Broken Hallelujah

It's a universal phenomenon: life always finds a way to break you at some point.

This band called The Afters has a song called Broken Hallelujah.



God, I'm not afraid of being broken...

Break me so I can be made stronger in You.

Faith Renewed

Once, I placed my faith in myself
But I was so alone
Then I placed my faith in a chosen other
But then I was so hurt
I could place my faith in close family and friends
But what would I do if they were gone?
If I place my faith in how I look today
That will eventually pass away
Or if I place my faith in my abilities and strengths today,
Tomorrow I am sorrowful over my weaknesses.
And if I place faith in what I own or will come to own
That can all be lost in an instant

Then I placed my faith in you...
And meaning, purpose, love and joy came to be with me

Beijing, the Earnest Young Man, and the 24 Pearl Rings

The Bird's Nest Stadium at the Olympic Park in Beijing, China.

(Taken from: http://www.homesthetics.net/the-chinese-national-stadium-in-beijing-the-birds-nest-stadium/)

I could write a travel blog specifying places to see and restaurants to eat at, at the major cities/towns/rural places/wilderness areas of the world that I have visited or will come to visit – however, these tend to be topics that have been fairly well flogged, and besides, there are plenty of good travel writers out there. Most importantly, that is not the purpose of my writing.

Instead, I want to talk about a young man that I met during my recent short visit to Beijing, China.

And 24 pearl rings.

And so the story begins…

 

It was Day 5 of the tour, and we had been everywhere – the Great Wall, the Forbidden Palace, the Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, the Ming Tombs, the Temple of Heaven, the Olympic Park (Bird’s Nest Stadium, National Aquatic Centre). We had ridden trishaws while visiting the Beijing Hutong alleys, seen a Shaolin martial arts as well as modern Chinese theatre performance.

We had been to view jade, cloisonné wares, silk, tea, and learn more about Traditional Chinese Medicine.

We had gone shopping. We had eaten duck three times.

 

After a busy day of touring, the last stop of the day was a visit to a pearl store.

Our tour group of 24 people was ushered into a meeting room and a salesgirl came in to do an introduction. She was a dynamic and charismatic speaker who engaged the audience well. Following that, a pearl researcher/scientist was meant to come to give us a presentation.

After a delay, the salesgirl came back to apologise, saying that it was a busy evening with many groups touring the facility concurrently - hence all the researchers were engaged at the moment. She asked us for a little more patience.

After another short delay, the doors to the room opened, and there stood a nervous young man dressed nattily in a sweater vest and dress suit, looking a little shell-shocked.

 

 

He was visibly very nervous, and although he didn’t stutter, he was choppy in his speech initially. Straightaway, he had my full sympathy because I knew how he would have felt in that instance – like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding car.

After a brief self-introduction, he went onto jade and pearl - the types and grades; how they are valued; how to tell apart the real from the fake.

 

 

For some reason, as he spoke he kept looking my way (or at least, in my general vicinity) while he spoke and asked questions of the audience, till I felt shy enough to start avoiding his gaze.

As he continued, he hesitated briefly before he said: “To be very honest, I only know so much, and I can only teach what I know. I am not as learned as some of the others, nor as well-polished a presenter. I was pulled in to speak to you on the spur of the moment, I did not have any prior preparation and I was taken aback by how big this group is.”

He seemed to rally after admitting this, and as he continued on, he steadily gained fluency and confidence in his speech.

 

At one point, a revelation. He said: “Put it this way, if you come back in a few years, this entire enterprise could be mine. I am currently only doing work experience here, but hopefully given some time I would be working here. If you come back to visit, you can always come to look for me."

[The above is a literal Chinese to English translation, however, reading between the lines and taken in account what is lost in translation, he was essentially telling us that this was a  family business that could be handed into his hands to manage, given a few years (as told in a Chinese roundabout fashion)].

 

One of the cheeky ladies in the tour group boldly told him that in order to remember him by, a gift would be required. As they bantered, the gift being negotiated increased from a jar of pearl powder face/body cream apiece all the way up to the boldest suggestion of a pearl necklace each.

[In Chinese business transactions, gift-giving and receiving as well as the bestowing and returning of favours, are an integral components. It oils the cogs of the machine, so to speak.  This occurs in the context of ‘guanxi’, or the business network of people you know.]

