男人之好言

~ 在网络上有看过，有听说过吧？

十岁的男人是柠檬茶，人性初显露，淡淡的青涩醇味，回味甘甜。

二十岁的男人是雨花茶，初识情怀，至真至纯，滋味鲜凉而气色清香。

三十岁的男人是碧螺春茶，阅历人生是一种去粗取精过程，去除了浮躁又保持了香味而具有了独特美的风格。

四十岁的男人是西湖龙井茶，简单中体现了完美，成熟中体现了高贵。而又让这高贵是如此可以亲近于人。

五十岁的男人是乌龙茶，经历了岁月磨炼，开始磨炼岁月。事过千万，不需过分显露，真情自然涌出。

六十岁的男人是祁门红茶，经自然调和，收日精月华，滋味浓厚。

七十岁的男人是银针白毫，已不必看见全人，只见其点滴，便可勾勒出全部风华，人性已飘荡其身形之外。

过了七十岁的男人集众茶的甘香于一体，经历了所有性情中事而观止。

茶淵独聚

心血来潮。独自到茶淵品茶。

整十多年没来了。大致上没什么改变。感觉却全然不同了。

今天选了品尝福建东北部政和县盛产的上等白毫银针。白毫银针是白茶中的珍品，曾荣获“首届全国十大名茶”称号。它的茶叶色白如银，纤细如针。有听过它的传说吗？

用这茶具沏白毫银针不太恰当。没关系。享受这里的宁静也不错。

有好一段日子没有如此孑然其中，心境恬淡。

我对品茶和茶具有浓厚的兴趣。各种类的茶需要不同的茶具沏茶。我所拥有的茶具，都是辛辛苦苦从中国扛回来的。至今，最喜欢的一套茶具是我表妹一家人送的。表妹知道我喜爱乌龙，就定期从福建省寄上好的茶叶过来。

淡淡的茶香，召唤许多美好回忆。中学时曾经在这茶淵徘徊，度过许多欢乐时光。

都是往事了。 如今的我，也不再是往日的我了。我想，还是比较喜欢现在的我。

不知道朋友中有没有志同道合的爱茶人士。蓝月，有空吗？
平静的下午，很快就过去了。感悟已经足够了。

一定再来。是先静心，再品茶，让心灵随茶香弥漫，任由心性，好不造作。


兴亡千古繁华梦，诗眼倦天涯。 孔林乔木，吴宫蔓草，楚庙寒鸦。 数间茅屋，藏书万卷，投老村家。 山中何事，松花酿酒，春水煎茶。 —《人月圆。山中书事》

Lions and Tigers and Bears....And Oh My!

My Grandmother

I remember her as quite the disciplinarian. She favored boys over girls. Oddly, she favored her children over her grandchildren.

Tirelessly, she ran an efficient household for my grandfather. They were soulmates and shared a lifetime of love.

I can't say I'm upset over her passing. In fact, I'm glad that she doesn't have to suffer this loneliness anymore.

She gave up on living when he died. She wasn't there with him. But at the moment he gasped his last, she somehow knew. Then she retreated into her own little world and shut out everyone else. She grew skeletal. Her face shrunk and became pallid. Her eyes became dull and sunken. Reticence was her. The change in her was dramatically depressing.

That day, she stopped talking completely and decided not to wake up. The doctors were reluctant to call it a coma. But after a battery of tests, they still couldn't explain why she was unresponsive. Little by little, I believe her soul left her breathing body. I don't think she felt any pain.

Such a coincidence that they placed her in the same ward, the exact same bed as my grandfather. I wonder if she knew that.

With my grandfather, I could feel him fighting; fighting so hard till he realized that this was one fight he couldn't win and it was time to rest. With my grandmother, all I saw was just an empty husk. I couldn't feel any awareness. She didn't have any lingering consciousness at all.

Without spiritual sustenance, her physical body soon stopped functioning.

And I know my grandparents are now joyfully reunited.

for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
it is in dying that we awake to eternal life.
~St. Francis of Assisi

The Real World- Singapore Style

Today was worse. Had kids who said 'thank you' and were scolded by their parents for that. The adults admonished, "Say 'thank you' for wat??? No need lah. Just take!"

