bending Out the Kricks @ Healthland

I'd love to be able to simply pack a bag, book a ticket, and hop myself away whenever I need a break, but that not being realistic, what I do thus, is to haul myself over to this little nook called Healthland right at the end of Chinatown and try to escape for just a little while.

It works well every time.

No less because Healthland is a spa that specializes in Thai and Oil Aromatherapy Massage, and those who know Thai Massage will know that it is not one of the most comfortable ones around- meaning you won't be able to drift off asleep with its techniques- and yet, that's where the charm of it lies.

 

Someone once aptly described Thai Massage as your body doing yoga without you voluntarily moving a muscle, and I couldn't agree more.

More so if the spa is a place like this that is orderly, fragrant, practical and proper.
 

 

 You enter direct from the street through a glass door, remove your footwear and climb up a flight of carpeted steps, where you'll then find yourself welcomed by the receptionist counter and the waiting area. Here you'll tell them what it is you want, how long you want it for, make the payment, and then, if the therapist is available, straight away you'll be told to go and change.

 

I sometimes get directed to this little room that doubles up as a locker space and a linen closet. Other times I get directed straight to the room where I'll be in, and told to change there.

 

The outfit is a simple, baggy one that consists of a blouse-like top, a pair of elastic shorts and a belt. There are no buttons, so you simply tie it firm and hope to high heavens nothing comes loose in the middle of your session.

 

They begin on the clock, these therapists, so it starts with your feet where they warm it up with a towel, then it goes upwards from there. Your calves, your thighs, your knees, first one leg, then the other. After that they work on your back, your neck,  your shoulders, your arms.

 

It is very systematic- points, muscles, joints and all.

 

It is also very precise.

 

Particularly when they're working on the back where iit feels like they're pressing down on every part of my spine, followed by my rib cage and then all the muscles that tighten up between my shoulder blades and my upper arms.

 

It is a stretching thing, Thai massage, and you can be sure there'll be plenty of that. There's this part where your hands go behind your neck whilst you're sitting cross legged and she'll twist you side to side. There's also this part where the therapist will step on your back. There's a part where she'll use her knees to loosen up the tight part of your spinal tailbone and afterward still, nearing the end, there's this part where she'll arch your entire body into some sort of suspended curve. It can get rather nerve-wrecking.

 

The minutes do tick by pretty fast, but, like any other comfortable spa, they don't rush you off when your session is over. Take your time to change back to your clothes, no problem, and after you're done, you get to stone at the waiting area for a bit whilst sipping a little cup of water, or a little cup of ginger tea.

Rain, and Me

It is no secret that I love rain.

I think I've made it comfortably known to just about anyone who has come my way. We don't even need to have met. As long as you're a business acquaintance (whom we may have shook hands one time at a networking meeting), a Facebook acquaintance (whom the algorithms invited and we accepted), or someone whom social media thinks I should know, you're going to know just how much I love rain.

It is a love that goes beyond breathing in nice, cool air tinted with the scent of rain. It is a love that goes beyond refreshing and revitalising the dry, parched land.

Instead it is a love that leads me all the way back to my childhood where my home in the northeast meant that it rained buckets, sheets, cats, and dogs during the months of November, December and January.

I think of rain the same way I think of Christmas. I think of rain the same way I think of Christmas shopping and wrapping Christmas presents. I think of rain in the way I'd reach out my hand through the open window and let the heavy drops fall on my palm. And I think of rain the same way I think of a steaming bowl of instant noodles cooked just the way I like it with cuttlefish balls, egg and prawn balls.

This is not a love I've kept hidden from family, friends, and loved ones either.

They know me, and my affinity with rain, all too well.

They know I'm the girl who loves overcast, cool and grey skies.

They know I'm the girl who loves gusty winds that rustle the leaves on the trees.

They know I'm the girl who stops and stares when thick, dark clouds start rolling in.

And they know I'm the girl who loves sheets and sheets of rain.

Yes, that's the kind of girl I am.

I'm the kind that cycles right into an unexpected thunderstorm. I'm the kind who doesn't skedaddle when there's a clap of thunder. I don't run for shelter when there's a few (pathetic) droplets of rain. I don't wait out a drizzle. And I don't carry an umbrella.

