Saturday 24 July 2010
Thursday 22 July 2010
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Monday 19 July 2010
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His Father's Son
Written by Raymond Han, 1999
The casket rolled on the conveyor belt into the furnace. Cries broke out in the hall as Pei Wen sobbed in his thoughts. He could not allow his tears to show. He was a man after all though he was only sixteen years old. As he knelt next to his mother, he could feel the anger and frustration in her cries. Aunt Caroline was by Mother’s side, holding his mother in her bosom and crying above his mother’s head. Several metres away, bereaved relatives of another dead man lined up in front of his coffin, ready for the cremation ceremony. But Pei Wen’s mind was already far away.
He was thinking hard about the past few weeks. Things had been moving all too quickly for him and his family. His father was alive just last week. He had taken his own life exactly four days ago, on a Thursday when his mother was at the bank, sorting out her accounts with the bank manager. She was the first to find his body, slumped in the toilet bath on the ground floor and frothing at the mouth. By the time the paramedics arrived at the house, it was already too late. Andrew had stopped breathing and his wife was in a daze. There was noone else in the big house to tell her what to do next. She was lost. It was later that morning that Aunt Caroline, whom his mother had contacted, and her mother stepped into the house at 98 Tampines Road.
“Yoke Kuen, Oh Yoke Kuen,” Aunt Caroline spluttered.
“Oh Yoke Kuen, I’m so terribly sorry to hear the news.”
That brought tears down his mother’s face again. Her face was sallow enough but now her cheeks sagged as well, revealing lines of wrinkles normally kept hidden behind her makeup. She was all of forty-two, a cashier turned housewife after she married Pei Wen’s father. He was a bank manager in the Private Banking Department of a large foreign bank based in New York.
“Caroline, thanks for coming, I ..I.really don’t know what to do,” sobbed his mother.
The two of them needed no more words between them. They had been bosom friends since young and understood perfectly how the other had felt. The tragedy brought them even closer. Aunt Caroline was his mother’s cousin. Both of them had spoken to each other on the phone the evening before when Aunt Caroline had advised his mother to close all her bank accounts immediately to avoid them being frozen by the government when his father was made a bankrupt. His father was sued successfully in court by his creditors – two stock broking companies – because he had failed to pay them for his huge contra losses in his share trading facilities with them. Thereafter, everything fell apart. As the banks came to know of the suits, they jumped into the bandwagon, cancelled his overdrafts, loans and credit cards. They, then, issued demands for his father to pay up his outstandings with them. Their house, which was mortgaged to a bank, was to be placed on the auction block by the bank as his father had failed to pay the last few instalments. His father’s employer, for whom he had slogged for seventeen years since graduation, had cast a blind eye at his predicament. His repeated pleas to his employer for financial assistance to tie him over the difficult period had failed to draw any sympathy. He had been left to fend for himself. The bank watched indifferently as his father faced lawsuit after lawsuit the past few months. It even placed a hold n his father’s current account with it, requiring him to obtain its approval before withdrawing any sum of money from his own account. It was, least to say, humiliating.
Each month, for the past four months, his father had to swallow his pride as he approached his colleague and friend, the officer in charge of current accounts, to get authorisation to release funds from his current account so that he could pay the household bills. The bank had cleverly arranged for the salary to be credited into his father’s current account and there was no other way for his father to make a withdrawal except through cashing his cheques personally at the counter. His father had tried to clear his own cheques through an account with another bank to avoid this humiliation. But, each time the cheques had been returned to him unpaid and marked “Refer to drawer”. When his father had inquired at the bank’s loan department, his colleague, Andy Tay, in charge of staff loans, had put it very clearly to him that he still hadloans to pay off and the bank had to ensure sufficient funds remained in the account for the loan instalments. Hence, the hold on his current account would remain.
By the time Aunt Caroline arrived at the house, Andrew’s body had been taken to Changi Hospital for examination by a pathologist, for he had died an unnatural death. While Yoke Kuen was groaning over the loss of her spouse, Aunt Caroline had the presence of mind to call up Pei Wen’s principal and it was he who came to Pei Wen’s class to break the news to Pei Wen. Pei Wen had dropped everything he was doing and hurried home, eyes clearly red with shock and disbelief. He regretted that he hadn’t been close to his father. His father had always come home well after he had retired to his bedroom and the two of them seldom spoke to each other. But, suddenly, his father ’s death had torn a hole in his heart, a hole so big, everything in it had fallen out and there was nothing left to occupy it. It was indeed a broken heart. He cried silently as he waited for the taxi. It was strange, just when he needed these things, they were never around. His tears, unable to find their way out, wetted his heart as he sat in the taxi. It was a long journey, perhaps, the longest he had ever taken in a taxi.
