Random Thoughts by Pauline

April 2017

Beautiful people

They took such attentive care of me - Peter and Susan, John and Jane that I will remain forever grateful. I was invited to stay in Peter’s beautiful garden home in Sandbach for two nights and then together we stayed in John’s 3-acre manor house in Cumbria, the Lake District.

Peter and John were respectively the Headteacher and Deputy Headteacher of Sandbach School, Cheshire, England. It is the partnership school of Fukien Secondary School (FSS) and was instrumental in supporting drama education at FSS. They have both retired from their posts at Sandbach School with Peter still flying around reviewing schools in various countries in Africa and Russia while John is busy working on his 3-acre manor house, the Carlton Hall. These couples are very endearing with the wives fully supporting their husbands in all their endeavours.

Susan was a nurse but she took early retirement when Peter retired and started his African visits. The couple have stayed in countries like Kenya and Saudi Arabia and Susan has to take care of Peter in an alien land so different from the settled life at home in Cheshire.

John was the brain behind the highly acclaimed Sandbach School Theatre. Upon his retirement, he decided to start a new life away from the crowds. The couple purchased the stately manor house which comes with the extensive woods. John actually painted the eight rooms, walls and ceilings. The live fire warming us during those chilly spring mornings was made with the logs chopped by John who is now the lumberman!

This tour was so special with no “must-see places” or “must-buy things” checklists to tick off but strolls in the vales and terraces, drinks by the fireplace, chats over bar foods of fried fish and sausages and playtime with Max, the most welcoming giant terrier.

Random Thoughts by Pauline

April 2017

What to do in 12 hours?

I will be flying to London tomorrow midnight. It’s going to be a 12-hour flight.

It should not be pleasant - confined to a small space flanked by strangers. In recent trips, I have found passenger seats getting narrower. Or maybe I have grown bigger! The first 5 hours are bearable. I can be flipping through the pages of the Shopping Catalogue or choosing a movie or two to watch.

Soon, the pain creeps in. My neck, shoulders and legs cramp. Time to get up! I pluck up enough courage to do the hateful task of waking up a sound asleep neighbour to stand up for me to get out from my window seat. Sometimes, I wonder whether it is worth all the trouble when after all the maneuvering, there is only that short corridor to stretch out in. I have to be most gentle in my moves to make sure that my hands would not land on somebody’s face.

Toilet breaks are not pleasant either. The washroom is so small that I have to hold my breath and tuck my tummy in to get the door locked. And worst of all, it is not always clean.

Then comes meal time. For Economy Class passengers like me, it takes a lot of balancing skills and focus to finish the task. Once a tour guide said that we should move our arms and fingers like a grasshopper and definitely not sideways. If we want to spread out freely like a bat, then we have to pay for the expensive Business Class or First Class. Poor me, I have always been the grasshopper!

Well, when it is into the 8^th or 9^th hours, I can actually see my skin crumple with lines appearing all over my face. My eyes might be shut but I am not asleep despite all the fatigue. I put up my hand and ask for water which comes in a tiny cup! Another movie then! But the head is so heavy, the screen so small, the sound so blurred that I cannot follow the storyline.

Usually at the time of the final two hours, I doze off only to be harshly woken up with lights glaring for the window blinds have been pushed up! I am there – end of the ordeal! I have survived!  

Random Thoughts by Pauline

April 2017

Common sense

Common sense says that we don’t use our mobile phone when we cross the street. But why are people still doing it? Don’t they have this common sense of danger?

Why is there the need for MTR to make public announcement telling passengers not to look at their mobile phone when using the escalator?  That is not the only “gentle reminder”. Others include beware slippers get caught when standing on escalator,  loosen clothing when in compartment etc.

Obviously, what makes sense to some doesn’t mean so to others. Besides, what constitutes the “common”? A dozen, a hundred or more people? These people need to have the same history or same likes and dislikes to make up “a mass”. Then they might share the same “common sense”.

This can explain why parents and their children, employers and their staff, teachers and students cannot agree on their respective “common sense”. They have to make deliberate effort to understand the other party, accommodate differences and build  ground for common sense to be nurtured.

So next time before we make a comment using “common sense” as the argument, we have to first  establish if there is anything in “common” .

Random Thoughts by Pauline

April 2017

It’s a different world now!