Yeah, I just don't. Not because I have anything against umbrellas (some of them are really pretty!) but as far as it goes, I find them an unnecessary accessory, an extra weight, and an item in my bag which I stubbornly refuse to use. (Very Sorry to The Parents who bought me a lightweight Japanese umbrella... but they've given up on me ever carrying a brolly)

That being said, I don't dance in the rain... :D

Sure, I'd love it, but practicality reigns, and so much so as I'd want to kick off my shoes, hop out onto the pavement and raise my face to the refreshing, freeing rain, boarding the airconditioned bus looking like a drowned rat won't earn me any sympathetic favors either.

So I settle for hoodies, parkas and hooded sweatshirts instead.

Which, of course, are also one of the things I have a deep, deep, deep love for.

Bus Ride Sights: the Geylang stretch

I don't always get a double-decker view when I travel along this stretch of road, so when I do... :) 

Geylang is no less fascinating a place for most of us, and I could go on a little about it, but that will keep for another time- the bus route today led me down the main road heading towards the city, and because there are so many little lanes that stretch out on either side, the easiest gauge would be to say that I started from Geylang Lorong 42, then passed by Lorong 40, 38, 36 and so on...

There're a couple of interesting landmarks along the way, despite the fact that it seems to be shophouse after shophouse after shophouse, and although one gets easily lost when it comes to spotting them, one major mark is the No Signboard Seafood place that indicates the perpendicular road heading to Guillemard Road one way, and Aljunied the other.

There's another one- this bungalow sort of house that is today the Lai Meng Hotel at the junction of Lorong 24- and which is distinctive for the reason that it feels like a rustic beach-side sort of bungalow as per the likes in Bedok and East Coast Road, and which gradually, we don't find very much anymore.

The route took me down the entire stretch of Geylang Road, past what used to be Gay World Amusement Park a long, long, long time ago but is now just a very big field, then the Kallang Airport Gateway entrance which is now a sadly neglected sight of two faded, peeling white pillars that house not even a grille gate in between, over the Merdeka Bridge that grants you a sight of the Kallang River and the Singapore Flyer ahead, past the vast plot of land that once stood the BP Gasworks, and finally, the little, pretty historic lane where, thankfully, the Hindu Temple still stands.

 

 

Peace Center

Okay, I don't know what happened, and I don't know why, but I've been trying and trying and trying to write this article about Peace Center, but nothing's smooth going, and whatever's been written doesn't sound right, so I'm just going to plonk the pictures here and let them speak for themselves.

 

 

Thing is, I don't come to Peace Center very often.

There's no reason to.

But when the chance comes by that I do, I don't let up.

Hardly is there a time that I don't whip out the camera..

Hardly is there a time too that I don't make a point to walk around, look at the shops, see what's gone, what's stayed, what's new, what's open, what's closed. I look at the glass panels, the fluorescent lights, the peeling paint on the walls, the dusty ceiling boards, the toilets, the floor tiles... and the staircases.

There's something about it that intrigues me.

Even if all of it is before my time.

Time doesn't matter, not in a place as this where it seems to have all but slowed on its own, and where the walls, the ceiling boards, the toilets, the escalators and the staircase banisters made of wood have their own story to tell.

I see the ladies, their high heeled shoes clicking proudly over the tiled floors. I see their handbags, dangling from straps over jacketed shoulders and broad-padded blouses. They wear makeup, these ladies- an arsenal of foundation, blusher, lipstick, eyebrow pencil and eyeshadow- and they have hair well permed, beautifully coiffed, held in place by hairspray and the humble bobby pin. 
 
Then there are the men, their shiny polished shoes, their neatly ironed shirts, their sharp pressed trousers, their watches, and their combed, slicked back hair.

All of this is more than mere nostalgia.

It is even more than a memory.

Because the shops that were there then are still there now. Because the posters that stood on the walls there are still there now. They haven't gone away. None of them have. The seamstress shop is still there. The tailor shop is still there.

And though tenants may come and tenants may go, that atmosphere, that existence of hope- HOPE- She hasn't gone. Oh no, not at all. For there she remains, strong, powerful, emphatic, stubborn, day by day drifting past the walls, the corridors, the tiled floors, and the stairwells.

stroke: from Bed to Bed

Illness is never a pretty thing,

 

And as Miss Brown can well assert, Stroke is one of them.

