FUNNYACCENT

Inner Clock Ticking

After double shift work from Monday to Friday I thought I could stay in bed until noon this morning. Unfortunately, by 8 a.m I was wide awake. I tossed around kicked off my quilt, pulled up my quilt, rolled onto my quilt, but my internal clock was ticking.........tick, tock, tick, tock plus the pigeons outside my windows making all the noises they possibly could. They thought I have forgotten all about them. No, I have not my beaky friends.

Now that DNC convention is over, everything is back to normal. No more bag search on the trains. No more polices in black uniforms and guns at the train stations. They had their reasons to do what they did, but I doubt it anybody is fool enough to carry any type of weapons or explosive devices when they know the security is on alert. To bring out more polices doesn't guarantee our safety. The sad thing is we are pawns trap in their games.

Where Are Those Children?

Maybe I'm tired, maybe I've been neglecting my morning run I couldn't think straight, maybe I'm from different time, but I think our children are destructive, angry and violent. Everyday I walk pass a little park from subway station to my apartment. This little park used to be an empty space, just a narrow path lining up by oak trees. People use it as a short cut to the main street. Now, it has half dozen solid steel benches painted in black. Nine hemisphere planets scattered across the park. These planets have been pounded, hit and hammered by some children who live in this area.

A young boy about five or six years old stood on top of planet Jupiter. He held a yellow tricycle up over his head. His three buddies stood around him below cheered him up. With all his mighty he threw the tricycle on a ground. The tricycle hit the ground, thumphh..a front wheel broke off and rolled away. More cheers from his buddies. The young boy's face glowed as a gladiator had just killed a lion in front of thousands of spectators. The tricycle doesn't look much like a tricycle anymore. Crooked handle bars, missing wheels and small parts scattered on the ground. One of the boys picked up a paddle and hit the Jupiter’s surface over and over.

After fourth attempt, the young gladiator, jumped onto the ground, joined his buddies to give a bike a final kick. After a few times, they raced to the other side of the park. All the way to my apartment, I keep thinking, what are these children angry at? Where is this destructive behavior come from? I’ve seen children many years ago, picking up broken toys from a trash, and fixed them. Where are those children?

Where Did Those Times Go?

I used to roll my eyes when I heard old folks comparing their good old days to my then modern generation.
Now, I understand what they yearned for, they felt they lost in place. They missed the lazy afternoon when they could doze off under the shade of rambutan trees after a long day in a rice field. Time crawled like an ant carried a cube of sugar, heavy but sweet.
Children had manners, young people were polite and respectful. Strangers were kind. Everybody looked for for each other.
Now, I see through their, I miss my good old days. I miss my childhood. I miss the games we played. We were not poor either we were rich. But the happiness and security were abundance.
I asked my mother a while ago over the phone, did she ever worried when I was a kid, worried about child predators, lurking behind the trees, licking their lips. I was hardly at home when I was a kid. Flying the kites on sunny, windy afternoon, climbing the trees trying to see what was in the bird nest, wading the stream to catch the peacock fishes among other things that caused scrathes and cuts on my arms and legs.
"No." she said.
"Why?"
"Because there were no "child molestors' in those days."
I miss those days.

Chicken Scratches In My Notebook

Ants Under My Eyelids

Ants crawl under
my eyelids
thye move, they stop
and they bite

The ants won't
go away
unless I grab
a pillow and throw
myself on my bed

If I could get
a pinch of nap
in a subway
I will be fine

A Lesson Away From Home

Sometimes it takes a long way from home for a person to learn a lesson. That's what happened to me. I've learned how it is felt to be a minority when I moved to this city more than a decade ago. As a Malay, I was born, grew up in Malaysia, I never saw anybody as minority or majority. People are referred to their ethnicity: Malay, Chinese, Indian and Native people.