 

He considered the request momentarily before he said: “I am not calculative when it comes to friendships. The following will only a small gift of my esteem. I believe that in conducting business, one needs to look at the long-term scenario, the big picture, and not on momentary gains. I only ask that you not tell the other salespeople about my poor presentation today, and also not to let the other customers out there in the main hall know of what I am doing here. Also, for you to not forget me.”

A tray of pearl mounted on rings was brought around, for us to select from, one for each person, and 24 in all were chosen and taken. There were white, champagne, pink and black pearls to choose from.

 

Later on, as he warmed up to us, he asked questions about Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore (as my tour group members were from these three neighbouring countries), and began to interact with the audience a lot more comfortably. He had not been to any of the three places, and was curious about our home countries. He mentioned that he hadn’t travelled anywhere else besides going to university in America.

 

At one point while he was speaking, I was so touched that I could have cried, had I not controlled myself.

Not because I was given a pearl ring.

Far from it, I am a person who is not motivated by money nor riches.

I felt like crying because I was touched by how honest and earnest he was – I don't meet the likes him everyday. He is a budding businessman, but he showed that he is human too.

 

Later on in the evening, he came up to me, with a name card in hand, his Beijing mobile phone number and email address written on it.

I thanked him as I took it from him.

His name is Yan Liang, and I wish him all the best in what I believe will be a very bright future.

 

“我相信你会成功的，因为你是真心的。”

 

Faith

Faith.

What does it mean to have faith?

Not necessarily to do with religion, it can also be a general secular belief that everything will turn out ok, that things will find a way, that things will work themselves out. Faith can also be in the goodness of other people, and it can also be in yourself.

I think faith is such a beautiful thing, and I love hearing stories about how people come to faith.

Faith can be such a strength in trying circumstances. It can be a life vest, a shining beacon, a sense of calm in seas of turmoil.

All faiths are valid because they come from the same place in the human psyche. No single faith is greater or more valid than another.

I think as humans we need faith because as a species we need to believe in something greater than ourselves. We need purpose and a point to our lives, and I'm not talking about something earth-shaking, it can be simple and down to earth - there often is something extraordinary in the ordinary (an example of a simple yet powerful purpose is a desire to help others).

Faith is hope.

We need faith because life is not easy. It is tough as nails at times, and we need what we can get to pull through. Support from other people is so important, but some people also draw strength from their faith.

Faith is also trust.

Being able to trust is such a fundamental human need. Trust in another person, trust in the big picture of things, trust that you or your higher power's ability to direct your life to where it is meant to be. To not be able to trust is to be in such a terrible place.

For me, I was brought up in a religious faith, but I never fully embraced it. Perhaps you can say I haven't taken that 'leap of faith' as yet, and for now my faith is more secular than religious, and that's ok. Maybe one day it will change, maybe it won't.

Religion used to be a great teacher of morality in times past, but I think that in modern times, this has been replaced by a more general 'barometer of goodness' that isn't attached to any particular religion - you don't have to be a religious person to be a good person. Also, there are certain implications in certain religious teachings that I think conflicts with basic human rights, which I find troubling.

Those issues aside, when it comes to faith, to each their own, because faith is such a personal thing as well.

So share with me your faith because it shows me who you are and what you believe in ;)

The Male Body

 (Taken from http://www.123rf.com)

The eyes - blue, preferably. Looking deep into them until I feel shy.

The feel of the lips. The roughness of stubble.

The solidity and circumference of the chest.

The strength and muscle of the forearms.

This size of the hands – the palms, the fingers.

The thickness of the wrist bones.

How the waist almost imperceptably transitions to the hips (what a contrast to a woman's curves).

How the hips quickly dip to the muscle of the legs.

The size of the feet.

The skin covering all this wonderfulness.

The sheer sensualness of it all.

This is what I love about the male body ;)
 

Shyness

Shyness is an old feeling for me.

Bashful, quiet, inhibited, reserved, reticient - it goes by many other names but is essentially the same thing.

It manifests as a feeling of 'otherness', of feeling out-of-place, of not being able to be fully at ease and show yourself as you are (i.e. wanting to disappear or maybe transmogrify into a fly on the wall), of holding back because you are afraid you might get hurt.

It is a feeling of fear which holds you back, and you are not able to interact naturally and put in your two cents worth.

