The only reason why this blog entry is not titled “The Day I Lost my Virginity!” or “Oops…I Popped My Cherry!” is because I was told that they were probably the most common titles that all first-time bloggers like myself, would use.
(And for a brief moment in time, I thought that I was a very original and creative writer…)
To be absolutely frank, when I was asked if I was interested in contributing to the P65 Blog, my knee-jerk reaction to was, “Huh…Simi lai eh?!” (in Hokkien), which loosely translated into English means, “What on earth is that?!”
Yes…That’s how ‘in-tuned’ I was with the modern Internet movement known as blogging.
However, not a person to decline any opportunity to take on new “challenges”, I decided to boldly go where I had never gone before and visited this (supposedly) very well-known blog, which is apparently so well-known that only ‘I’ had never visited it before!
As a side note, I must confess that I had decided to do so, not because I felt flattered to be invited to share my views through some public forum. But rather, it is because I feel this compulsion to preserve my “face” and live up to my reputation as “the guy with 2 brain-cells”… a label which stuck with me, after someone who finds my candidness offensive, ‘suan-ed’ me openly (i.e. made a sarcastic remark) by saying, “If Junior has only 2 brain-cells, one would be for breathing, and the other for speaking up!”
2 Brain Cells
(Okay, okay…I know it’s not a very flattering label but hey, it is still better than being called “1 brain-cell” or “brainless”, right?)
Jokes aside… The initial feeling that I had when I first visited the old P65 Blog (a while back) was how challenging it was for me to enjoy my ‘visit’. Very notably, there were three key challenges in particular that stood out.
First of all, I had to convince myself that my eyesight was not failing due to premature ageing, but that the fonts really looked like rows of little dead ants lined up on a sandy beach.
Secondly, it was a great challenge for me to even begin (let alone finish) reading some of the very “cheem” or what the “cheem” people would term as “profound” entries that populated the site, in addition to some very leeeeeeeeeeeeengthy (but colourful) comments that followed.
And finally, I had to try very hard to understand how a whole bunch of people, who share the same passion for the exact same thing, can treat one another like mortal enemies and express views that are so diverse through the Blog, that makes even the difference between the Red and Violet of a rainbow pale in comparison.
Oh…BTW, this “thing” that they are all so passionate about, is none other than the little island that we all float on (& recently nearly drowned) together on, called Singapore a.k.a. The Lion City (which some of these quarrelsome blokes might even argue should actually be named “The Tiger City”)!
Come to think of it… Why would people not fight over the future of this little island, how life should be on it and how it ought to be governed, when the fate of their loved ones and most things that they hold dear, is so deeply intertwined with its unwritten future?! After all, this place is ‘Home’ to all, if not most of us.
Yes. All of us would probably have a different definition of what is ‘Home’. Even the dictionary has more than a handful of descriptions for it. But the one that really stands out in my mind is an elegant statement that my friend, Mr T.M. Ling, shared with me, which goes, “Home is a state of mind”.
Personally for me, home is certainly more than the shelter where my family resides in, or the place where I come from. It is where I would miss the “3Fs” (namely my Family, Friends and Food) most, when I am away from it for too long…The place where I belong.
I guess you can always take the boy out of the kampong, but you just cannot take the kampong out of the boy. In this case, my kampong happens to be just a “little red dot” on the world map, known as Singapore…and I feel absolutely at home in Singapore because Singapore is home to me.
This month we celebrate our National Day…The 45th birthday of our Nation and that of my home. Thus, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone who considers Singapore your home too, a very Happy National Day! And for the sake of our joint future, may your heart always remain at home in Singapore, no matter where your mind and body might be.
I shall end my maiden post with 2 of my all-time favourite songs, which coincidentally shares the same title but are written and performed in different languages. They sure put me in an appreciative mood during this period of celebrations and I truly hope that they can tug at your heartstrings as much as they do to mine too…Enjoy!
‘Home’ by Michael Bublé
‘家’ by Kit Chan 陈洁仪
Lee Junior is a semi-retired stay-home dad who enjoys spending time with his children, a lot more than working hard for money to spend on them. While he strives to be an attentive father, he tries very hard to avoid attracting the attention of his own father, who probably regards him as the ultimate underachiever of all times. Besides his No.1 belief that children are the overlooked 8th Wonder of the World, Junior also believes that the human mind is like a parachute...It works best when open.