The World of Tai Tai

He asked him where he had put the keys. But the old man shook his head, showing not a clue on his face. The son began to lose his patience, slamming the table and demanding the old man to search for the keys immediately. Rooting through the clutter on the table with trembling fingers, the father tried his best to catch the glint of the keys but to no avail. The son's face turned beet red and he let fly abuse at his father. The old man, unable to bear the insult, broke down into sobs, his toothless, shriveled mouth mumbling words of apology, attempting to placate the son in a painful, self-degrading manner. The yelling monster, seeing the tears in the old man's eyes, was stunned by how frail and pitiful he looked. Shame and self-blame silently welled up in him, but his filthy pride did not dispose him to hug the old man and seek forgiveness from him.

The following is the speech. Is it passable? Let me first congratulate and thank everyone for attending the Excellence Awards Ceremony, especially the selected group of students who have achieved sterling results in curriculum and co-curriculum. Congratulations and thank you also to the teachers who have succeeded in gearing the students towards excellence.               Nowadays, the role of education has changed. Students not only come to school to learn, but also to be educated as future leaders of the country. We should also be aware that the present education system requires a change that meets the demands of time. Hence, our education system must remain dynamic, progressive and willing to go through the process of change and reform.                To face the greater challenges of the twenty-first century, the school should go beyond the ...

  A poignant tale about a secret love affair between David, an American and Giovanni, an Italian in Paris. The former, having had an accidental relationship with a teenage boy in his early adulthood, tries to deny and suppress his emotional attachment to Giovanni, with whom he shares a room during the most difficult phase of his life. When Hella, his girlfriend returns from her solo trip to Spain, he grasps the opportunity to sever his ties with Giovanni and the Italian is devastated. David pretends to live happily with Hella but deep down in him he misses his simple but beautiful life with Giovanni. Jobless and lonely, Giovanni associates himself with rich gay men for the assurances of money and companionship. And this choice of life leads him to damnation. One night, blind with rage, he kills a lewd ex-employer upon discovering that the man has given him false hopes of re-employment. Learning that Giovanni will be executed, David finds himself unable to go o...

I recently sketched the portraits of a girl and a woman, all by coloured pencils.

Many young children between the ages of six to fifteen bent over the tables in the sitting room, sketching and painting. Except for the Iban maid who had been busy attending to the kids, I was easily the oldest student around, overweight and shabby-looking at the age of forty-five. Sitting at a dim corner, under a strongly blowing air conditioner, I surfed the Internet on my Ipad to hide my discomfiture. One by one, more young faces poked their heads around the door, entered the house barefoot and took their seemingly assigned positions in the sitting room.  When the art teacher, Mary Anne Vaz came, the kids greeted her and she frowned at the sight of where I sat. "This is not your place," said the well-known artist, while beckoning me to follow her to a little room beside her office. She handed me a beginner kit and threw me an annoyed look when I told her that I had not been aware of the need to bring my coloured pencils to the lesson.      ...

I had once made good Chai Kueh, but after not having made it for nearly six years, my skill had almost become blunted. Craving for the taste of home-made Chai Kueh, I decided to end my hiatus one Friday. However, due to lack of practice, it took me three days to remaster it. The first day I made the traditional delicacy, I dusted the dough with so much tapioca starch that it was difficult to seal the skin. After steaming, the skin cracked and the filling was exposed. How disappointing. The failure gave me some mullygrubs. The next day, I rallied my shredded confidence and made it again. Alas! This time I mixed the rice flour with too much boiling water and it became too sticky to form a dough. Running out of tapioca starch, I dusted the mushy dough with a lot of wheat flour and it finally stopped sticking to the hand. However, the dough became more delicate and it cracked worse than that of the first day. I posted my failure on Facebook and it garnered a lot of posit...

