Last Sunday night, I had a little mooncake celebration with some of the PRC students who are currently studying at NUS. There were altogether 15 of us.
We had a great time of sharing, having fun, eating mooncakes, playing around with laterns and sparklers.
Because the group is not very big, we were able to give the PRC students a sense of feeling of family. It's really not easy to come all the way to Singapore and study on their own, when their own families are back in China. For them, they have to stay here for at least 10 years.
One of my close friends, Stephen shared these words that day:
举头望明月
， 低头思故乡。 (It means when you look at the moon, you will think of your family. It's from a very famous Tang poem.)
He had been in Singapore for 8 years. Every year, during 中秋节, he will always think of his family back in Malaysia. This kind of feeling, people like me would never really understand. All my life, I had never been away from my family physically for more than 5 months.
Do learn to cherish your family. It's not perfect, but it's the only one you have.
I suddenly thought of all the childhood games that I used to play: catching, five stones, "hantam bola", 1-leg, erasers flipping and hopscotch. I will go on to do a short introduction on each of them.
Catching For this game, out of a group of children, 1 will be selected as the 'catcher'. Then this catcher will run around the whole place chasing after any of the other children. If he managed to catch any of his friend (by touching him), that friend will take over the 'catcher' role and everything will start all over again. It's really fun and everybody will run and hide and run and hide.
Five Stones Come on guys. This is NOT a game just for girls. I played it too when I was young. Basically, there are 5 small bean bags, as shown in the photo on the left. The players will take turn to do all kinds of things with the bean bags. For more details, go to this website.
1-Leg This is a real classic. The players will be divided into 2 groups. One group will have to cross a certain distance by running. The other group's players will each be constantly hopping around with only 1 leg. These 1-leggers will try to touch the other group's players. If anyone from the running group is being touched, they will be considered 'dead'. Heh..
Hantam Bola My all-time favorite!! Players are divided into 2 groups. Each group will have a certain number of table tennis (not tennis) balls. Both groups are to throw the balls at one another. If a player is hit by the ball and the ball falls to the ground, his number of lives will deducted. If the player is hit, but yet, manages to hold on to the ball, the thrower will minus 1 life then.
Erasers flipping I used to go crazy over this. Everyday, I would buy 1 eraser (those with flags). Then I would play against my friends with the erasers I bought. To put it simply, each player will take turns to flip his own eraser until 1 eraser lies on top of the other. The person's whose eraser is below will lose. (I was quite good at this!)
Hopscotch Draw the hopscotch. Jump within the boxes drawn. Cannot skip any step unless the stone you throw lies on the squares. It's a great great game. But I wasn't really that agile and didn't excel in it. Hopscotch 101 is an interesting website that teaches how to play the game real well. =)
I'll be starting a new series of posts on my life story. I believe that everybody has a story to tell.
Me? I was born into a family of 7 - my grandparents, my parents, my elder brother, my elder sister and I in 1981.
My brother and sister are older than me by 7 years and 5 years respectively. Hence, they don't really interact much with me when I was young. The only thing that drew me and my brother together was the computer. He taught me how to hack games at the age of 10.
My primary school life at Maha Bodhi was mainly filled with memories of me and my friends. We played games like catching, five stones, "hantam bola", 1-leg, erasers flipping, hop-scotch, Chinese chess, etc. (Compared to now, kids are usually playing PSP, Gameboy, Nintendo DS, etc)
One of the key highlights of my primary school life came when I was in Primary 5. My Maths teacher, Mrs. Teo chose me to represent the school in a Maths compeititon in the Chinese High. Though I didn't win any award, I gained a lot of confidence because I felt that my teacher trusted me.
Futhermore, the compeition exposed me to the compounds of the Chinese High. It was really really huge with water and hills and many many classrooms. I was captivated by it and that propelled me to choose the Chinese High after the release of my PSLE results in 1993.
A simple action of my Maths teacher caused my life to be changed. It just goes to show we can never underestimate the long-lasting effects that a teacher's actions (or lack of actions) can bring to a student's life.
Today, I had a great time doing canoeing at MacRitchie Reservoir. The above photos showed how we looked after 1 hour of fun. Yes, I think it's quite exhaustive, but fun.
Last Sat, I watched Evan Almighty on the big screen. Here's a short description of the comedy movie.
"A newly elected congressman, Evan, was tasked by God to make an ark. He risked his career, his family and basically, his life to get the ark done. And because of what he has done, he was able to save the lives of his family, colleagues and neighbours from a broken dam."
The whole movie is full of funny jokes. I can't stop laughing throughout almost the whole show. But beyond the laughter, I do feel that this show does have some lessons that we can learn from.
1. Courage When Evan received the calling from God to build the ark, he devoted his life to it. Despite people (including his colleagues) laughing at him, he continued. At one point, even his beloved family left him. Yet he persevered on.
Courage - to do the right thing even if the people around you do not understand.
2. Love Evan's family drew together to do this apparently 'silly' act of building the ark after God enlightened Evan's wife.
"When you prayed to God for greater intimacy within the family, do you think God will just give you the intimacy? Or do you think that God will give you an opportunity for this to happen?"
Evan's wife realised that this whole thing about building the ark can help bring the family closer together than even before. She brought the children back to Evan, and the 5 of them went on to build the ark together as a family. That is love.
3. Kindness In the show, it was repeated a few times. How can we change the world? We can change the world by doing acts of kindness one at a time. Always be a blessing to those around you. Don't be calculative.
And when you do that, the atmosphere around you in the workplace, school or classroom will changepositively. People will be smiling more and be more cheerful. Don't wait for someone to give on to you. Be that somebody who gives.
