Stay still!

Truth/Fiction

Quite often, the line is about the width of that slash. Successful authors walk the line well. Timeless ones blur it. While a well-spun tale always regales, it's when the story makes you sort of go, "Hey! That's me!" that the enchantment is complete.

Well, for me, anyhow.

The preferred Goat-read is comic fantasy. Pratchett, Aspirin, Anthony and such. Not terribly useful stuff and a fair bit more divided from daily life. But even with trolls, goblins and the undead involved, chords still can be struck, and well.

Not-so-famous English writer Tom Holt does not make for smooth reading. "Ok, so Siegfried kills the dragon, gets the Tarnhelm and the ring of power and loses it to a Frost giant through a terribly complicated process of incest and deception. Four thousand years later, the hero of the story runs over a badger who turns out to be the Frost giant in hiding and then there's Rhinedaughters involved and..."

Well, I'm deliberately mucking it up a bit, but one does get lost in his twists.

In the Portable Door trilogy though, he phrased something really well. The protagonist, Paul Carpenter, is luckless, loveless and has been so all through his twenty-odd years.

...leave off. I won't deny that holds true for most of mine, but that's not the bit I'm talking about, alright?

Paul is unremarkably unremarkable. Not good at very much at all, broke and reticent in company (look, sod off. I'm getting to it alright?). Practically invisible to women. To top it off, he has a most distressing syndrome of falling in love.

It didn't take very much - they just had to be there. Tall, short, fat, slim...anything female with a pulse. Or not. Pulse negotiable. And he knew very well about it - he just couldn't do anything about it. Upon the third meeting or so, his pulse would race and he'd find himself stealing glances...well, robbing them, really. He fell in love with anything that'd stay still long enough.

That last was the quote, yes. Don't like them tadpole things at the tops of sentences that aren't dialogue. Tadpoles have their place. Ponds.

So it was that something I'd never been about to put a finger on was dragged screaming and kicking into the spotlight. I had that syndrome! Have, even.

Through the teenage diaries, I fixated myself on all sorts of women. Some of them didn't even resemble women. I'd go as far as to say human beings, but that would be going a little far. Though there was that one with the mustache...

Nevermind. Suppressed memory in time. So, yes. Explained all sorts of things, it did. My movie melancholia, for one. Yes, it just takes roughly an hour and a half of watching a character for it to sink in. Heck, for a bit I was even enamoured with Narusegawa. Naru of Love Hina fame. It's an anime. I did feel silly about that one. And that other one I went outstandingly psychotic on from reading her writing. If I weren't me, I'd scare me. Lots.

It's tough being an introverted nerd-geek that way. I'm hiding it better these days, but tennish years of cultivated instinct are hard to break completely. And I suspect all of us, besides the elite order of coke-bottle specced', acne-at-forty-five computer programmers are prone to it. Those blokes are just hardcore. Born to press Allllllt.

Sorry, best pun I could do on short notice.

So if you're female and have a nerd-geek friend, it's quite likely he's smitten with you. Do something about the poor boy. If you're not going to take him up on his uh, silent offer, do something to put him off. Nothing vicious, mind. We nerd-geeks are fragile that way. Many a broken-hearted sysadmin has been found dead in the morning, having hung himself with his mouse cord.

...I admit I'm at a loss for ideas, here. He's going to think everything you do is divine. If you squirt cola through your nose at him, he's not going to wash that shirt for the next week. Invite him over for dinner and serve up blackened bits on a plate. Watch in fascination as he crunches through what really is charcoal and asks for seconds.

So, sorry. Not much help. Don't worry, it wears off with time. But on no account show any kind of competence with a computer or inclination to play games on one. That rustling in the bushes at 3AM you'll hear for the next ten years will be him.

Quite happy I was, to have it suddenly cleared up for me. Not that it's a whole lot of help when you can't do anything about it. But it's nice to know, and all that.

Though, what Tom Holt didn't cover was what to do when, out of the wild blue, something all music and song and tinkly grace - what dreams may come - decides you somehow qualify.

I'm going with deer-in-headlights. If I figure it out, I'll do a book and retire off it.

No. No, I didn't.

Unless you're one of those charmed bastards, you've had one of these days. You can take five out of seven buses from that bus-stop to where you're going and the other two come twice each before them. A usually innocuous slip dumps that hot coffee on your lap. Just before the huge, fuck-off important meeting.

Nothing goes quite the way it's supposed to. Doing your damnedest, everything that's expected from you is still late.

Hectic, hectic week and a half. Crazed, WTF DID THE TIME GO sort of thing. Still, it was bearable. Almost against my will, an unanticipated...tinkle, flavoured things nicely, much like the sweet-after-medicine deal for little sick kids.

It's distressing to discover, however, that I now seem to be a Responsible Adult. Mr Ancob - the boss - is out of the country. And instead of HURHUR GO LATE LEAVE EARLY, I instead work ever longer hours than the usual crazed ones to keep up. I'm almost disappointed with myself.

Stuff had to get done. And as said, all of me to do it with. I get to the office at three-thirty in the morning after a jug and two bottles, dazed but determined.

Bad combination.