 

 

 

She is a debilitating b*t*h. She removes your dignity, renders you helpless and confuses you. She makes you wonder what's happening to you, makes you lose control of the one thing you yourself own- your body, numbs you, shocks you and takes away your freedom. Because of her, you throw up, you drop things, your head hurts and your vision blurs. And she makes you feel heavier and heavier as if you're adhered to whatever it is you're on.

 

She throws your life into disarray, overwhelming it and turning it upside down. She makes hearts turn away from you and makes you turn away even from yourself. Because of her, you hate yourself. Because of her, you hate what you have, you feel guilty for troubling others, and she makes you ponder over and over again what it was you did that made it happen this way.

 

Stroke is one b*t*h that when she strikes, she strikes hard. She doesn't creep up to you like a sore throat might do and then leave you with an onslaught of flu. She is not a geriatric related illness that comes upon you because, oh, it's just one of those elderly thingies that happen because you know, you're 'getting old'.

 

Like cancer, like heart failure, stroke is one of f**ked-up s*** that attacks you at an instance, leaving you no room to turn, no room to manoeuvre, and you're imprisoned in whatever consequences she leaves you with.

 

Sometimes it is more than the physical.

 

For Miss Brown, it was the mental, and the emotional.

a week at Ward 74

She was admitted in the January of 2014.

That much she knows.

She also knows that she was admitted to the Singapore General Hospital, but which ward it was, what sort of ward it was, and how long she was in there, she doesn't know.

These details matter nothing to her.

And even if you did remind her, she wouldn't pay much attention to them either. Of what use is it, she'd say, knowing that I was in there a week? Of what use is it, she'd say, if I remember that I was in Ward 74 or that I was in the Neurology Ward?

"I know I had a stroke, and I know it was on my left side, that's all that is important, right?" she'd tell me.

In a way, it is true.

Not every patient needs, or wants, to know the details of what's happening to them. They know, innately, that something is wrong, that something has gone wrong, and they just want to know what to do, how to cope with it, or in some cases, how to get rid of it.

Miss Brown knew that something was definitely wrong with her. Her left side felt numb and heavy, she couldn't speak, she couldn't turn her head, she was having difficulty swallowing, and all she wanted to do was sleep, sleep, sleep and sleep.

Except that the medical personnel wouldn't let her.

They kept coming, one after the other. First the lead doctor came, telling her that she had suffered a stroke. Then after that, in succession, over the next couple of days, came the physiotherapist, the occupational therapist, the speech therapist, the dietician... Some came alone, some came with their horde of students, all standing around looking through files. And then there were the nurses. They came to check on her temperature, her blood pressure, this, that, this again, even in the middle of the night.

Her neighbour patients  wouldn't let her off either.

There was always something, a movement, a noise, a shifting on the bed, a buzzer call, a call for the nurse.
 
It annoyed and frightened her, all of it.

They didn't seem to understand that all she needed was sleep. She was tired, so tired, and there was no better cure for an exhausted body than a good, hearty sleep. Just like it had always been, this time would be no different, she was sure, and if only she could be left alone to get her much needed rest, this discomfort would disappear and she would wake up feeling all refreshed and okay. Moreover, her family and caregivers had already brought down her favorite backpack, her tissue box, and her comb, and with such familiar things around her, she would sleep soundly, deeply, and well..

But no, they wouldn't let her sleep as much as she wanted.

Not the doctors, not the nurses, not the therapists, heck, not even her caregivers. Not a single one of them would give her what she wanted.

First day she was thirsty and called out desperately for water, but the nurses said she couldn't swallow and would choke herself if given water, so she had to make do with ice chips inserted into her mouth or slathered over her parched lips.

Second day they said she could no longer go on the drip and since she had been tested by the speech therapist who pronounced her unable to swallow, they had to do the nasogastric feeding tube, so Miss Brown had to endure the extreme discomfort and pain of it going through her nose down her esophagus to her stomach. She hated it so much she cried and wondered to herself what it was she did wrong.

Third day she slept, interrupted only by the nurses and more therapists who came to check on her and who put her onto the big pink chair for half an hour, saying that it was time for her to sit up instead of reclining on the bed the entire time. Along with the chair, they'd brought along a series of toys, tools, something, that they instructed her to pick up with her left hand and move them from one cup to the other. It was mentally numbing, physically challenging, and in any case, this chair they'd put her in was so comfortable she fell asleep.

