Information Please (or, “There are other worlds to sing in”) - A modern folktale)

Apparently this story has been circulating since Usenet days circa 1998 (Via Deeshaa: “Other Worlds to Sing in” — A story). Deeshaa wrote “I cannot read this story without my eyes moistening up“. I’m not ashamed to say, “Me too”:

INFORMATION PLEASE

When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother used to talk to it.

Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person – her name was Information Please and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply anybody’s number and the correct time.

My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn’t seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway – The telephone! Quickly I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear. Information Please I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.

A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear. “Information.”

“I hurt my finger. . .” I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.

“Isn’t your mother home?” came the question.

“Nobody’s home but me.” I blubbered. “Are you bleeding?”

“No,” I replied. “I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts.”

“Can you open your icebox?” she asked. I said I could. “Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger.”

After that I called Information Please for everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math, and she told me my pet chipmunk I had caught in the park just the day before would eat fruits and nuts.

And there was the time that Petey, our pet canary died. I called Information Please and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown-ups say to soothe a child.

But I was unconsoled. Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers, feet up on the bottom of a cage?

She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, “Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in.”

Somehow I felt better. Another day I was on the telephone. “Information Please.”

“Information,” said the now familiar voice.

“How do you spell fix?” I asked.

All this took place in a small town in the pacific Northwest. Then when I was 9 years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. Information Please belonged in that old wooden box back home, and I somehow never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the hall table. Yet as I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me; often in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.

A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half an hour or so between plane, and I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, “Information Please”.

Miraculously, I heard again the small, clear voice I knew so well, “Information.” I hadn’t planned this but I heard myself saying, “Could you tell me please how-to spell fix?”

There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, “I guess that your finger must have healed by now.

I laughed, “So it’s really still you,” I said. “I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time.

“I wonder, she said, if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls.”

I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister. “Please do, just ask for Sally.”

Just three months later I was back in Seattle. . .A different voice answered Information and I asked for Sally. “Are you a friend?”

“Yes, a very old friend.”

“Then I’m sorry to have to tell you. Sally has been working part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago.” But before I could hang up she said, “Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?”

“Yes.” “Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down. Here it is I’ll read it ‘Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He’ll know what I mean’.

I thanked her and hung up. I did know what Sally meant.

My father, Basketball, and the late President Chiang Kai-shek

Over the years, I've told people that my father used to play for the Singapore national basketball team in the 1960s. But when pressed for details, I wasn't able to give any, simply because I had none.

My earliest awareness about my father's basketball days stemmed from one particular photo, with a particular man in it. When I was old enough to learn who was that man in the centre of the photo (which you'll soon see if you read on), I started to pay a little more interest but still not a lot.

Growing up, there were times my father would relate some memorable events but again, I didn't attempt to find out more (let's just say that in my growing-up years, my relationship with my father was typical of most Asian families of our generation then — where the father was the disciplinarian and heart-to-heart conversations between fathers and sons existed only in American TV shows).

All that I knew thus far were that: (1) the 1960s were the heady days of basketball in Singapore, and (2) my father had represented Singapore to play in the Asian games and overseas tournaments. My father's story was made all the more credible by my mother. She usually stayed out of his other stories but she'd add a brief word or two about his days as a national player.

Recently, when I emailed my brother about my (immensely small) part in Yesterday.sg, I suggested that we interview my father for a basketball story. My brother liked the idea about posting in Yesterday.sg but he'd rather that I do the interview.

"You know how Pa is like. Once he starts with his story, he will never stop", wrote my brother. That was that.

So yesterday, when my wife and I dropped by my parent's place for one of our weekend dinners, I took the chance to ask my father about the photo.

“Pa, 你还有没有你以前打篮球的 photo?”
[Pa, do you still have those photos from your basketball days?"]

“有! 很多.你要哪一个?”
[Yes. Plenty. Which one do you want?]

“那张有 Chiang Kai-shek 在里面的.”
[The one with Chiang Kai-shek in it.]

He brought out a photo album. This was what I was referring to:

My father is/ was the young man at the front row, second from left.
He played for the National Squad (if it could be called that) from around 1954 to 1966. He was around 21 when he joined and remained the only left-hander during those years. He finally retired from the squad at the age of 33, after 12 years.

According to my father, basketball clubs existed in the pre-war years (i.e. pre-1942) and continued well into the post-war, post-colonial, and post-independence years (Singapore gained Independence in 1965).

The above photo was taken in 1955. It's particularly significant because it was taken with the late leader of Taiwan ROC, Chiang Kai-shek and his wife, Soong May-ling (click on image to see larger version). Don't believe me? Cross reference with this photo and this one.

I asked how the picture came to be. My father said a basketball tournament had been organised in Taiwan as part of the celebrations for Chiang Kai-shek's birthday. Various teams had been invited to play (I forgot to ask from which countries).

The team my father was in comprised of players from Malaya and Singapore (this was in 1955, before Merger, Separation and Independence). The team was known as 马华 (Ma- Hua), taking the first Chinese character for “Malaya” (马来亚) and Chinese (华, to mean Singapore). The players in the photo were the selected few from Malaya and Singapore.

I asked my father if he and his team mates shook hands with the late President Chiang. He said no. There was heavy security and teams were simply ushered in and out of the palace like a production line.