There was a time when we helped strangers asking for directions most readily. When neighbours knocked on  the door asking if we had an egg to spare, we happily gave a couple. Telephone lines and refrigerators, expensive luxuries then, were generously shared. Grocery store-keepers  delivered rice bags to our doors with the bill settled monthly. That was the world I grew up in. We were not rich but were generous. There were no desires but only satisfaction.

All these seem like fairy tales now!

Strangers wandering on MTR platform shy away from interaction when offered help. In public transport, seats for those in need have to be labelled as though commuters cannot decide for themselves to whom they should offer their seats. Backpackers have to be persuaded to unload. Neighbours no longer greet each other. We dare not knock on doors for help. And yet we know and let friends know about one another’s lives in details. We react with our thumbs and smileys.  There is no human touch at all. We nestle in our own isolated world comforting ourselves that we have tens and hundreds of friends.

Oh! I miss the good old days!

Random Thoughts by Pauline

April 2017

It was yesteryears once more!

“I so wanted to touch your bang then,” said Lily.

“I am sorry, Lily. I would love to let you but it’s already gone!” I said apologetically.

It was the second gathering of the 1981 graduates in nine months. There were 22 of them and two teachers including me, their revered English Language teacher. Though those attending the two events were not all the same, the fondness was abundant in both times.

These students are now in their 50s but once they started talking about the classroom days, they were teens once again. They happily reported to me that they are all successful in their own fields and that they hold their alma mater, Wellington College, a private school closed down in 2001, most dearly. They keep telling me they owe much to their teachers who were all very strict.

Then I was in my early thirties, a trained teacher with only the Advanced Level Examination as academic qualification. I was teaching around 60 periods a week with over 50 students in a class. But in their recounts, I knew I was serious with my duties and they loved me for that. 

That makes me so proud. What matters most in a teacher is not just the credential but the heart that is anchored in the welfare of the students.

Random Thoughts by Pauline

March 2017

Bean Bean lives on

It was around this time of the year when Bean Bean lost the fight against cancer and left us. He was 15.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, we have this practice of taking a photo with our furry child. So last year though Bean Bean weighing only 3 kilo was almost a bag of bones, we still had the photo taken. He was not the cheery self anymore but lying almost limply in our arms.

We missed him very much and the house was quiet without us yelling his name or him barking for food. We couldn’t have another pet as we worried he might outlive us. Then what would happen to him?

Soon the silence in the house started to depress me. I must have another pet. We agreed that we would not buy but adopt. However, Mervyn insisted that we would only adopt a Pekingese, same breed as Bean Bean. I browsed various animal adoption websites until my heart bled. There were just too many pets being abandoned, starved and tortured. The worst would be those abandoned by breeding farms. And I discovered that dog owners are quite trend conscious. There were lots of poodles, corgis and terriers but no Pekingese.     

Just when I wanted to stop the hunt, sheer luck brought Mimi, a Pekingese to us. Her owner had passed away and the other family members did not want to keep her. She is already 10-year old, overweight with bladder stones, infected eyes and ears.

On January 24 just before the New Year, we adopted Mimi. She quickly adapted to us, the new bed, new pan, new diet and new ball. She takes all medication quietly and complies with all the urination rules. 

Bean Bean lives on in Mimi! The house comes to life again! 

Random Thoughts by Pauline

March 2017 

Unspoken compassion

I walked past the couple every time I took the footbridge leading from Kowloon Tong train station to Festival Walk LG1. Rather humbly dressed, they looked like in their 70s though the man could be a few years older. Using a simple iron cast box placed on a wooden stand as the counter, they were selling a traditional Teochew snack – the crispy candy roll. The wrapping is one flimsy white flour sheet while the main stuffing is crunchy maltose bars.

This small business was run quite smoothly with the woman collecting the money and the man preparing each order upon request. Carefully he took out one sheet of wrapping from the box, laid it flat, put a candy bar in the middle, sprinkled some sesame and coconut shreds on top and then rolled up the whole thing which he put in a small brown paper bag. They even had a speaker on broadcasting “Crunchy, crunchy, you miss out a lot if you don’t try it out”. It was the hoarse voice of the man.

I did try one. Crunchy but too sweet! Business was not exactly good.

Then yesterday as I walked out of Festival Walk LG1, I was amazed to see a queue waiting in front of the stand. But it was not the man preparing the rolls. It was the woman while another woman was handling the money.

The scene brought to my mind the news story that the man passed away last week and that the woman after shutting up herself for a few days crying her eyes out decided to resume business. The news went viral resulting in the queue waiting patiently and silently to be served. The broadcast was still the same familiar coarse voice.