When I was seven years old, I was at my grandmother's house when I witnessed something that embedded in my brain for a long time.
Grandmother's house was built on two acre lands. Behind her big typical Malay house she had almost a hundred coconut trees. My mother said, those coconut trees were planted when she was a young girl. Every three months, a matured coconuts were plucked down. Grandmother sold the coconuts directly to a small coconut oil manufacturer.
One Sunday morning, I saw an Indian man talking to my grandmother at the bottom of the kitchen stairs. He stood with his back straight. He had no shirt on, his dark skin was as dark as velvet night glistening under the morning sun. He was skinny as stick but he had a pair of legs I never saw a grown man posessed before. Many years later I understood why he had a well shaped legs with muscles at the right places. It was from years of climbing of thousands of coconut trees.

I went back to the kicthen to ask my mother who the Indian man was. "Oh......that Muthu, he's been climbing your grandmother's coconut trees for many years."
I was on the ground before my mother finished her sentence. I never saw a man climbing coconut trees before. This is going to be fun, I thought. When we lived in Kelantan, they used monkeys to pluck off the coconuts from the trees.
My mother called out from the kitchen door asking me not to stand too close to the trees. When Muthu saw me, he nodded his head, "Kichi..,"(little one) . His teeth sparkled.
My curious eyes watched every move he made. He moved to a nearest tree, picked a worn out rope as big as my arms. Both ends were tied together. He dropped the rope on his right foot. He flicked the foot and the rope nestled on his ankle. He slid his left foot in it. With an ease he jumped off the ground, and both of his feet planted on tree. The roped held his feet together. His hands clasped the tree trunk. Before I blink, he was already half way, teen feet above the ground. He looked down at me and said, "Little one, go away from the tree, please." I moved two phases. He shook his head. "A little father, little one." He pointed to the mangosteen tree. At the same time I heard grandmother sharp voice telling me stay away from the coconut trees.
Within two hours, Muthu already cleared half of the coconut trees. Everytime he got to the ground, I ran over to him. "Do you climb the trees everyday?" "How many trees you climb?" "Do you have a daughter like me?".
"Not everyday, some weeks I climb more trees than other weeks."
"Maybe thousands, I don't know."
"Yes, I have a daughter, she likes to ask questions like you too." When he told me his daughter, his eyes gleamed.

Then I heard my mother called out my name. I ran back to the kitchen stairs. My mother was standing at door. She had a tray in her hand. A pitcher of of ice water and a glass. My mother came down the stairs and handed the tray to me. "Give this to Muthu and ask him if he cares for roti chanai later."
I walked back to Muthu. His sweat dripped from his body as he'd just came out from a bath. He was drying his back when I got back to him. He dropped the cloth and took the tray from my hand.
He poured the ice water into the class.
"Little one drink ice water?" he asked.
"I don't like ice."
"You don't?"
"Uhh...,uhh.." I shook my head.

Muthu brought the glass near his mouth, at the same time he looked up as he was looking at the sky. Without touching his lips to the glass, he poured the ice water into his mouth. His adam apple moved up and down while the ice water flowed without a spill.
I watched with my mouth opened.
He emptied the glass and put it down in the tray. "Hmm...the water is sweet, little one."
Finally I found my voice. "Why did you drink like that?"
"Drink like what?" His eyes twinkled. He knew what I was talking about.
"Why you didn't touch the glass. The glass is clean."
"Little one, I'm pariah, you ask grandmother, she will tell you."
"What is pariah?"
"Your grandmother will tell you." He nodded his head and moved to another tree. "Go back to your tree little one."

I ran back to the house and dashed up the stairs, breaking one of many grandmother 'don't' she set for us. Never run up or down the stairs. My mother sat on the floor mat, slicing the eggplants.
"Mak, what is pariah?"
My mother put down the knife and looked at me. The combination of horror and worried crossed her face.
"Where did you hear that word?"
"Muthu told me he is pariah." I told mother what Muthu did when he drank the ice water.