I play basketball, in case you were wondering, but I doubt if I'm as good as my father ever was. Certainly not National Team material. So I'm doing what I can do slightly better, which is to write about it.

Last year, a Chinese newspaper reporter took this picture. My father's the taller guy on the left of the picture, with Mr Ho (also an ex-national player who played with my father) on the right.

Both men are now in their early 70s.

As I write this, my father is still in relatively good health for his age. From the way he works the garden at the Community Centre, you'd never tell he has a Defibrillator in his chest. He can out-lift some youngsters more than half his age (flower pots filled with soil aren't light at all). Benefits of a sporting lifestyle, eh?

He and his basketball buddies are also working as part-time basketball coaches for students in some primary and secondary schools. I doubt if his students know of their backgrounds and glory days. Perhaps one day they'll read Yesterday.sg and say, "Hey, that was my basketball coach… and I had no idea."

It's funny… while I'd seen that 1955 photo with Chiang Kai-shek as a child, it was only yesterday, 2 Apr, 2006 (writing for Yesterday.sg) that I've learnt a story behind it. And as I write this now, I realised I almost my father's age when he retired from playing basketball.

Perhaps I should come clean.

Writing for Yesterday.sg is just a catalyst, almost an excuse (albeit a very good one) for me to tell the world, "That's my father."

Oh, and he used to play for Singapore.

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[First posted at RamblingLibrarian, and published at Yesterday.sg, 4 Apr 06]

I want to be an Artist

I want to be an Artist.

That’s what I replied without hesitation when, in primary school, a teacher asked my class, “What’s your ambition in life?”

Did I know what an artist’s life was about? Certainly not. I was maybe eight at that time. All I knew was I enjoyed doodling and drawing; copying pictures and creating new ones. I’ve always liked drawings and pictures.

At three years of age, before I learnt how to read, I was making up my version of the Three Little Pigs from the pictures in the storybook. As I grew older, I continued to enjoy drawing but I would not have replied that I wanted to be an artist, i.e. take up art as a career. It was reinforced in me, over time, that there’s “no future” in pursuing an arts career compared to other more ’stable professions’. And so I went on to receive a Polytechnic diploma, a University degree, and a Masters degree. Ah, if there only was a crystal ball that told them of the Internet and Globalisation and Knowledge Economies and Creative Industries.

There are, however, no crystal balls; no one can tell predict what the future holds.

But lest you think that I have regrets with the path I’ve taken, I assure you there is none. I believe we simply take the path that presents itself at that point in time.

So now, I’ve embarked on this path of starting this blog for my art and other right-brain pursuits. It’s to bring back the simple life, like the days remembered by the three-year old me.

And the child is saying: I want to be an Artist.

Clever writing

Wish I could say I wrote this, but I didn’t. I’m posting this as an example of very clever writing:

It‘s a holiday and my mother wants me to paint the bathroom (the pipes actually) and why not accompany her to Giant (the egg rolls are cheaper there) for shopping this weekend as well?

It‘s a holiday, one of the rare breaks inbetween work and OT, OT, OT. There is still the Chinese New Year holiday two weeks away. But that would probably be taken up by house cleaning. I wanted to finish up my drawings and videos as soon as possible. My portfolio needs all the bulking up it needs before the Feburary deadline.

In my mind was the almost casual mention in the email about a blogger and a book. I thought about how my hands shook in the aircon as my brother drove the family car for the first time in his life, trying to find the hospital. I thought about the voice in the turning leaves that late evening. But most of all, I thought about an email, a long time ago, that arrived in my mailbox at midnight with a jpeg attachment of a cherubic baby girl smiling at the camera.

No sorry it‘s not about modelling or anything related to the mailing list, he shouldn‘t really be posting this in the group, he knows this isn‘t the place for it, but he was desperate and he didn‘t know what to do, his niece is in hospital and in a critical condition, he remembered not too long ago, when she was just learning how to walk, she waited outside his room wanting to be carried, and he was working on the computer and didn‘t want to be disturbed and he closed the door, he really regretted doing that, the doctor said she has zero brain activity, they are deciding whether to pull the plug tomorrow, so please, please, can everybody just please just pray for her?

I painted the bathroom.

Source: Men of Clay: “Split Second” (Jan 10, 2006)

I am no writer or critic but I’ve read enough to recognise clever writing.

It doesn’t preach and it doesn’t ramble. The writing is direct yet the point is subtle. Yet for all its subtlety, the message is clear: That there are more important things in life than work and the pursuit of material things.

Max the Mini Schnauzer

This is Max the Miniature Schnauzer.

Never thought I’d own a dog. It was my wife’s idea to get one. She’s a sly one, my wife. I’d refused to get one when she first suggested. Said they would shed and mess up the place. Then she started displaying library books on dogs on our dinner table. Naturally I picked up the books and started reading, and eventually I relented (she showed me which breeds didn’t shed, and what we could do to make them housetrained).

We even thought of the same name for the dog (though for different reasons).We went shopping for a dog soon after. I remember telling myself what a weird feeling it was — to shop for a “family member” (incidentally, I have this notion one should be prepared to treat your pet like a member of the family, i.e. give it love and care and not think that you have the option of throwing it away).

When people ask me if I’m a dog lover, I say I’m not. I just happen to like this particular one.

Tag: Schnauzer