felt like a dying. I gave away my car and my money to my sister; I distributed my clothes, cooking appliances, utensils, and books among my friends; and I drove myself the airport for the final time, knowing that in all likelihood, I'll never be able to own a car again, that I'll never see my roommate or friends again, that I'm leaving the community, the church, the people, my favourite place in the whole wide world, my bicycle, the hikes, walmart, the dryer, the lifestyle; everything behind. Oh, where do I hide the memories of my favourite place in the whole world? It overlooks a river -- swift, powerful, wide; shaded yet in the sun, made of a rock tinged with red.
I am leaving pieces of myself all over the world.
One day I would like to live in China for a while. The people and the language intrigue me. It was only after living in the US for five years that I had an intimate knowledge of American idiosyncrasies, fashion, slang, food, and ultimately, their worldview, in spite of having known and used English all my life. In the same way, I would like to know the Chinese mind too -- they are so similiar to me -- we have the same fair, yellow skin and indistinct features, yet so different. But I don't know if I could leave again.
7 comments:
Ah exactly the same feelings I had when I left Malaysia, oh, too long ago, to come back to S'pore. Except I was sent back here by a fren who drove a broken down VW with all the worldly goods I had gathered at that time. Didn't dare to go back to Malaysia for more than a decade, because too many places were heart-breakingly familiar, yet another world, another country away...
oh dear...
yeah, guys can be a bit daft at times... you really need to spell it out... you need to frame the context well, like:
my best friend at work, the one i choose to share my only free hour of the day with over lunch... she has left for good...
but yeah... most of us assume the other person is a mind-reader... when it comes to mind-reading tho, guys are dunderheads... guys are like the illiterates of mind-reading... dyslexic even... so, try a different tack... i know cos i am a guy...
hmmm... i, too, was a sojourner in a foreign land... did my uni at Monash in Melbourne... same sense of loss... my memories, in countless photos, scribbled notes, and pieces of momentoes, all still lie in the dark, packed hermetically in that well-sealed cardboard box which sits in the corner of the storeroom in my parents' home, which i have yet to find the strength and courage to open... or throw away... i fear it may unleash a powerful yearning which may uproot me again... and that same pain which i spent the better part of more than a decade burying... will start all over again...
I think I might be scared to go overseas for this very reason. Don't like leaving bits of my heart everywhere.
Anon - more than a decade? Whoa, that's a long time. You still have family there?
Colin - actually I think I didn't really want my friend to get what I was trying to say, not sure if you know what I mean. It's like I wanted to say it, but I didn't want him to understand either. It's weird. Open the pandora box made of cardboard! :)
Canopy - Yep. Like a war-torn survivor. But it comes with pros too though, so you should still consider.. :)
No family ever in Malaysia, only frens. Dear ones. A dearly departed ONE. Perhaps, just perhaps, I too will end my days across the Causeway where things are so similar and familiar yet so different from what we know south of the border.
Anon - Sorry about your dearly departed..
My Malaysian friends intend to retire in Malaysia as well cos they say Singapore is a horrible place to grow old in. Sometimes I agree with them.
Thanks for your commisseration. It was in another countr.N I was another me.
As for Malaysia, the one plus point it has over S'pore is space. Physical which perhaps encourages the mental as well. Yet, it could be a case of the grass on the other side always being greener. Malaysian frens I know are always decrying their country and professing admiration for S'pore. But to live here? No way!
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