The roar of thunder jolted Pei Wen out of his thoughts. The drizzle outside the hall had changed into a downpour and the rain itself was now crying as if it had lost its mother. Its cries were so loud they drowned out all the wailing in the hall. Presently, the ceremony was over. It was time to go home. The group, a mixture of relatives, his mother’s close friends and ex-colleagues of his father, made their way out of the hall to the waiting chartered bus, umbrellas at the ready. His father’s ex-colleagues took their leave and left the crematorium in two cars.
Pei Wen led the way up the bus. In his hands, he clenched a black and white photograph of his father. His father’s remains would only be released to them in three days and they would have to make another trip to the Bright Hill Temple to inter the remains in an urn which would be laid to rest in the adjoining columbarium. The return journey was quieter. Occasionally, there was chattering in the back of the bus, but mostly, there was an uneasy silence. This bus, which was accustomed to incessant chattering from students and housewives during its weekday runs for the Singapore Bus Services, today seemed stripped of all its candour. Pei Wen had not spoken a word the whole day, but then he had always been a quiet and reserved boy, and kept his feelings pretty well hidden in his heart.
At last, the bus came to a stop outside the house. After unloading its human cargo, it left hurriedly, as if it was glad to be finally rid of the mourners. There were workmen dismantling the tent in the garden. Pei Wen was directed to a new altar in the living room where his mother took from his hands the photograph of his father and placed it ever so carefully in the centre, with the elder Lee looking at them from behind his spectacles. That photograph had been culled from his father’s passport. The Lees seldom took pictures together and it was most difficult to locate a befitting photograph of his father at such short notice. So, his mother, on the advice of the undertakers, had snipped off his father’s photograph from the passport and given it to the photo studio for enlargement and framing.
The living room which was unaccustomed to having so many visitors looked uncomfortably full.There were Pei Wen’s maternal grandparents; his three maternal uncles, their spouses and children; Aunt Caroline and her mother; Uncle Leslie, his father’s elder brother, and his wife; and a sprinkling of distant relatives from his mother’s side. All of them had earlier washed their faces with water from two pails strewn with pomelo leaves and were now helping themselves to food placed on two small tables at the side of the room opening into the garden.
“When do you have to move out?” asked Uncle Leslie.
“I really have no idea, perhaps next month, perhaps next week… I really do not know.”
“Yoke Kuen, have you found a place yet?”
Just then, Pei Wen’s grandma interrupted the conversation. Her voice boomed across the room.
“Nothing to worry about. Nothing to lose sleep over. Both of you can stay with me. You know very well my other bedroom is vacant. It just needs a little tidying up. No worry at all.”
“Thanks, Mother.”
“It’s all over. Just forget the past. You have got to carry on. Pei Wen is so young. You just leave the rest to me. I will arrange everything for you.”
“Yoke Kuen,” Uncle Leslie resumed, “If you need anything, I mean anything at all, come to me. Andrew was my brother after all.”
“It’s okay. I’ll manage somehow. I still have some money in the bank. Of course, I will have to get a job again, what type I just now can’t figure out. I’m still in a daze as it is and it will be some days before I can get myself together again. Still, don’t worry your head over us, we’ll manage, somehow.”
“My sister is a strong woman. She won’t give up just like that. I don’t see how she could marry that brother of yours. I mean, he’s got no backbone at all, fancy going away just like that and leaving her and poor Pei Wen alone. He didn’t spare a thought about them at all.”
“Teng Joo, this is not the time for such nonsense,” said his elder brother.