That morning I learned about the caste in Indian culture for the first time. My mother told me, grandmother had repeatedly asked Muthu not to do it. "Malay don't practice caste." Grandmother told him. "I don't care what they do out there, but when you are here, you are like us." My mother repeated what grandmohter said to Muthu.

"So, why he still drink ice water like that?" I wondered.
"He's used to it. It's not easy to break what we use to do everyday." My mother picked up the knife and continued to slice the eggplant into a bowl of water. The water rippled when the eggplant fell into it.
Before I got up, my said something I remember until this day.
"We come from the same source. When we die we will become the earthcreatures meal."
I didn't really understand then, but over the years, my mother's words have rooted in my brain.

How Do I Say "I Love You" In Mango Language?

My father said I have a heavy hand. For years I've been trying to peel mango skin in one swift motion without cutting the skin off half-way. "The trick is", my father taught me "to press the sharp knife lightly to the mango skin and move your hand counterclockwise."
"The knife must be sharp. Dull knife wouldn't do," he added. Everytime I eat mango, I do exactly the way my father showed me. After a dozen or so attempts, finally I master the skill of peeling the mango skin in one motion, but I still cut it too deep. The result is, I get the peeled mango smaller than it's supposed to.
"You got a heavy hand." my father said after I showed him how I peeled my mango. I knew what he meant. My mother said I have a heavy hand too. Everytime I prepared the dishes, I endup having more than I intended. If I prepared the meals for four people, I would be having two extra servings.

Right before my father's retirement from army, my family bought a piece of land in Taiping, a small town on northern part of Malaysia. After the house was built, my mother planted three mango trees. Two of them survived the heavy rain we had after six years they were planted. I don't exactly remember how old the trees were when they started to bear fruits. But they sure grew fast. During my five years of high school I was away at the boarding school, but I remember watching them in awe everytime I went home during the school holidays. They grew higher and bigger every time I went home. One day, when parents visited me on weekend, they brought a plastick bag full of ripen mangoes.
"This is from our backyard", my mother beamed. My mother took out eight 15 kidney shaped mangoes out of the plastic bag. Their orange reddish skin. My mother took out a six inches knife with a ivory handle from her pocket book and gave it to my father. My father removed the cover and took one of the ripen mangoes and started to peel its skin. I was drooling watching my father skillfully peeled the skin. When he got to the bottom of the mango, the coiled skin fell on the table, like a snake coming out from hibernating. He sliced the mango into a small tupperware. Before the second slice fell into the container, the first slice was already in my mouth.
The sweet and juicy taste exploded in my mouth. "Mak, it's so sweet." I said to my mother. She handed her handkerchief to wipe the juice from my chin. Right there, I ate three mangoes right there from the trees my mother planted a few years back.
"Share the rest of the mangoes with your friends," my father reminded me before they left.

Over the years, my mother's mango trees bore thousands of fruit. One of the trees on the left was popular among the pregnant women in our community. Malay pregnant women love young mango. According to them my mother's mango trees produce the crunchiest young mango they ever had. During the mango season, my mothers backyard become a popular spot for pregnant women. They know my mother wouldn't turn them away. No matter what she was doing, she would went out to the back yard to get those mangoes for them.

The last time I went home for a visit, there was only one mango tree left. The one on the left which was popular among the pregnant women was gone. It grew too big and too shady, my mother's new next door neighbor complained to my mother. They said the tree overshadowed their new extended kitchen. "But I'm glad, your father's favorite tree is still around." said my mother. Her eyes were misty but she had smile on her face.

Seeing Negative Space From My Childhood Dreams

I have four drawing pads under my bed which I used three years ago when I took up a drawing class at Cambridge Adults Education Center. I'd always wanted to take up a drawing class since I was in high school. Unfortunately, when I got 11 aggregates (the best students got eight aggregates from eights subjects) I was put into science stream class. Arts and Malay Literature were not taught in science stream class then. I hated the two years I was in science stream class. But, it was a long time ago.
Anyway, I found six drawings I did in the class which I like very much. My abundance ThankYou to Mr. David Lazarus (my drawing instructor) who taught me to draw what I see and not what I think I see.