Fourth day and fifth, the powers that be decided that because yesterday she hadn't fallen off the big pink chair, it meant that she was well enough(!!) to get out of bed and go to the therapy room for group therapy, so despite her reluctance, despite the fact that she still wanted to sleep and sleep and sleep, they put her onto a clunky wheelchair and wheeled her out of the ward to the room on the other wing.

Dazed and tired and fatigued, but with some assistance, she forced herself to stand up, hold the bar, and, together with the other five patients in the same group, listened to the instructions of the therapist who kept asking them to raise their right leg, their left, their right, their left, their right arm, their left arm, and so on. She couldn't follow the instructions as well as the others did, but none of them were suffering from an ailment that immobilized their entire left side. And as if that weren't enough, after all the limb lifting, they had her walk a bit, across a brick, up a brick, down a brick, before finally putting her back in the wheelchair and wheeling her back to her bed.

Fifth day and sixth, they removed the offending tube from her nostrils- she could not have been more overjoyed- and gave her some green puree thing for her meal. Today was the day she tried to conjure up some interest in her surroundings, but she was really tired, and gave up after reading one page of the newspaper.

On the seventh day, when it was nearly time for her to be discharged, in trooped everyone again, therapists, junior doctors and dietician, whom, after making it for certain with her family and caregivers that she was not going to go to their community hospital, rattled off a whole bunch of instructions to them, what they had to do, what they were not supposed to do.

They gave the medicine slip, packed up the thickeners and last of all, taught her caregivers how to bodily shift her from the bed to the chair, but because they needed practice, she had to subject herself to their carefully orchestrated rehearsals in full sight of the rest of the patients.

It was so embarrassing.

Still, if all of it meant that she was on her way out of this ward back home to her own bed and her own bathroom, where her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend would be there to take good care of her, then all was fine and good.

After all, she could rely on her daughter the same way she did the last time she was seriously hospitalized. Sure, they were busy with work this time, but they had dropped by for a visit every evening, bringing along her favorite Chinese newspapers and a cup of coffee from McDonalds which her daughter put down on the table in front of her.

spacing Out at Sentosa

You end work early on some days just so you can take a breather, arm yourself with your camera, walk from the entrance of Sentosa all the way to Siloso Beach, and go take pictures.

 

It was a cloudy, atmospheric kind of day where the skies were a cool grey and the winds were blowing hot and cold. It was a  kind of day that let us walk from the start of the bridge, into the Resort, around the Resort, to the back of the Resort, out onto Imbiah, cut through the little hidden roads (is it going to be another new hotel there?!) leading down from the hill and then along the entire stretch of beach towards Rasa Sentosa. 

 

We didn't get to see the squirrels. They were probably squirreling amongst the trees. But we did get to see the peacocks and the peahens, and at the car park we watched a peahen and her teenage chicks fly up to the lowest branch of a nearby tree.  

 



pretty foods: kaya toast

This is one meal that one can easily find at just about anywhere in Singapore- at a coffee shop in Bedok, at a coffee shop in Jalan Besar, at a coffee shop in Woodlands, or at a coffee shop in Boon Lay. It's all the same, give and take, and you'll be no less having one or the other.

But there are days when you're  feeling peckish in the middle of Orchard Road, and there being no coffee shop to go, you head straight for what is the de-facto standard of kaya toast and eggs as written in the tourist books, where you get crispy, crunchy toast with thick slices of butter generously slathered over with coconut jam, large-yolk soft boiled eggs, and a cup of hot, no-more-sweet milky tea.

Admittedly, even though I'm totally #supportlocal, Ya Kun's toast is really quite crunchy, and it makes a difference having egg yolks large enough that you can boing-boing them with your spoon. :D

 

 

 

a ride of Pure Rage

We began in the early afternoon.

 

The plan was that we'd bike to Serangoon, get an errand done, then afterward bike up to Woodlands Jetty via Punggol PCN and Yishun.

 

Except that by the time we were done with the errand and finished lunch, it was almost half an hour to tea time.

 

Nevertheless, we went ahead.

Up along Upper Serangoon Road, down the very long slope at Kovan, into Hougang Ave 10 and Ave 6 and then turning into Punggol Park and the Punggol PCN where it was a smooth, scenic ride along the Serangoon River with smooth, calming waters in sight and lots of lovely green trees about.