Teng Joo was Pei Wen’s second maternal uncle. He was one who never minced his words. He never could resist jabbing others when he felt like it. Pei Wen never once liked Uncle Teng Joo. He thought this uncle of his was a show-off from whose mouth would reel nothing but uncalled for remarks and ridicule. But, this time, the jibe at his father had some substance in it. Secretly, Pei Wen wondered why his father was so cruel as to leave him and his mother so early in life. Everyone would have to go, sooner or later. Why did his father take things into his own hands instead of leaving it to heaven? Try as he might, Pei Wen could find no answers to his questions. He wondered whether his mother had harboured such doubts in her mind. But, these few days, whenever he looked into her eyes, he saw nothing. Her eyes were devoid of expressions. It was as if her soul had left the body.
On the third day after the funeral, Pei Wen accompanied his mother to the Bright Hill crematorium. They were met on arrival by Aunt Caroline, who had taken a half day off from work. Together, they filed into the same hall where his father’s cremation ceremony had taken place. They took turns to pick up pieces of burnt ash which were the remains of his father and place them into a yellow urn on which was inscribed:
ANDREW LEE
BORN 16th July 1952
DIED 12th February 1989
The urn was then set to rest on the third level of one of many rows of shelves in the columbarium, differentiated from all other urns by a number “1129D” inscribed above the photograph. The Lee house was quiet the next few days. It was an uneasy calm, the kind that came before a storm. Pei Wen’s mother put on a strong front, seeing to his daily needs as before, pretending nothing had changed. But her usual cheerfulness had disappeared. When he had gone off to school, she would sit by the verandah, and stare blankly into the garden forhours. There was no one to accompany her; his grandma had to work and so had the rest of the relatives. But it was quite safe. She wouldn’t do anything foolish – she couldn’t or Pei Wen would be all alone.
The day of reckoning came barely a week later. Staff from the Public Trustees Department stuck a notice on their main door. It required them to move out of the house by the third day and leave all furniture intact. An official affixed a sticker bearing the seal of the department to every item of furniture . Nothing except clothing was to be removed from the house. Mrs Lee had earlier, on the advice of Aunt Caroline, moved over to her mother’s flat a few pieces of furniture dear to both her husband and her. She couldn’t fit any more things into the tiny bedroom and had left these in the house. She was now glad her precious things were safe.
The first night in his grandma’s flat was strangely uncomfortable to Pei Wen. Though he had slept over many times before, that night was new to him.
He couldn’t sleep. Perhaps, it was because there was no air-conditioner in the bedroom. Perhaps, it was the unending cornucopia of noises from upstairs and downstairs and the opposite block. Perhaps, it was the loud footsteps from the staircase behind the wall where he slept. Whatever the reason, Pei Wen tossed and turned until finally at four in the morning, he fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.
The next few nights were no different from the first. Pei Wen began to miss his own bedroom at 98 Tampines Road. He missed the quiet of the old neighbourhood. It was, indeed, a good place to study in, he realised, albeit a little too late. His mother, who slept in the bed across from his, got up many times in the night to go to the kitchen, whatever for, Pei Wen did not know andhe did not find out. He guessed she wanted to reminisce the past from the kitchen window and didn’t want to wake her up. Perhaps, it would do her a bit of good to escape from this world for a while. He, too, was guilty of such forays in class nowadays and could not complain.
It was difficult for Pei Wen to concentrate on his lessons in class. He would find himself subconsciously looking out of the French windows into the open field. But his teachers who normally would have barked at him now left him to his daydreams. His form teacher, Mr Koh, was worried for him as he was to take his “O” levels four months away. Mr Koh called on Mrs Lee one evening when Pei Wen was out and had a long chat with her. That night, when Pei Wen was about to sleep, his mother sat on his bed and spoke to him. She stroked his hair with a hand.
“Your father left us at the wrong time, but he had his reasons. You musn’t give up. You can’t give up. He was a strong man in spite of what other people have said so you mustn’t blame him for what he did. If you want to, go ahead and blame his employer. Blame his colleagues who wouldn’t lend him a helping hand. Blame him for having the wrong friends, but never blame him for leaving us. Your father was a proud man. He had been one all through his life and proud people cannot be humiliated constantly. They just can’t take it.”
She stopped for a moment to catch her breath and then continued.