Never Say Never When You ARe In a Book Store

Everytime I am in New York, I make sure to go to my favorite place - Strand Book Store which carrries 8 miles of books. B couldn't drive me to the city, so I take number 4 train and get off at Union Square. Strand Book Store located on 12th Street, two blocks away from Union Square subway stop. I promise myself not to stay too long, just look for the three books I've been trying to get since two months ago. It's a huge tempyation when I am in the store. It's not easy to ignore all the books line up from floors to ceilings. Every corner, every where I turn, I see books, books, books.

I'm glad the store has narrow aisles which is impossible to make anybody feel comfortable to stand for a long time. Forget about sitting down on the floor which I like to do when I am at Barnes and Nobles or Border Book Cafe. Every two seconds somebody bumps into you while you are trying to get comfortable. But, book lovers will make themselves comfortable no matter where they are as long as long as they have books in their hands.

I hate it when I couldn't keep my promise to myself. After three hours in the store, I came out with eeleven books and $55.70 poorer. Well.............

Corny Ass Island On My Mind

This is the second time I visit Coney Island. The first time was two summers ago when B took me to meet his sister Jaq. She lives with her cat Princess on the 10th floor apartment facing the ocean.
I remember the first time we passed the amusement park, I had this nostalgic feeling. The feeling that I had been here before. The smell of hot dogs drifting in the humid late afternoon air and the sound of roller coaster high up in the air muddled my mind.
Wait a minute, I didn' experience any of this. I'd never set a foot to Coney Island until August 2002. It must have been the old, black and white movies I watched when I was a kid, and the books by American authors about their lives in Coney Island. How fascinating, I had too much exposure to the American lives through the old movies and books, my mind played trick on me.

Why Should I Approach You When Preaching Is Easier?

When I was in a high school, I read a short story in our local Malay newspaper (or maybe Dewan Bahasa magazine). It was about a man called Tamim. Tamim and his wife had two children, a young man in late teens and a young adolescent girl. They were poor and couldn't even sent their children to a high school. They lived at the far end of the village, away from villagers. Tamim supported his family as cattles herder, and his son helped him.
When his wife died, his son decided to move away to another village. After years passed by, Tamim desired to marry again mounted. But he knew, he had two problems. First, he was too poor to marry again. Second, he had a skin deseased that drove people away from him. The villagers, especially the women avoided him when they saw him. As a matter of fact, Tamim and his daughter were an outcast.
Tamim's daughter grew up as a young woman. One night, Tamim approached his daughter. One thing led to another, Tamim's daughter got pregnant. As her daughter's stomach grew bigger, Tamim wouldn't let his daughter went outside the house. The villagers who never gave a second thought about Tamim's family started to wonder what was going on because they hardly saw his daughter outside the house anymore.

One night, the rain was pouring. Tamim's daughter was ready to give birth. Thunders and lightning held Tamim back to go out to get help. Tamim's daughter begged him to get help. As Tamim ready to go out in the stormy night, his daughter delivered a baby. A baby cried drowned in a heavy rain. A few minutes after the baby was born, there was a bright light across the pitch dark night. A lightning struck
the little house at the edge of the village and everybody in it. When the rain stopped, three dead bodies were on the floor.

I knew it was a fiction, but the story bothered me a great deal for a long time. I remember the title called "Anak Cucu Tamim" -Tamim's ChildGrandChild. I knew it was some kind of moral story to teach people how the incest relationship ends.
But as a fifteen years old girl, I saw it as unfair to Tamim and his daughter, the questions swirled around my head was: Where were the villagefolks? Where were the imam, the mosques attendees, the village women who supposed to help the girl when she was in need. Where were they?