Kenna Arrow

Oso has a nice formatted summary on the meme game of the GVO community, though he does not include all the victims of this game.  I am amused/amazed by the stories of Tharum, Rebecca, Ethan Ndesanjo, Nicholas, Mong and more.  This reminds me there is a tag sticking on me too.

I was sitting at a corner and enjoying to see the tags flying, hoping it can stick to more people, until I kenna arrow by Jen.  “Kenna arrow” is one of the few Singlish terms I learn.   

I have actually been shot in Chinese once.  Well, since this blog is meant to bridge the cultures, I ought to do again in English. 

I promised Jen I would do it in about two weeks, which turned out to be two months.  My apologies, and I make my five longer to compensate.

1. I do not have a diverse family background as Jen does, but I feel my parents’ experiences are interesting. 

They grew up in Indonesia.  When the first anti-Chinese wave struck Indonesia in 1960’s, they decided to move back China, to serve their motherland, leaving many other relatives and friends behind.  It was relatives and friends who help me come to Singapore.

When China opened its door, my parents decided to change their track again, moving to Hong Kong in the 1990’s. 

In China, traveling was far more difficult than it has been nowadays.  While I cannot know how many difficulties they have experienced, I know how much trouble I have when I am moving back China to start my new venture.

It seems their life repeats a bit in mine.

2. I lived in a church of Zhaoqing until I was 8.  It was a church known to have  affiliation with Matteo Ricci. 

During the time when “religions is the spiritual opium,” the local government confiscated the church building and made it into a public housing.   The church was renovated into a two-storey, and divided into some 10 rooms(cubicles) by plywood. 

My family took one room in the second floor.  The kitchen was in an opposite cabin downstairs and the W.C., if you called it W.C., was some 100 meters away.  

Despite all the inconvenience in daily life, I was very happy living there because I enjoyed lots of fun with my little pals in the community. 

The community shared some communism characters.  It consisted with people from different backgrounds.  There had engineer, government officials, librarian, mechanic, worker, and painter.  It was a crowded neighborhood, but  it maintained an ambience of relaxation and mutual-respect. 

We, the kids, did not have many toys so that we invented a lot of games to play.  We started to play as soon as we got up, and came back when our moms shouted our names at the main gate in front of the building at night. 

It’s all sun-shining days to me.

3. Ory walked herself home at her 3 1/2.  Less notably, I did something similar at an older age. 

As China was opening up, we got better housing.  We moved to another building. 

I was bored with the new place in the beginning.  So I decided to visit my old friends in the church one day with my younger sister, who was about 3 years old. 

We started after our parents went to work in the afternoon.  It took us almost one hour to find the church.  The city was not so big.  It was much much safer than now.

The only two kids left in the building were a brother and a sister.  Unfortunately, they were locked in their home by their parents.  It was normal at that time when both parents were working. 

In spite of the older brother’s strong objection, the sister slid out a pair of pliers and a screwer.  I tried very hard to break the lock.  In the end, even the brother tried to help, shouting and jumping as if it could make his advice more effective. 

After almost 2 hours, at the age of 8, I used up all my strength and intelligence to break the door only to see that their dad came back from work.  He was perplexed initially, but soon found out what was going on after interrogated the brother.  He beat the sister very hard. 

It was not a surprise to me.  I waited outside until the sister stopped crying and went home depressedly with my sister, who had no clue of what happened. 

I even did not have a chance to see the sister’s face at that time.

One month later, I got even more depressed as I found out from a Greek mythology how Zeus sneaked into a castle to save a girl. 

All right, I am not Zeus but I should have done a better job in opening the door. 

4. After some time I settled in the new place, I made some new friends in the new community.

I used to have all sorts of fancy ideas, such as putting some chemicals into the water to make the goldfish become real Gold fish, or walking through the wall by saying some long magic words which I found in a book (not the Harry Potter).  Luckily, being a lazy boy, I seldom put those ideas into actions. 

I did try once when I was so fed up with my mom’s nagging that I wanted to find a place to escape.  I thought of my friends.  I often fought with those kids, but we shared the same misery apparently. 

I got together a few of them and we quickly reached an agreement on digging a house under the ground.  I drew a design paper and we started at the flat land behind our building. 

It was an ambitious plan, considering the land filled with steel bars, bricks, rocks, etc.  We tried a whole morning.  All we had done was a 1 meter deep hole on the ground. 

My dad thought we were making a trap and stopped us.  He actually sparked the idea. 

We decided to turned this tiny dent of the universe into a trap.  The next step was to get somebody fall into the trap.

I still remembered the expressions of those trapped kids when they were falling down the trap.

Though this was not so innovative compared with what John had done, I smile in my mind as I am writing this memory.

5. By the time I was able to read the columns on newspaper, I believed I found the solution to the messy world.

I found a rival, my dad who majored in political science and always denied me.  I therefore raised debates with my dad.  The dinner table became the battle field.  My dad seemed not care for my irreverence and took the challenges from me. 

Guess what, I was the person always defended socialism.

Until now, I still defend socialism once in a while on the net, though it is not often so. 

I miss the old days.

 

Finally, I can clear this on my to-do-list. 

It is my turn to shoot the arrows. haha…

Preetam, you should not run away this time. 

Portnoy, I know you are going to the army, so you will have many interesting stories.  And I want to know what made you become so Green.

Oiwan, I still don’t know which blog is yours.

David, you always supply ammunitions to this blog.

Undersound, make some noises this time please.

丁小美, you can tell us about food and music.

Danny, you have a lot to tell about China’s education.

Added on March 5, 2007

Oliver, I know you have three blogs.  I am sure you are able to cover five different meme on each of your blog.  That is 3 * 5 = 15. 🙂