The ingrained routine takes over. Switch everything on, empty pockets onto table. I decide to wash my face before tackling anything. Stifling the 34th yawn, I lurch out of the office.

Something occurred to me just before the door shut behind me. The instant lay between the softer click the metal in-outie bit by the side of the door makes as it contacts the edge before the hole and the louder sound of it springing back into place, extended into the hole.

I freeze. My eyes go from "half-closed with sleep and beer" to "walk in on parents having sex".

Silence.

No. No, I didn't. Did I?

Mouthing the words airlessly, I turn. The fluorescent light glinted maliciously off the doorknob. Rapidly, I replay the past five seconds in my mind.

With doorknobs these days, a push of a tiny button locks the door from the inside with a springy clack. So easy. There's no excuse for forgetting. Must make sure everything is secure. But I tend to be casual about it. Even when alone at the office, how much disaster can happen in a pee-span?

No use. The usually welcome haze of a beer or five left me yet in doubt. I reach with trepidation for the doorknob.

Grip.

Breathe.

Turn.

chikachika.

...

chikachikachika

...

Bloody 'ell.


There I was, outside the office three-forty in the morning, inebriated and nothing else on me besides the clothes on my back. For the first ten minutes, I reminded myself to be calm and rational. Ah, the picture hanging off the door. I take it down and undo the wire it hung by. Follow twenty minutes of poke-prodding, inspired by too many movies that while entertaining, tend to lie about things like how easily locks are picked.

Then I proceed to lose it.

Another twenty minutes later, victory was...the door's. Bruised and battered, I learned new respect for the flimsy-looking shit that is cubicle panelling.

I can't remember ever feeling quite as low as when I flipped the door off in unwilling admission of defeat.

Cue walk to friend's place. A fair distance in normal circumstances became interminable, with a bruised foot. Reach. Scare seven types of it out of said friend. Sleep.


You evil wooden bastard. For now, you are needed. But one day...one day. Ten minutes with an axe, and a night of toasting marshmallows.

Qi ge long dong qiang dong qiang.

...wo men qu bai nien.

Still on time, I think. Terribly and tragically busy. See next entry for details.

Yes, the title is yet another series of mouthed cymbal-and-drum noises. Yes, also song. This fragment translates as, "With a series of godawful noises, off we go to inflict ourselves upon relatives!"

We'd left off at the point where the holiday arrives. Unlike other holidays, the eve of Chinese New Year has its own special significance. Planes are packed full. Train carriages resemble so many little tins of sardine. We're all rushing back for the Reunion Dinner, you see.

Every Chinese New Years' Eve, one is expected to return to the home of the immediate family for a meal. The Dinner itself is a warming Chinese tradition that shows the deeply rooted culture of close family bonds and filial piety. At least, that's what you'll read in a tourist guide. I suspect the tradition caters more for the families who hate each other's guts. You'd only have to see the other bastards once a year. After an evening of forced smiles and strained conversation, the nights tend to run on into mahjong. Children are also allowed to stay up past usual bedtimes without being smacked to shit. In a strange, twisted sort of deal, the longer they stay up, the longer the parents of said children are supposed to live.

...Should have gone to sleep earlier, all those times.

That's the Eve done with, then. At the core of the actual holiday lies the Visiting. Every Chinese New Year, I am painfully reminded that I have relatives. Relatives I am duty-bound to visit on pain of being a Bad Boy. The colour red, which is considered auspicious, is the colour to wear when you go visiting. And to ensure additional luck, one must be wearing new red clothing. Unfortunately, this being hard to carry off without looking flaming homosexual, I tend to just wear any old thing. It explains my terrible, terrible karma.

It's the favourite time of the little ones. For no apparent reason, they get little red envelopes stuffed with money. The system of the red packets work thus: if you're not married, you receive them. If you are, you give them away. This works well up to the onset of adulthood. Then it becomes embarrassing.

"Hello, hello, happy new year and all of that. I have nothing to do with you the other 364 days of the year, but if you could see your way to giving me some money in a red envelope that would be great, yo?"

At least, it's how it goes for me. I figure I earn it though. In exchange for random and more often than not pitiful sums of cash, I have to listen to the same bloody converstion year after year. What are you doing now, then? Shouldn't you be continuing your studies? That's very important, you know? Why, during my time...

The ante was upped this year. I explain to a bitch aunt that I saw for the first time in ten years or so that yes, I know a degree helps, but I simply cannot afford to be financially dependent anymore. Also, in the business I'm in, the work you produce counts for something.

"No. I've been in the outside world. Listen to me. You must go study."

Aunty dearest, fuck you. Unless you're going to be paying for said education, why don't you shut the fuck up, choke to death on an orange and make the world a better place? I'm sure I've never "been in the outside world" like you have. I'll get that experience eventually though, while you'll still have a face like a retarded horse (she really does). Tell you what, I'll throw your fucking six dollars back in your face and slap you with a fifty. How's that for outside world.

Pfft. Outside world, indeed.

So no, I don't usually enjoy the visiting. I did have some sweet experiences this year, though. At my grand-aunt's place, where I had the misfortune of running into horseface, I coincidentally went on the day and time when another aunt was there.