It is that feeling of being 'under pressure' while in social situations - in which you feel unpleasantly overstimulated - so you react by doing your best to exit that situation and hence get relief.

It is that tendency of getting negative feedback from social interactions (mostly self-created as I understand it, none may been intended from the other person), hence leading to the tendency to withdraw. There is a sensitivity to criticism, real and perceived.

You can't enjoy the company of others because you are too worried about how you come across.

Of course, there are different degrees of shyness and different reasons why people may feel shy. Shyness may only be situational - certain scenarios trigger it. It may be something quite universal as well, in that we all have experienced it in at some point in our lives. It only gets tough when you feel shy often, and in many situations.

However, no person is an island, we all need other people.
I keep fighting it, as all shy people keep fighting it.

I have found that with maturity, however, shyness has become more situational and is not as all-consuming as it once was. I've also realised that there is joy in the company of others and also, I don't always want to be so alone. Also, oftentimes when I've fought off that shy feeling in order to muck in with others, I find that I am enjoying myself during that event, that party, that gathering.

I am not entirely certain that one 'grows out' of being shy and can entirely leave that behind - I think shy children become shy adults, it's just that with maturity one's functionality increases as one challenges oneself more, and also learns that the shy feeling is often worse than the situation itself.

There is a flip side to everything, and in my opinion, shyness is not all bad, it can be a strength in certain respects - it tends to lead to the development of certain strengths as well as sensitivities that can be appreciable socially:

1) You know how bad you can feel so you take others' feelings seriously - you are gentle with others.

2) Speaking is not your natural strength but writing can be - this is certainly the case for me. I am not necessarily the best talker but my strength is definitely in writing - especially when it comes from a quiet place whereby I can gather and organise my thoughts to best bring about what I mean.

3) Related to point 1 and 2, because you like to support people and because you don't necessarily like to be constantly talking, you make for an excellent listener. You can also be a good observer - you listen and you learn.

4) Because you tend not to mix as readily with other people, you learn how to rely on yourself and as a result tend to be very independent, which is an advantage in new situations.

5) Because you tend to be a late starter, and because by nature you seek quality rather than quantity - you take a lot of stock and seek depth and meaning in friendships and relationships.

6) In my opinion shyness can be somewhat correlated to an intensity of experiencing the world - this intensity is harnessed and best expressed in the arts - don't they say writers are depressed and artists are tortured? Emotional intensity leads to interesting stuff. Sometimes you feel so much that you just have to express yourself.

Fight on, shy people ;)

Mountaineering

Mountaineering...the freedom of the hills.

It's as simple as that. Mountaineering is freedom.

Freedom to test your mettle, your courage, your strength - not just physical, but just as importantly, mental.
Freedom to test yourself against the elements.
Freedom because your existance is stripped down very neatly - you eat, drink, rest and climb.
It is about you. It is about the mountain.

This 'purity' is especially evident in modern alpinism, in which the challenge is how quick and light one can go. The focus today is on how much one can pare down one's backpack, versus the risk of leaving out that tent, that stove, those extra food supplies, the extra fuel. How much can you cut out before you make the risk unacceptable?

This is in direct contrast with the traditional version of mountaineering - massive expeditions in which large teams of climbers (including porters e.g. Sherpas in the Himalayas) ascend and descend various sections of the mountain repeatedly, establishing different camps at different levels, fixing ropes to act as 'vertical highways' of sorts, ferrying supplies from one camp to another.

Regardless, time has always been of the essence in mountaineering. Most mountains have a certain season of the year whereby success is closest within reach - if you miss out on that window of opportunity, you might as well go home. Questions that mountaineers ask themselves are: What is the turnaround time*?  If I am caught out in the elements - how fast can I descend? Can I navigate efficiently and lead my team up the right route on the cliff-face? Am I using my equipment well - those ice-screws, snow stakes, quickdraws, rope - but not overusing, which would slow me down?

In mountaineering there often are judgement calls to be made. Can you assess the current weather and how it is likely to change? Can you estimate that by a certain time the sun's warmth would make this area impossible to cross due to the hard snow melting into a slushy mess? Is that a proper bridge across the crevasse or is it just made of snow, as stable as a waking dream and ready to disappear like a puff of powder?

This is because mountaineering, adventure pursuit as it is, still holds this principle as true: ascending is optional but descending is not.


