The World of Tai Tai

Reflections of Colours Centre of Everything Chatting in the midst of Nature A Bridge to Dreams Green Ripples

She was my classmate at SRB. Chung Hua Pujut. A paragon of a good student - studious, helpful, and good at studies. Compared to Ling Su Ling, I was a total disaster.  Being small and girlish, I constantly became the subject of bullying. Whenever someone pulled up the shirtfront of my uniform with both hands, the whole class would roar with laughter at my supposed breasts and I would try without success to hit the bigger tormentor with my small fists.   One rainy day in Primary Six, Su Ling asked a boy to stop this antic and my young heart yielded to her immediately. From then onwards, watching her talk, read and answer questions on the sly was a joy.  My heart would skip a beat when she smiled or looked at me.  We seldom talked to each other but deep down I knew she would be by my side if I was in trouble. One recess, Su Ling came up to me and asked why I did not want to buy a reference book as recommended by our Malay Language teacher.  To...

It took me 30 minutes to complete 'Apple Dream'. I used vermilion as the main colour of the apples, highlighted with some red and purple. The result was quite pleasing to the eye. Not to say very good but better than the ones I had painted in the past. The most trying part in painting an apple was the depression where the stem sticks out. I used a mixture of cobalt blue and vermilion to create the shadowy effects.  Does the surface seem to slope down into the depression? To make my apples more realistic I used an angle brush to show the lines on their skin. To counteract the redness of the fruits, I painted the top roundish part of each apple with a mix of cobalt blue and lemon yellow. For 3-D effects, I left certain parts unpainted. My efforts in replicating the glossiness of the fruits met with mixed results. But the fruits still look decent enough. Apples, what glorious mix of colours they show - beautiful in all shapes and sizes, a symbol of h...

Traveling to school on a school bus can be a fun experience.  To make sure everyone reach school on time, the driver wastes no time in speeding along the well-beaten routes, hurrying sleepy-eyed students into the bus and zig-zagging through slow-crawling vehicles.  At a pinch, I have to share the front seat with a student and the narrow space reduces us to sit cheek by jowl against each other. I offset the oppressiveness by winding down the window and hooking my arm over the sill, giving myself more room to breathe and lettin g the wind whip my hair. As we plunge through the darkness of the early morning, the contemporary songs on the radio keep our spirits high, and many students shake their heads to the rhythm of the music. Sometimes, the driver will talk about trifles with me, which I detest. But to kill the monotony of driving, engaging someone in a conversation seems to be the best idea .  The moment the bus stops at the school gate, every...