departure;
25 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
I hardly have the luxury of time amidst the daily rush usually to systematically think about, and articulate my thoughts on what a year this has been. Even my intent to finally embark on my SEP scrapbooking has been postponed multiple times and put into the back burner – writing this is yet another urgent reminder ( yet slowly losing its urgency) to at least start on one album. I feel diffident writing this because my thoughts, akin to running loose thread from a old, worn-out shirt, are seriously all over the place. But I will nevertheless attempt to narrate my feelings procured for the year, which I can safely say has been the best year ever ( with many more to come). This excitement is attributed to not only the different countries I have come to set foot upon, or the sights and sounds my senses have come to be sensitized to, but more profoundly the various “capacities” which I cannot really put my finger to at this moment.
The year has awarded me opportunities to gain broader perspectives, through very importantly, my interactions with people from various nationalities, backgrounds and systems of beliefs. All these in a space which was initially unfamiliar to me, and perhaps even feared by me. There were many different people I spoke to, and it amazes me somehow on the crazy things I did. I remember Roddy, a Scottish Catholic I met at the Verbum Dei Retreat Centre during Easter. I could scarcely make up what he was articulating when I met him on the first day of the retreat- it was blanketed with a thick accent, slurry and incomprehensible to me. It was as inpenetretable as the tough skin of the Scottish who had their skin conditioned by the nasty storms and winds encountered by them. On the last day of the retreat, he sounded miraculously clear and I was even holding a conversation with him – I think we were speaking about Colonialism or some sort. Yet this capacity to understand his way of speaking the English Language perhaps went beyond the linguistics, or understanding the way he spoke based on how he strung his words, or articulated them. Perhaps it was the circumstances which forced me to listen more attentively, listen harder, listen better. Or perhaps it was this building of capacity to feel for what people believe in, or the capacity to respect others when they want to make a point with what they are trying to say. Perhaps because I demanded the same amount of attentiveness when I was speaking that propelled me to become a better listener.
Talking with people from all walks of life also allowed me to gain epiphanies which are possibly contradictory – inasmuch as I know think twice ( and even cringing at the sometimes methods lacking in thought) of which we classify people based on social markers like nationality, age, race, there are indeed place-specific cultural differences that have come to define and legitimize some customs and practices as they are. The troubling question which then emerges from this is whether or not culture is a good enough reason ( or excuse) for the practices we have come to deem as normal. Does culture exonerate one from the practices which may be “incorrect” in one but yet fully approved of in another? For instance, when we are faced with alarming statistics of UK teen pregnancies shooting through the roof, or read about how Westerners are less interested in the academic achievements within the classroom as compared to their Asian counterparts, how much or how little of this is attributed to their “liberal” culture? Too often we have conceived of practices by different groups of people with their relationship to their culture, even coming up with rather reductionistic yet normalized terms such as “the Asian values” or “Westerntoxification”. This is really something which challenges me, and also challenges me to thnk about some of the commonly held assumptions behind the methods in which we have come to use to think about what is happening in our world.
At the very essence of my interesting ( some taxingly pretentious, some unpretentious) conversations with people from different backgrounds laid a very fundamental and seamless discovery to me which truly stands out as affirmative to the human race, which then lends some optimism to me on the future of the world. It soon came to my knowledge that in spite of differences in languages, beliefs, practices and culture, everyone is generally seeking affection. Respect. An intention to positively qualify what he/she conceives, even though the person may not be an optimist. I fondly recall my flight from London to Athens – she was frantically fumbling through all her belongings, her breast pocket, her pockets in her trousers, her handbag; her expression wrote of apprehension and worry; her eyebrows deeply furrowed. Like an ant on hot bricks, her incessant fidgeting and search for something told me something was amiss. It was only after she worriedly asked if she could borrow my phone to make an important call to her boyfriend then did it confirm my worst suspicion – she had left her phone on her Romsey-bound train on her way to the airport. She lamented with a tinge of self-jokingness that she had always been absent minded, very prone to misplacing her belongings. This was the genesis of a conversation that lasted the whole flight, one peppered with so much enthusiasm, knowledge and wisdom that I could have never asked for. Naya shared with me about her debt-stricken country, which is still causing panic and gloom across Europe, as leaders frantically organize conferences one after another to discuss the financial austerity plans and macro-economic stability of the nation. She worked as a lecturer in the New Media department of Bristol University, shared with me her love for the job because it offered her the flexibility to travel, her contributions to the academic world, her perception on the average Greek family. As much as she was upset over her misplaced communicating device, she exhibited this quiet confidence to me which then inspired me in turn, to make the best of any position in life to achieve some form of workable meaning out of everything that transpires. This conversation was truly my first encounter with Greece – a country propped upon such immense beauty and part of the extensive history of the world.