*Turnaround time: a time and distance goal that, if not reached, would mean that one would turn back regardless of where one was at on the mountain, because to ignore it would put one at risk of being in peril - e.g. dusk and the night descending while one is at the wrong part of the mountain.

On Ball Pass looking towards the Tasman glacier, Mt Cook National Park, New Zealand, 2009.

Kayaking



This was photo was taken when I took the surf ski out to prepare for an adventure race. I kayaked along the bay alongside my friend who was training for the swim leg of the race.

 



It's Sunday morning and everyone has arrived. White training singlets and red shorts are de rigueur. Sunblock has been slapped on, and running shoes put onto feet.

Without further ado, the storage room door is unlocked, and either singly or in pairs, kayaks and paddles are shouldered and carried that short distance to the beachfront, placed there in preparation for training later.

The team captain calls out, and we break out into a warm-up run. A calisthenic and stretching routine follows after.

There is a slight nervousness in the air. The Year 1s were being introduced to new craft* today. Being fairly green and new to all this, we weren't really sure what we were getting ourselves into. The Year 2s seemed a lot calmer, being older hands at this.

The coach commands us to gather around, and reading out a name list, he assigns each of us into a craft. Next, he tells us the training distance and programme for today.

We soon head down to the water and the day begins for real.

________________________________________________________________


I can honestly say that my time on the kayaking team was a really memorable 2 years of my life. It wasn't just that the coach was bigger than life (though that was a big part of it), but the rigorous training really helped the team to bond together - it was a shared experience that you will remember for life. Not that I was a particularly outgoing member of the team - I was still quiet as a mouse then.

I started out as an incidental member of the team - I happened to sign-up for a try-out session doing an Open House of all the activities available at my high school - and it all went from there.

With time, I learnt the balance required (especially in 'K' crafts), and came to respect the training required to excel in this sport. Since then, I've tried out other forms of kayaking - practicing eskimo rolling in a canoe polo craft, low grade whitewater kayaking, ocean adventure racing in a surf ski - but nothing has matched the above experience so far.

To this day, I respect the man that my coach was and his philosophy in life. Also, the strong characters among my teammates - not necessarily the loud boisterous ones, but the quiet ones that were able to lead from the strength of their character.

In closing, there is nothing quite like the nervous energy of the pre-race paddle to the starting line. After all that preparation, after all that hard work at training. The feeling of shouldering your kayak, stepping into the water and climbing into your craft, placing your first stroke into the water and starting your paddle out, feet at the rudder to make minute direction corrections. You try to relax your back, your core, your arms - and let your body do what it knows how to do, while your heart is hammering out a nervous little beat. The waves are small but you feel their energy beneath the hull. You reach the start and you maintain your position, using the flat of your paddle to slap the water at times to maintain horizontal equilibrium, awaiting the sound of the air horn...

The horn goes off.

The race is on!

*T1, T2, K1, K2 - these were the racing kayak craft that were available to school teams in Singapore when I was in high school. Since then C1, C2 and K4 have been added to the repertoire. The alphanumeric code is as such: the letter refers to the class of kayak, and the numeral refers to the number of kayakers that can be carried.

Driving

High-tailing it through flooded roads in country NSW during the bad rainstorms of March 2012.

I leave the clinic, all excited, keys jangling in my hand. I'm on a mission!

Click the work car's door open, ease into the driver's seat. Place the keys into and then turn it in the ignition slot. The engine purrs into life, and I step on both the brake and clutch so that I can ease the gearstick into reverse. Next, I release the handbrake.

Tentatively, gently, my left foot releases the clutch and feels for that drop in engine RPM, while my right foot positions itself on the accelerator pedal, ready to inject that bit of 'juice' when required. Being unfamiliar with the car's biting point, I take my time and do it slow.

A 14 minute joyride later, after travel involving unsealed roads as well as a section of 100km/hr highway, I'm back at my starting point, smiling, and in possession of a blood test that I've obtained from a nearby vet clinic.

I learnt how to drive in Singapore, and I learnt in a manual car. I remember it being a long and frustrating process, and into my 8th lesson, I was still stalling the vehicle. I arrived home in tears that day and declared to my family that I would never be able to drive.