 

We got to Lorong Halus pretty easily, but from here we decided to make a pivot to our plans. Instead of heading up north, we decided we'd go eastwards to Changi Village, so we turned into that little narrow road that separates Punggol from Pasir Ris and which is often pitch dark at night towards Pasir Ris Farmway where the doggies and puppies are.

Quite a novelty it was taking the Farmway in broad daylight; I got to see sights I'd never seen before, like all the cars parked outside the puppy farms, and the volunteer walkers steadily walking their packs.

From there we headed straight right through Pasir Ris, passing by Downtown East, coming up to Pasir Ris Drive 12 (I think), turning  left into the industrial estate of Loyang, and then up Loyang Way before finally reaching Changi Village- but not before accidentally missing a right turn and finding ourselves almost at the entrance of the Police Coast Guard. -_-

We made a quick stop here at the hawker center for a coconut each- I wanted the chendol actually, patted the cats roaming about happily there, and we were back on the road, heading east via TMCR.

Now, the TMCR route is one of the longest, and most boring routes I've ever tried, and trust me, if you're not the chugging marathoner type of cyclist, this route will bore the s*** out of you. Really, it will. Ask my Co-Rider.

I've never known of a cyclist who can drift off mentally, or 'stone' whilst riding the bike, but apparently this is a skill that my Co-Rider can pull off quite well, so we played riding games all through the ride, until I realized there was still some distance to go but we had an appointment to adhere to, so we sped things up, going as fast as we could, and I found myself spinning my legs like a deranged woman driven by pure rage (at I don't-know-what) all the way from the Tanah Merah Canal back to the main starting point.

Two hours it took us in all. :)

lychee rose @ Marriott Cafe

Last couple of times have seen us have more high teas than dinners over at Marriott Café, and although it really makes no difference to me- I love my high teas, thank you- it is quite cool to be able to have something like freshly shucked oysters on the menu.

More so for my Co-Diner, I suppose, who loves the freshly-shucked oysters and eats them by the plates raw with nothing else but a wedge of lemon.

Me, I tend to go for the salmon sashimi, the cooked food, sometimes the soup, and most certainly the dessert, which is, basically, everything that's present on the buffet table.

I normally start with a plate of sashimi, and I take salmon and only salmon with the wasabi and soy sauce. There was a time when I would gobble down plates of these, but in recent times I've spread the variety out a bit more. Sometimes I take a bit of sushi, sometimes I don't. Along with the sashimi, I sometimes take the smoked ones as well, because they just go so well with cheese and there are times when I want a wee bit of cheese as some sort of starter.

Cooked food comes next, and I tend to grab a mix of whatever's available. There's often variety on the Marriott menu, so I don't really know for sure what it is that I'll get. This time there was pearl barley in some sort of cream sauce, so I took that, simply because I love the chewy taste of pearl barley and it is pretty unusual. There was this really soft, smooth fish slices with a citrusy sauce, so I took that too. A slice of roast beef with berry sauce, a bit of rosemary r0asted chicken, and a bowl of mushroom soup completed the western portion of the meal. 

Over on the Asian side, there was chye tow kuay, of which I helped myself to quite a few pieces, simply because they looked chunkily attractive in their serving bowl. There was Hokkien noodles too, so I had a bit of that, and then there were steamed crystal paus done Teochew style, which I love for its chewy texture and its chives, so I had three, or four of those too.

It was back to the seafood after that- a couple of prawns that I deshelled myself, and crayfish. It's funny, I'm lazy to deshell prawns anywhere else, even at seafood restaurants, but here  I don't mind. Even if I get a little squeamish, I just grin and rip off the head, the legs and the shell. Same goes for the crayfish. I won't eat crayfish anywhere else, except here. Elsewhere the sight of it on the plate terrifies me but here somehow I don't feel  frightened. Maybe the warm ighting in the Café gives it a much softer look, maybe because there is quite a bit of meat on the crayfish here that I don't mind digging out with my knife, or maybe because there's Thousand Island sauce for me to slather the prawns and crayfish over.

In between all of this I was still helping myself to the oysters the Co-Diner brings over, but I always leave space for any second helpings of the day's favorites that I might have. This time I think I went back for more steamed crystal paus, and by the time I finished the 2nd one, it was just the right time, and  space, for dessert.

