Saved By Snorkeling

I remember a swimming pool, fried bananas and a lady named Ruth. Me, in a frilly swimsuit and a sky blue ring float. The smell of chlorine, the whiff of greasy bananas sitting on the poolside table and the sound of people.

That day was my first public attempt at a public display of heroism. I wanted to jump into the water with reckless abandon, which involved a little flinging of the arms up over the head. I stood, by the side of the pool, ready. I had my ring float on (I hadn't learnt how to float yet, and even now, I can't. But I sink amazingly). A quick skip, jump and I was gone.

Literally gone, because I was nowhere to be seen. All that's left was my sky blue ring float bobbing up and down in the water.

I remember the deafening sound of water and silence. I tried to shout for help but no sound came. It felt like forever, like how time is suspended in movies, except now it was terribly unpleasant. I wasn't sure if I had thought about death- at six I was rather preoccupied with drawing and reading under the blankets with a torchlight. The next thing I knew I saw a man, who looked like he was snorkeling- he had a diving mask, mouthpiece and flippers. He swam towards me and I remember feeling more afraid of him than the drowning bit. He picked me and I was out, and I could breathe.

I still can see snorkeling dude in my head sometimes. I never knew who he was, or what he looked like. Sometimes it seems like he never existed.

Sometimes I wonder what if snorkeling dude had decided not to snorkel in the pool that day.

All your base are belong to us

Photo taken somewhere along a back alley in Liverpool.

What was supposed to be an intelligent class discussion on cultural policies quickly turned into a mamak stall rant about politics and race- stale afterthoughts from the pages of the newspapers. He began with apologising for being honest and then shot through with how the majority race had been reduced, made to be beneath the rest, that history is now doctrine-special rights should never be questioned. He made the English language sound like an invasive, flesh-eating species that will chew the local tongue and spit it out mangled and useless.

I felt ill being made to sit and listen to him. And he agreed with the immigrant or pendatang labelling; we are in essence people who had come from elsewhere.

I won't even begin on how you yourself had come from elsewhere. Like a child's game, you lay stake to something just because you got to it first. Finders' keepers.

You can call my great-grandfather an immigrant. But you cannot call me one. I did not come here from a village in China. Actually, if you must know, I was born in a hospital in Kuala Lumpur. I speak fluent Bahasa Malaysia. I cannot speak Mandarin. My English came from Sesame Street videos and Peter & Jane books (and such good books and videos they were). I use a sarong batik at home and when I travel. I pledge allegiance to nasi lemak.

This is the only home I know. Where else do you want me to go?



Somebody set up us the bomb. Launch the ZIG, captain.

Maybe Whitby

Whitby on Holga.

Made custard from scratch last night, poured it over crunchy pears and ate it while watching something on TV.

I want to close my eyes and have all the things that weight me down dissipate into nothingness. I want to reach my arms out to hold you, even if you're nowhere near. Some days I want to wake up somewhere else other than my organisedly disorganised room.

Listening to Coldplay reminds me of stuffy seats, falling asleep in the middle of an episode of the Flight of the Conchords and airline meals in neat plastic compartments.