People grumbled aloud when we said we didn't have food vouchers to give away. People sneer at me for putting on an accent when I spoke in English, and get this, even Mandarin. I mean, I already twisted my tongue to Singlish! Hallo, I also went to school in Singapore like you did lor. How much of an accent can I have??? People tug at my sleeves insistently for their giveaways. Even when I was talking to people, I had some hands shoved to my cheeks to get my attention. They might as well have slapped me.

I'm rather bewildered by the vagrants I came across these two days. Perhaps 'vagrant' is not quite the right word to describe them. Maybe 'drifter' would be more appropriate to describe majority of them. Many shared the same ripe smell of infrequent bathing. They had dirt caked to their skin. They looked similar - they shuffled around with plastic bags wanting only freebies and were not shy to ask you for it, again and again.

I counted 30 different drifters who came round to the booths day after day, hour after hour to get the free brochures, pens, coasters, shopping bags, etc. Especially the plastic pens. They didn't care that we recognized them. They didn't care that they were depriving other people a right to these giveaways. They didn't care that they were interupting our conversation with people genuinely interested in the information we offered. They didn't care what we thought of them.

Rudeness prevailed.

Apparently no Singaporean lives below the poverty line today. But the behavior and speech I witnessed these two days were what I experienced in countries where half the population live below poverty lines. For the drifters and those I assume to be in the lower-income groups, I cannot even begin to imagine how the final 7% GST would affect their lives.

While Singapore's infrastructure is seamless and its economy stable, I'm not so certain that its social fabric is quite as comfortable. In fact, the obvious dichotomy of visitors to the booths was a complete irony in light of the exhibition's theme. I'm not sure if the powers-that-be noticed that. With so many people feeling like their basic needs are not even met, I'm not sure that they believed in Building Our Singapore. Today, I was made to feel damn ashamed to be Singaporean.

The Real World

I was on shift duty all day manning the agency's booth and putting on the brightest smile for strangers. Come late afternoon, I was ready to collapse in an indignified heap. I tell you, I have enormous respect for retail staff who have to stand for 8hrs a day.

I had brochures, bookmarks and plastic pens to give away. I wasn't even trying to sell anything. Well, maybe just information to anyone who bothered to stop and listen. I was quite aghast at how rude people could be and how hard-up they were for inexpensive freebies.

Never mind the vagrants who kept coming back day after day to grab our giveaways. I didn't want to guess what they were doing with the items. There was a period when I took out fresh stocks and suddenly, I was crowded in by this whole bunch of people with outstretched hands eagerly waiting for the giveaways as though they were free food or medicine. I had to stop my eyes from rolling at what I heard from the passers-by.

Here, I translate and quote,

"Give me the pen. Bookmark useless."

"Give me quick!!! Faster lah. So slow one you."

"What is this ah? Got free bag or not?"

"I want 2 pens. No, give me 2 more. Oh, another 3 can? I want to give to my mother, father, brother, sister, aunty.....I got 4 aunties..., uncle....."

"You also don't know all the answers. Ask you for what? So stupid also can work here meh?"

"Take all these, got value or not?? Can sell and make up the 2% more GST I have to pay next year? Like that I take whole box can?"

"I got pay taxes okay! So you better give me all these free."

Wah lau. They win. I still had to smile and nod at them. Just for 2 days only, thank goodness. Tomorrow is another day.

r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r

Poem by E.E.Cummings.

The grasshopper nearly landed in the pot of hot soup on the stove. I took one look at it, jumped nearly as far as it did. It was huge!! Eiooww. At least it was a grasshopper and not a flying cockroach. 

I used to have great fun playing with crickets and grasshoppers as a kid.  I don't do that now, but I hold no desire to catch them anymore. Rather they hurry up and fly away, out of the flat.

Went over and it didn't move. Picked it up and gently placed it outside the balcony ledge where it should hop over in the direction of the cooler night air instead of straight back into the heat and fire.