Now, dessert is generally one of the main things of any buffet dinner I go to, but at Marriott Café, I make it as important as a main, because their desserts are really, really good.

They've got the locally made kuehs. They've got mousse of various flavors each in their little plastic cups. They've got cakes all sliced into sizeable portions (not tiny squares!) and which include cheesecake and butter sponge cakes. They've got a fantastic ice cream selection with flavors like chocolate, strawberry, mango, mint and cookies and cream that you can eat with cones or bowls, and as many toppings as one may like. Now they've even included a chocolate fountain with marshmallows and fruits on skewers for the taking. But the one dessert that distinguishes Marriott's offerings over any others elsewhere is the sticky date pudding- and that is a must have.

Never mind how full you already are.

So I had the sticky date pudding sans the vanilla sauce.

I had a slice of chocolate hazelnut mousse cake as well, and because I'm the type who cannot resist anything that is flavoured lychee, I had two little slices of lychee rose cake that truly had the distinct taste of the lychee fruit together with the gentle, delicate hints of rose.

 

Cussler, Frank, and a Japanese Guy

You know something?

 

From now on I'm going to take pictures of all the books I borrow from the library, just so that I can have a reminder of what I've read, and what I haven't.

 

And then, I'm going to take it a step further by writing about what I've read, just so it will double up as a record of what the book was about and more importantly, when it was that I read it.

 

It's an important step. Otherwise, I'll find myself in the same situation as I am now- not realizing (until I checked this blog) that I'd actually loaned and read the very same book barely six months ago- with no other borrowed book in between. ^_^ 

 

That being said, the book in question is The Diary of Anne Frank, and that is one which I can read again, again, and again. :)

 

 

Loved ones tell me that I'm a little obsessed about Anne Frank and her Diary, and I wouldn't deny it, oh no, but the odd thing is that if you were to ask me what it is that fascinates me so much, frankly, I can't pinpoint it either!

 

I just know that it is very difficult for me to not take her Diary whenever I see it on the library shelf. It doesn't matter that I'm already holding three other books in my hand, or that I think I might not have time to finish reading it. I don't care. Borrow first, later then say. :D

 

This time, I read A Quiet Place first.

 

It intrigued me partially because it was a Japanese detective story- which style I'd never read before- and because it's so hard to find translated works of Japanese authors in our libraries. One must know where to find.  I was curious to know how Japanese detective fiction was like.

 

Let's just say that, unlike the speed of the Americans or the British, A Quiet Place was a slow, steady narrative that looked at things through the eyes of the first-person- the widower- and which tailed closely behind him thereafter. It was a story that delved deep into character and made me feel the loneliness, shock and confusion of the widower.

 

You know, it's funny, but whilst trying to figure out the secret escapades of a supposedly docile, haiku-loving, sexually disinterested wife, I also picked up information about prefectures, manufacturing processes of canned meats during late 70s Japan, and the presence of business entertainment.

 

I read Clive Cussler next.

 

Which, embarrassingly, I don't remember the title of the book (horrors!), but I think it starts with Kurt Austin (or is it Dirk?) impersonating a hardcore prisoner to sneak his way into some gulag to get out a former Russian military general who got into the bad books of the present-day defence minister, and then after that there's something about Tesla, and an secret experiment about disappearing ships from America reappearing right smack in the middle of the Aral Sea.

 

And finally, The Diary.

 

Starting from the last entry of August 1944 and working my way backwards through time. Except that I only got to make it as far back as late 1943 before my six weeks was up and the book had to go back to the borrowing bin. -_-

Bus Ride Sights: Nicoll Highway

Let's just say that it was a very warm, very humid and very bright day, and that I was on the bus that took me from somewhere along Old Airport Road, Mountbatten Road, Nicoll Highway, Suntec City and finally into the Downtown area, passing by the War Memorial Park, St. Andrew's Cathedral and finally the Capitol Theater.

 

  

 

 

a lil bit about (her)

Hitherto when I talked about Miss Brown, it was with the perspective of her stroke, and her post-stroke journey. But now it has come to the time where, perhaps, if I were to speak of her full story, then a little more about her ought to be known.

We all have different stories; and some of us have more than others. There're the very emotional ones, there're the standard ones, there're the silver spoon ones, and there're the rags to riches ones. Some stories are extraordinary. Some stories are ordinary.