I've talked about my dysfunctional memory when it comes to my childhood. Where other people can tell you about the things Daddy did to them when they were five, my long-term memory doesn't seem to extend beyond the past five years.

When I was little, I was apparently looked after by that other aunt and my grand-aunt. They talked about how adorable I was and this year, brought out pictures of me when I was little. It was a little surreal, looking at myself, age 4 or so, sitting on an elephant at the zoo. Ever so faintly, the memory is there. And myself, banging away merrily on a two-dollar drum, having the time of my life.

Looking at the wistful, poignant smiles on their faces as they narrated the story of my little life, I wished desperately to be able to say, "Yes" each time they asked me if I remembered it. They would deflate a little bit with each refutation, then forcefully laugh it off. Of course he doesn't remember. We're being silly. He was so young back then, after all.

I'm sorry. I wish I did and that I was more in touch. I truly do. And a little part of me longs for the time when happiness only cost two dollars.

That concluded my visiting, this year. Still not enjoyable, but on some subtle level, it was educational. Maybe it's part of the growing-up process. I don't know.

And that's all, because there's ten thousand things to do and me to do it with.

May you wag your year in prosperously, doggy-style.

Dong dong dong qiang.

Dong, dong dong qiang.
Dong, dong dong qiang.
Dong, dong dong qiang dong qiang dong qiang.

It's part of a Chinese New Year song. No, they are not Chinese words. Yes, we have songs where we make drum and cymbal noises.

I'm not late either. People in some parts of China are still celebrating the holiday that is Chinese New Year, I'll have you know. In Singapore, we get two days to their two weeks.

I've never been particularly fond of the holiday. Mistake me not, I'm quite happy being Chinese, certain genetic endowments aside. I'm not one to argue with an extra few hundred dollars in red packet money. And if it gets me off work, I'd celebrate anything that doesn't involve having lice flung onto oneself. But the rest of it is just...

I get ahead of myself, I do. To make a proper start of it, perhaps I should explain why we celebrate Chinese New Year. Most of the rest of the world is quite happy to call the first of January New Year's day and do their partying and drunken debauchery then. Why must we Chinese be so different?

Because we outnumber the rest of you, so we'll do what we like, yeah?

Well fine, it's not like that. It's a rich cultural festival celebrating the arrival of Spring and new life after a harsh cold winter. The fact that we make such a big deal of it in tropical Singapore really is because we outnumber everyone else, though.

Like other major holidays such as Christmas and...well, Christmas, it's not something you're allowed to forget. Two weeks after Christmas Day itself, enterprising and economic shopping mall decorators rip the beard off their pre-fab, fuck-off huge Santa. They then paint him yellow, turn his eyes up slightly, stick a respectable Chinese beard on him and swap the hats. Voila! The God of Fortune, all ready to Usher in the New Year. This actually happened, mind.

That is but the slightest scratch on the holiday. We also have a Chinese Zodiac, with sensible avatars like the Dog (this year), Rat, Ox and Badger. There are twelve animals in all and each lasts a year. None of that month-to-month bother for us. Also, instead of playing connect-the-dots with the stars while drunk, our horoscopes were decided by having a Heavenly Race. The animals have some sort of hierarchy according to the position they finished up. In a race that also included the Tiger and the Dragon, the Rat finished first because the little bastard sat on the head of first runner-up Ox and leapt forward just before Mr Moo broke the tape.

Ok, maybe no Badger. Everything else is true, though. And offers insights into the collective Chinese mind better left unsaid.

There's the Elements of Wood, Air, Gold and such too, so people born twelve years apart will be the same horoscope with a different element. Wood Dog, Fire Dog, Bad Dog and such. But we're not concerned with those. It's the animals that get me. Depending on which animal's turn it is, you'll find the bastard EVERYWHERE. Dog year. Dog statues. Dog toys. Cartoon dogs in advertisements try to sell you vacuum cleaners. One that ran for days in the Straits Times asked everyone to go down to such and such a place to WAG IN THE NEW YEAR.

I decided the odds were too low on doe-eyed, pert-bottomed young nubile women taking up the offer and politely declined.

Shops transform; particularly supermarkets. About the time they get the left eye slanted on the ex-Santa, they ALL start playing Chinese New Year music. Don't worry if you don't know the words - voice DONG and CHIANG randomly to the rhythm and nobody will notice. This mind-numbing aural atrocity is a primitive form of mind-control, I suspect. It's like the Chinese population suddenly sits up and blinks simultaneously. As one we decide, fuck all the rest. The only nutrition we'll ever need from now is mandarin oranges, preserved fruit, assorted crackers, pineapple tarts and barbecued pork sweetmeats (bak kwa to you, my Chinese brethren). Hey, and while we're at it, those cans of abalone are looking pretty good.

The larger supermarkets sometimes thoughtfully reserve an entire aisle labelled "Food and stuff for non-Chinese people. Happy Chinese New Year!!!"

After getting in your face for two months or so, the holiday finally has the decency to arrive, towards the end of January. Work on your dongs and qiangs till the next I get some time to stroke the keyboard.