Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!

On 31 August 1957, Malaysia celebrated its first Independence Day.


I got my first bike when I was nine. I rode every day and skinned myself badly when Dad took the training wheels off the first time. He doesn’t know this, but I cried because I was so happy.

I got my first paycheck when I was 17. I was an accounts clerk at a local department store. I made less than 400 bucks a month for a five-day week. I came home exhausted and marveled at how parents – mine, anyone’s – manage to keep it together. I regretted being a crap child, and suspected I would be an even worse parent. I still believe this today.

I drove a car alone for the first time when I was 18. When my Dad gave me the keys he couldn’t look at me and I thought he was cos he was worried about his car (it was new, it was a two door, it could fly). Mom later told me he lit some incense and prayed when I was out the door asking Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy to keep me safe.

I went on my first trip alone with my first girlfriend when I was 22. I told her mother the week before, a little awkwardly, that I was going for a holiday with her daughter. I also told her we would be staying at a hotel. “Take care of my girl,” she said. Then she kissed me on the cheek. And being a very traditional Chinese mom, she never kisses anyone.

I lived away from my folks for the first time ever during my last year at Uni. I have always been independent, but never alone. And while my friends found the first month amazing, I was nearly crushed by homesickness. But I learned to be alone without being lonely, I discovered I loved driving, and though I didn’t know it at the time, I fell in love with writing.

I got dumped for the first time ever, and it happened on Valentine’s Day. Within a month or so, people rushed to tell me she was seeing someone new, and I knew who my real friends were(n’t). In fact, she paraded him. It messed me up bad and I felt very low. Then one day, I realised: If she didn’t hurt, then it couldn’t have been special. And if it wasn’t special, I didn’t lose anything. And then I was ok.

In 7 years or so, I will have paid off my house. My parents will still live in it. As will my kids, whom I guarantee you will be beautiful – inside and out.

Movie review: Red Eye

I'm once again plugging for my poor movie blog.
Read the latest.

Bleed me

People are awfully nice to you when you’re giving blood.
They use foreign sounding phrases like “May I please…” and “Is it ok…”
All this while doing things like jabbing you with a pin.
Slapping the inside of your elbow to find a vein to stick huge fucking needles into.
Asking you to pump harder with your wrist (never thought anyone would be telling me to do that).

I read somewhere if you lose more than 50% of your body’s blood, the damage, the sheer shock to the system is irreversible, even if it’s replaced after. And I’m wondering whether it’s my life force draining from me into a plastic bag that is affording me this moment of clarity. Whether some kind of cellular death is endowing me with a period of rare insight:

The blood bank is like the tax receipts department of the government.
All smiles and helpful nods while they bleed you.

In fact, giving blood is perhaps the best way to bleed.
You can have a gallon of blood gushing out of your skull courtesy of some blunt force trauma and you’ll be told to wait.
But give blood, and you’re ushered into a nice waiting room with magazines.
And as O-type blood ran from me, I found death and taxes to be a perfectly natural pairing.

When I finish, the nurse smiles and carefully – almost lovingly – carries the 450ml pouch and sets it in a tray with its own code number. She gives me a donor booklet with the date of my first deposit. She even rushed to hold the door open for me.

“Thank you, please come again.”

Just like the tax department.

Time's up

They are everywhere.

Big friendly letters announce ‘Instant Cash’ or ‘Quick Money!’ A few speak with uncanny insight and understanding: ‘Need help?’ or ‘Take the pressure off.’

The copy for loan shark ads is succinct and effective. The language clear as whistle, and the promise like a lifeline to those drowning. And you have to be drowning to be willing to give up the following information:
A photocopy of your bank passbook/statement.
Copies of your past two months’ pay slips.
A photocopy of your ID or driver’s license.

You have to be driven to desperation to give up such private information for sums as low as 300 bucks.

Interest rates are in the order of 40-50%, usually calculated on a weekly basis.
A loan of a thousand becomes 1500 in a week, increasing exponentially.

I have wondered what drove Junior to consider and ultimately choose a loan shark as an option. His middle class parents are well to do, and outwardly, he does not want for anything. I had speculated he might have been tricked into being a guarantor for some other desperate friend. One neighbour speculated he might have gotten himself in debt with the online gambling that seems is becoming a plague amongst youths.

The house has been very quiet.
The porch light is on, but the house itself is dark.
Since the last visit from the collectors, my neighbours seem to have gone into hiding. They were missing for more than 24 hours and only returned once in the past week, and even then only during the day.
The plants are beginning to wilt from neglect.
The same laundry hangs from lines, uncollected.

Junior’s sister was asked by one of our neighbours about the trouble.
She was somber, but frank about the matter: “Yes, my brother’s in some trouble with loan sharks.” A coupla months back. Junior’s sister had a bad auto accident right in front of our street (I called Auto Assist for her). The car was totaled but she was uninjured.

She returned to the house this week to collect some things. It is mere coincidence that she also took delivery of her new car this week. And when she drove it over, I wonder if those men in the van saw her.

For two nights, a white van has been parked on our street. The men inside made no noise, but also made no effort to hide their presence. Our neighbourhood patrol were informed and on the second night, they asked the men to leave.

I wonder what they thought as they sat waiting for Junior and his family who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) pay them and yet managed to splash out for a new ride. I wonder if that’s what made them decide to crank things up a notch.

Tonight, there is red paint on my neighbours’ walls.

My mother, who grew up in a rough neighbourhood says this is the last warning.
It is a traditional signal used by loan sharks.

The red paint is a message: When next we come, there will be blood.