We strolled along the street to see several shops selling souveniers such as miniatures, crystals and clothes. Soon, the time had come for us to move on to next destination;Penang Hill. While waiting at a bus stop, my imagination ran wild as always. I felt like, it was a scene taken from a movie of which 3 multiracial people with common interests enjoying each other’s company visiting places. The stars were Christy, known as ‘the brain’, a poised and cultured lady, Second, Jen, known as ‘the charmer’, a bubbly person that illuminated the world with life and third, me, known as ‘the dangerous mind’ a quiet person with lots of surprises. I called it "the league of extraordinary people". On second thought, we changed the plan to go by taxi instead since it took forever for the bus to arrive. The moment we walked towards the taxi booth suddenly, a glaring red coloured bus that supposed to take us to Penang Hill ignorantly passed us by. Sigh! A 30 minutes taxi ride was another fun experience for me. I thought the “pakcik” driver was a typical late adult man who disinterested in talking much while driving. To my surprise, he turned out to be seriously talkative. However, he conversed in a language that I was not able to decipher. Thus, Christy, the brain, became our interlocutor for the whole conversation ranging from politics to social science. Jen, the charmer, was asleep along the way and I, the dangerous mind, patiently sat next to the driver and was as curious as a cat to the conversation. We arrived at the train station at a right time. Here came another interesting point. Christy asked an officer at the ticket counter if there was another mean of going down the Penang hill other than the train and the officer deliberately replied, “Yes, you can walk all the way down”. I was almost jumped out of my skin. It was a very interesting speech event. I should have recorded it and studied some underlying rules governing that discourse. I understood walking down was the most logical answer that he could offer us but knowing the fact that walking downhill from 700 meters up with inappropriate gear and lacked of readiness, it didn’t sound like a good idea. Next, it was time for a historical cruise up the hill. There were limited seats in the ages-old train. I almost got a space to sit but since Christy insisted to stand, I could not afford to sit down degrading myself (this has something to do with value system). Thus, I thought it was the right decision to stand. It felt more authentic and spontaneous by the way. How I wish the officer who controlled the train would greet us trough the intercom (if there was any)and told us current cruising speed of the train because it terribly moved at a walking pace. Perhaps, the officer at the ticket counter was right. Not only it was possible to go downhill by walking but going upwards could also be done by walking. Why? It would be much faster! I could imagine myself getting down from the train and cynically told Jen and Christy that I would meet them in the next station. All I could see were some fake dinosaurs and durian trees. I started to look for an interesting point of this train riding experience. Perhaps, sometimes going slow was pertinent to enjoy life more. We should take momentous stop in this fast pacing world to look at flowers to bloom and the sun to shine. To be continued….
My life lane has brought me to the path where I wanted to be a philosophical thinker. I believe trough contemplation and meditation; one can become higher than the self. I never realized books that I read a long time ago written by second to none James Allen had given me consistent impact over the years. It has flourished deep in my mind and set a ground on how I view the world. Like a very thoughtful and value laden idea that I came across yesterday, “I close my eyes to see the world”.
Sun
A merciful glow, it seems
Brings joy to the living
A moment of gold;
Shines every passionate morning
Life radiates through it,
Then, the whole world awakens.