But whether they be ordinary or not, each one is still a story nonetheless, and each one is unparalleled on its own.

Miss Brown's story is an ordinary one. Nothing very spectacular, yet unique on its own.

She was born upcountry during a time when the entire land was just one country and not split into two. Her parents were non-natives of the country. They'd come down from further north- the motherland. Why they came down, we don't know. Neither does Miss Brown. She just knows that she and her elder brother lived upcountry for a while until her father fell ill and the whole family went back up.

By the time the family came down again, there was one member missing. Her father. He had passed on back in the motherland.

How Miss Brown felt about the passing of her father, we don't know. To her, it is as if he was never there. She was much too young, she claims. What she does recall of the time up north is of the rural farm on the east coast of the Peninsula where they lived. She remembers running around the place, and going with the other children out to the fields to catch frogs.

We don't know how long she stayed in the rural farming community, but we do know that somewhere along the way, when she was old enough to attend school, she was sent down to live with a relative and register for school. We know that the shop house the relative owned was near the school- really, just a few steps away- so we presume that she spent her days between school and home.

How her days were during her stay there, we don't know; how long she stayed there, we don't know too. But we know that after a couple of years her mother came down from upcountry to join her children and they (likely) shifted somewhere else.

Miss Brown changed schools for a bit, here and there going all the way until she completed the Chinese equivalent of the A Levels. She then went on to pick up skills in dressmaking, hairdressing and make-up. Those days probably held the most fond of memories for Miss Brown.

She moved on to have her own hair salon thereafter at a shop house on the east side of the country. It was also around this time, during one of the most conflictual times of the country's development, that she met a former classmate who would later become her husband.

They married in the early sixties.

There is a studio photograph of them in their wedding outfits.

At first they stayed with his parents and family. Getting used to a new household, even with the matriarch in control, was no easy an adjustment. Moreover, her husband's job in the forces often took him away from home, and so Miss Brown found herself as a newly-wed needing to cope alone with a new environment, a new home, a new family, everything. The family ran a laundrette, so in between learning to prepare new dishes in the kitchen, she also helped out there a bit.

It was okay.

Except for one thing.

There was no child.

Being barren in a Chinese household during the late sixties in this culture meant being subjected to a constant barrage of snide remarks from the other ladies in the household. It also meant having to bear the unkind words, sarcasm and condemnation from the elders who deemed barrenness as a sin and utter failure of the woman.

And she had no support from her husband whatsoever.

She had to bear it all alone.

Whether there was any support from his end, or whether he blamed her, we don't know. But things did affect her quite badly, so much so that the married couple moved out from the family home into government-assigned accommodations to stay on their own.

Things were better, but Miss Brown was still lonely.

What happened, how she coped with it and all that, we don't really know- Miss Brown is naturally reticent about it- but in 1967, on the suggestion of her own parent, she adopted a child.

A little girl all of 6 months old.

A little girl whom Miss Brown says, grasped her finger tightly and refused to let go.

A little girl who was given a new name by the members of her adopted family, who grew up fed and clothed by her adopted parents. 

A little girl who grew up playing with friends and cousins, who later went to kindergarten and afterwards to primary and secondary school, and as best as Asian families can be, was accepted into the family of her mother's, and that of her father's.

For twelve years, it was just the three of them- Miss Brown, her husband, and her little girl. They were typically happy. Day to day life resumed. The family shifted out from the assigned accommodation to another apartment close by. We don't hear much of the day to day life during those years. But we have pictures, and they show occasional family holidays upcountry, excursions to the parks, and picnics by the beaches.

This was a time of major transition, massive organization, and a tremendous amount of structuring across all sectors. Along with it came medical advancement, and right on with medical advancement came a new hope for barren women.

Miss Brown maintains that for all of nine months, as the family shifted back temporarily to her husband's family home, and through all the appointments at the doctor's, she never tod her daughter about her pregnancy.

And so  the little girl, how a child of twelve, found out one day that her position of only child had been usurped by her new baby brother to that of elder sister.

Miss Brown's story- the one that I've been permitted to tell- begins here. 

Because as far as health and all goes, as far as the years have passed, and as far as Asian parenting is, what remains at crux here is a mother's love, a mother's (blind) faith, a child's betrayal, and its debilitating consequences thereafter.