I did a pastel self portrait and boy, it wasn't easy to paint after a gap of twenty years. Halfway painting I realised that one eye was bigger than the other, but it was beyond correction, for I had outlined it with black, a death trap for painting. My hair looked different too, the real one not as thick as that. The only saving grace was my smile, which I had captured quite well. I will continue painting tomorrow. Hopefully the imperfections can be rectified, or made less noticeable.

Ang Roasting Fastfood 's Siobak is the archetype of Chinese roast pork belly, with a perfect ratio of fatty to lean meat. Its crowning glory, the large strip of golden crackling, is eye-catching and appetite-whetting. I bought an RM8 worth of takeaway, which yielded nearly 20 pieces of evenly sliced meat. Each bite was enjoyable, and satisfied my cravings for pork. Another thing to shout about was the lean meat, which was tender and not dry. Kudos to the cook(s) for sharing with us this mouth-watering food.

Title: Blunted Skill Outline a face A pair of eyes A nose A pair of lips But it goes awry Erase it with frustration Only to find the redrawn one fuller like being stung! Endless rubbing But imperfections keep waxing ... Time for coloring Too liberal on the use of the domineering black! Damages done to the eyes and hairline irreparable Summon Prussian Blue to enhance the shadowy corner of a smile But alas! The overly wet brush smudges that very spot Employ the help of a tissue, but it leaves a whitish mark Reapply some flesh tone, but it becomes a shade darker The whole face seems to be seriously scarred, how grotesque! Disappointment leaves the artwork unfinished, a total dismay! That's the outcome of not having painted for two decades.

Twenty years have almost elapsed, and somewhere in the deepest recesses of my heart, my long-suppressed artistic-self, is beginning to stretch itself free from tethers. Due to the stark reality of life, I abandoned painting and embraced the so-called iron bowl, teaching, for a stabler life. I do enjoy teaching, but it can never placate my growing yearning for art. Recently, the sight of kids painting in art classes and some artworks shared by a few artists on facebook has cast a hope-igniting stone into the lake of my heart, creating ripples of desire from the center of the circle that it forms. I can't wait to be back to the world of brushes and colours, where the long forgotten rigmarole of trials and errors, a process in which I derived much joy, awaits me.  During the period of self-denial, I have attempted many things, the likes of cooking, singing and writing. At one stage the love of writing consumed my whole-self, making me dream castles in the air and acceptin...

Halfway reading a novel, I fell into sleep and had a dream. I found myself naked to the waist, being roughly dragged down a hall with both hands duct-tapped behind my back, my elbows rubbed raw from scraping against the cement. In a blur I could see some tall columns with friezes of Chinese engravings spiraling around them. The temperature was low and white vapor kept rising from my mouth as I breathed. In three months I will be going to Beijing and what does this dream portend?

Under the blue, blue sky I can't help thinking of her With dilated eyes, the innocent child along the street asks me, "Why are your eyes sweating?"  Love is hard My willingness is thick Separation is bitter Pining is empty

The wind brings here the rain again Drop by drop it soddens the earth Under which umbrella Can I see the back of the person That resembles you the most? With the wind the rain pours once more Drop by drop it soddens the earth Maybe when it stops I will see you again But what if it continues to rain? A blurry night, A blurry maze of rain Crossing my face Is rain or tears? Standing amidst the rain my heart is afire with determination Hopefully soon I will get an answer.

Over the staccato of the crackling fire Different cuts of meat on the wire mesh Have turned brown and curled up as the fat drips and sizzles Releasing an appetite-whetting aroma That travels along the trail of a westward breeze Towards where he is relegated, a lowly place shunned by them. His stomach growls His mouth waters The gum he has been chewing Has gradually lost its sweet flavour The aroma continues its assault into his nostrils He tries to quell the stabs of hunger within him By swigging as much liquid into his mouth But it further enhances his state of humiliation. They feast on the food In total oblivion of him Piece by piece the meat goes into their mouths Their lips and finger tips glossy with grease Their faces a look of daze from fullness What walled-in joy and indulgence!