It forever burns
Till tomorrow comes
June 2009
I felt thoroughly rejuvenated in the next morning after a profound sleep. The feeling was like waking up in my grandmother’s house far in the southern part of Sabah. It is quiet and peaceful village with close-knit community. The schedule for the day was to visit Batu Feringghi, Penang Hill and Kek Lok Si temple. Life is not a dress rehearsal. so, I could hardly wait to embark on this journey and lived every second to the fullest. As I was so into living a tale suddenly the fiery imagination was reset to hard reality. Once again, I had close encounter with my long feud of this particular human technological invention, a toaster. It was during breakfast time that we were served with tea and bread and I was expected to use that mean machine. It was not that I was deeply rooted with primitive cave men way of living that I dreaded it, but I did not grow up with a toaster for heaven sake. So, people, it was not my fault. The flat prying pan that mum used at home was my all time favourite to toast slices of bread. It didn’t require any complex skill. You lit the fire and Ureka! The bread was toasted (flashback ends). I was bombarded with flashes of imagination that the bread I was trying to toast happened to over-toast and suddenly fire burst out and it triggered the fire alarm. To make it more dramatic, the poor over-toasted bread was involuntarily ejected and sprang out from the toaster and hit the ceiling. It came down and landed comfortably on one of the foreigners' heads (Ha! Ha!). The best solution that I could think of at that time was to kindly ask Jen to do the job to diminish possibility of me embarrassing myself. Jen and I sat on the next table where Christie was having her moment reading a romance novel which was her cup of tea. It was a fun breakfast. We had some Kodak moment before we left the guest house that morning. We started to locate the right place to take a bus and waited. When the bus finally arrived, I was so thrilled that it (the bus) was so going to be the next subject for me to contemplate upon. The bus was a vintage. It was obvious that it had endured time and lasted until the present moment. It had witnessed the ever changing of the Penang city development. It never failed to bring charms to people on every street. As a favourite mode of transportation, it continued to move people physically and psychologically. I thoroughly enjoyed the bus ride when it gave out this rattling sound and it vibrated on uneven road. I came up with this idea of composing a new jingle for the next festive season; rattle-all-the-way! I was curious on how Batu Feringghi looked like. Was it a real rock that was named after Mr. Feringghi? The bus stopped at some shop houses. Drizzles ran down our cheeks the moment we got down from the bus. We took shelter and walked around to look for a mobile phone shop. Ned’s phone was dying that it needed a charger. But it was early in the morning that all the shops were hardly awakened. So, we resorted to shop for some bathing suits for Christie. While Christie was busy browsing, Ned and I sat on seats provided at a juice corner. I ordered tomato juice while enjoying myself as a part of the morning life in Mr. Feringghi rock! The rain drops kept on falling. To be continued….
I have given it a thought of becoming a serious writer. After revisiting my childhood, I learn that I was conditioned to not having confidence in myself. Alas, a dire need of expressing myself trough writing could not escape from succumbing into those negative thoughts for years. My mind had become a catacomb of dreams and wishes. There were too much to be said but they were subconsciously suppressed by fears and what came out was nothing but only sounds of silence. However, a renewed spirit has sparked and I am ready to take my first flight into the world of written thoughts and feelings. A friend did that to me, recently. A spontaneous compliment on my piece of writing has gone a long way fabricating deeper into my soul and it has breathed new glimpse of hope and opened a doorway of awakening. I remember, I wrote a short paragraph when I was in university and my lecturer gave me credit on my style of writing (she warned me of grammar mistakes though ^^). In addition, reading the same paragraphs, my friends said it was superb. I was flattered and conspicuously delved into thinking perhaps I had the talent to write. At the same time, I heartlessly doubted myself as always. I wrote a short paragraph entitled “Best friend is an angel in disguise”. I can not recall the whole ideas in that writing since it has long gone but it had something that says, "you can call him trustworthy, if you can disclose yourself to him and it remains untold”. The article showcased my long standing dream of finding such exact description of a friend in real life. It was a result of thoughtful imagery of friend drawing from experiences that I have had. I always believe this kind of friend is out there somewhere. Having said that, a saying goes “to err is human”. Making mistakes is what makes human, human. I chose the word angel as a metaphor to denote traits of a friend who consciously possesses such desirable qualities as an extract of pure deliberation of his mind. But this friend and I can never accomplish such perfection of an angel and it is unfair for me to put such impossible touch of great expectation. What I was trying to say, a good friend is a good friend despite of weaknesses that define the whole meaning of being human. My conscience is clear. I have learnt that it is not about finding the right person but how we, ourselves can become the right person to other people at the first place. Other than that, I realized writing has been a dear friend of mine in good or bad times. I continuously pen down my heart talks on every page even it (writing) can never humanly say anything back to me. It accepts me as I am and unconditionally preserves everything about me for years to come. Somehow, it keeps me alive. I can see myself comfortably writing now. A thank you goes out to YOU wherever you are.