That was 9 years ago. Since then, I've moved to Australia and due to the necessity (and convenience) of driving, I haven't looked back. It is an automatic car that I regularly drive though, so the chance to drive a manual vehicle very much tickles me even now.

I don't know why exactly it is, but I love driving.

Just chilling out in the forest reserve, my car and I.

Maybe it's the feeling of speed, movement, momentum, progress, torque - whichever terms you may choose to describe it.
Maybe because it's fast travel with beautiful vistas (especially in Australia) to relax to.
Maybe because it simply represents freedom.
It probably is all of the above.

I also love walking along a road in the evening time and seeing cars travel alongside on the road - the sleek profile of the modern car hurtling along - it's evocative and sexy.

I've driven on highways with 130km/hr speed limits, on unsealed dirt roads, on uneven 4wd tracks, on beautiful winding coastal roads, on climbing mountain roads, and even on surface-flooded roads (the water not being high enough to reach the car's air intake). I've driven across Australia, on Singapore's highways, in Thailand, in New Zealand. I've hit a kangeroo, run over a fox, killed cane toads and avoided a family of emus crossing the highway.

The car and the internal combustion engine are amazing feats of engineering. I busied myself one evening last year with learning how the engine works...how all the parts come together to form this incredible machine.

Crankshafts, camshafts, cylinders, pistons, spark plugs (for petrol models), valves...The variance in the number of cylinders and the different engine configurations. How automotive engineers increase the power output of internal combustion engine.

Also, the different types of car engines - I've seen a caburetor engine thrumming along under the hood of a car. Also, I've been in a neighbour's combined electric/petrol car and been amazed at how quiet it is. And of course, I've driven and loved the 'ol trusty fuel-injected models.

Petrol vs diesel engines? Front, mid or rear engines? Front or rear or 4-wheel drive? The different configurations are endless.

As a word of warning, don't get me started on motorbikes, boats and planes...I could go on and on :)

I love offroad driving :)

 

 *RPM: revolutions per minute

 

The best thing about being a vet...

...is when all the crazy hubbub has died down: the surgeries are done, the consults have finished for now, the diagnostics completed, the treatment plan initiated, the clinic is still, and the hospitalised animals are resting quietly in their cages.

This is when yours truly joyfully sneaks into the kennel room and seizes the opportunity to shower TLC* on a patient/patients.

This doesn't happen often enough, but I love it when it does.

 

This was an afterhours case, a ferret which I managed for suspected recurrence of inflammatory bowel disease. I had brought it home and we were both keeping warm in the cold winter!

Yesterday was such a day. There was a tiny Chihuahua with a big name (think a Greek demigod with buns of steel) and big fluffy ears, which was hospitalised for protracted vomitting. A cute Siberian Husky pup which I spayed. An extra cute Pointer which was unfortunately pretty skeletal and wobbly on its legs - however it was very sweet and gave lots of sneaky kisses when I was rubbing its tummy. A mastiff x wolfhound with beautiful odd eyes - one blue one brown - in for a recheck regarding its blood clotting problem. And a very cute cat with beautiful markings and saucer-wide eyes, in for a urinary issue.

As a side note on the disparity of animal sizes that a vet can deal with in the course of a day, think 80kg Neopolitan mastiffs vs 1kg Chihuahuas (and that's just for small animal vets...consider mixed practice vets and zoo vets). Also, try putting an intravenous catheter into a tiny 1.4kg Chihuahua's arm. "Ouch!" it said, when I made my first catheterisation attempt. Just as the needle pricked the skin, it duely pulled back its arm (which was finer than the thigh bone of a chicken). I tried a second time and a similar situation ensued. I finally succeeded on the third go and by then the Chihuahua was looking somewhat upset, but it got cuddles to make up for it.

Of course, during a routine consult, I normally have my way with the animals anyway, being effusive with praise on how good they are behaving, or how cute they are, or how I genuinely just want to kiss and hug and squeeze them to death (metaphorically speaking of course).

The clients love it and so do I.

A case of acute kidney failure which I thought I might have won the battle against, pipping the odds. Unfortunately, I was soon proven wrong. Such a sweet boy, too.



*TLC: tender loving care: written about in clinical journals to be part of a complete treatment plan

Inaugural Post

I chose this blog title because I trained as a vet first, but along the way I discovered philosophy, and I am firmly an adventurer for life.

Come walk with me ;)