My in-flight lesson with Naya is constitutive of the many memorable conversations I had, which have then become translated into more profound understandings of the world, if only we spare no effort in wanting to listen and wanting to learn. Being alone without family strengthened me in ways, to embark on different endeavour which I could scarcely imagined myself to do one year ago when I was still scurrying to get my acceptance package from the partner university. Looking back, it has been really an amazing journey which I give thanks for. I remember why I first applied for SEP at such an early time suddenly – something about wanting to be less further apart from the both of them in the US, something about being afraid of being alone for one more semester when they were both away.
How things change, and how perspectives change.
The transition back to NUS was awkward initially. I remember how the few of us would lament in our own regrets that things were not the same anymore. My stay in hall made it all the more different at the start of the semester because I had never conceived myself to be suitable for hall life to begin with because the need to stay at home meant so much to me. Having to deal with initial moments of being alone despite not physically alone, having to deal with times of social awkwardness. Times when I missed home more than I had missed home when I was overseas in another continent, even though I was physically so near to home. A friend of mine who literally knows me inside out, having witnessed my most raw and vulnerable moments called one night and we just ended up crying, thinking about how things have changed from the times we were young and innocently playful, and how much we’ve mellowed. He asked why I chose to take part in so many activities in hall – I doubted and questioned myself whether it was partially because I was scared of being empty, or finding that there is a need to mire myself in “work” because I was not confident of facing up to the numerous changes I had to grapple with upon my return. Some things keep tugging back at my heartstrings and I question myself what was it that God really wanted out of my life – is it a constant struggle, speaking of suffering, heartbreaks, tears and stress?
Yet if only we would dare to try and partake in different emotions we never expected ourselves to experience. Life in hall has been alright, so-so, neither an exhilarating time nor a terrible experience.I have to accept that I’m already in Year 3 and there are many exhausted hearts who yearn to do something but cannot afford the time and energy to. Somehow the weariness puzzles me, but at the same time when i discover the mirth and excitement of the freshmen I feel enthused that there is such a wholesome energy surrounding me. Then again, it always creates a ringing bell of the past, of which when I was once young, energetic, lacking knowledge about the world…what’s that word? Naive. What am I now, and where am I? My soul has somehow grown older, my heart heavier, afraid of perhaps allowing callous hurt to be heaved. Yet, I have to say that I have learnt to be a better person for the world, constantly hoping that I could be a little more compassionate, understanding and less self-centered. I really pray that I could be true to that, and remain true to God’s faithfulness in me even though it’s so terribly difficult to not see Him, but believe in Him.
Christmas eve Mass at Good Shepherd really touched me. I cannot really string it into words, but the sheer number of people packed side to side in the humid, non air conditioned oldest cathedral ( which looks like it’s going to fall apart anytime!) had amazed me. Sometimes people are touched in ways which I can never imagine. She was never a believer and I never believed in heaping and preaching what I felt was so close to my heart ( yet somehow chore to explain to others why I became Catholic), but she asked if I was attending Mass. Somehow in the greatest line-up of events devised, I attended my X’Mas mass with my sister. The organ was feeling temperamental and some notes frayed and sounded oddly out of place , but the grand majesty of the choir and the voices of more than 700 unpolished parishoners, weaved together, transformed itself into one of the best moments I had experienced this year. What child is this, born of the blessed Virgin Mary, that has come to touch the hearts of billions of people worldwide. I question why would there by someone willing to come and die for me, unquestioningly sacrificing his own flesh and blood for the worthless rascals we are because it defied our human understanding of logic. But that is the mystery of my faith, and the faith of the Church which I am so helplessly hanging on to even though it has been a tough journey, sometimes lonely and sometimes upsettting. I just hope God’s plan for me will unveil itself, or has it already been in play but my own ignorance has ignored has prevented me from giving thanks for every moment in my life? I’m praying for someone to walk this journey with me, because I’m scared of being alone even though Jesus is with me, tilll the end of time.
I wonder how life will be shaped as we depart from 2011. Who will be with me till the end of time?
Taken at Southampton Airport Train Station, United Kingdom, Jan 2011