“The only bank he worked for gave him an umbrella in the form of credit facilities when the weather was fine, and yet, when a storm was brewing, this same bank snatched it back from him and left him to the mercy of the elements. It is something a proud man finds hard to swallow. It is what made your father do what he did. He didn’t leave any notes for us, not even a word of goodbye. Perhaps, it is just as well. Your father was a man of few words. I understand how he must have felt. In fact, the very morning I was at the bank, I felt uneasy, as if lightning was to strike. That was about the only message your father sent me before his death. But, the two of us have to put the past behind us. We have to go on living. You have to get on with your life, and your studies- make your father proud of you.
Pei Wen soon woke up from his self-inflicted spell and began studying for his “O” levels in earnest. Nobody knew what drove him on these days, but everyone was unanimous in finding him a changed person. They didn’t mind, though.
The year of the pig arrived shortly. It was his first new year without his father. His mother had started work as a clerk in a property firm to support the family. Things had got better progressively. However, emotionally, his mother still needed more time to heal her wounds. More money had come in over the next few months, mostly from his father’s CPF account. His father, in his lifetime, had accrued some four hundred thousand dollars in this account. The Public Trustees were unable to get their hands on this sum of money as, under the law, CPF proceeds were detached from any claims on debtors. Though Pei Wen’s father had died a bankrupt, he was able to leave a sizeable inheritance to his family, untouched by any creditor.
February 1990 saw the release of Pei Wen’s GCE “O” level results. He had scored 6 “A1s” and 1″A2″, almost a miracle, considering the turmoil he had been through the previous year. His mother was elated at the news. More good news was to be heard. Over the next few years, Pei Wen immersed himself in his studies, first at a junior college and then at the National University of Singapore. He put everything else on the shelf. He never found time for relationships with anyone. He kept pretty much to himself. Soon, he distinguished himself in economics and won a first class honours in the subject. With his academic pursuits at a close, he entered national service and spent the next two-and-a-half years sweating it out in the combat field. When he completed his tour of duty, instead of taking a break like most of his mates, he pored over the classifieds in The Straits Times every morning.
He found his first job in a local bank as a retail loans officer. Just when the managers were starting to like him, as he had shown much promise, he resigned. Within a month, he had found another job with another local bank, this time as a personal financial consultant. And he would resign again after barely three months on the job. This strange practice of his went on for a few more times. But, he never had difficulty locating a job. After all, he had impeccable credentials.
Banks were looking out for people like him. Finally, it appeared as if he had found the right job at last, for he had lasted exactly four months on this latest job, that of a personal investment officer at Tai Hua Bank, a local group with twenty odd branches in Singapore. The year was 1997, roughly eight years after his father’s death. It was late May and he had been posted to Tai Hua Bank’s Serangoon Garden branch at Serangoon Garden Way. As a personal investment officer, he was responsible for all credit facilities at the branch, reporting directly to the credit department at head office in Cecil Street.
He struck up a friendship with the manager of the bank across the other street. They would go for lunches together. The manager could get along with this fine young man who topped his class at the university, though they had a gap of some twenty-five years between them. One afternoon, while they were having their meal at the Troika restaurant three doors from Pei Wen’s branch, Pei Wen broached the subject of property investment.
“Andy, you should buy another property now. The time is ripe for a killing. Trust me, it won’t be long before the market moves up again. You buy at the low end and sell high.”
“I don’t know. The property market has gone down quite a bit and the dust has yet to settle. It doesn’t look too good now.”
“Look! You know pretty well the government won’t allow the property market to collapse. They have got plenty of money invested in it through their proxy representatives, the statutory boards. Trust me. I majored in economics, you know. I can foretell trends.”
“But I don’t have enough spare money. I am already quite committed with the condo unit I am staying in now and it is just not wise.”
“Don’t forget, I am a loans officer. I can help you. Remember- we are friends. I mean, what are friends for, anyway? Your account with my bank is safe. Didn’t I treat your clearing cheque as good last week when you were short of funds in your account? If not for that, your cheque would have bounced and it would have been most embarrassing. Fancy a bank manager having his cheque bounced by another bank. Come on, if you are afraid of everything you will never get to do big things or earn big money.”
“Let me think about this first.”
With that, the conversation turned to other things. That Saturday evening, Andy invited Pei Wen to tag along to a barbecue at his friend’s house in Frankel Avenue. They arranged to meet on the main road outside Frankel Avenue. Andy was punctual, as usual, arriving in his grey Toyota. He had his family with him- his wife, a plumpish sort of lady whose face you wouldn’t recall if you had met her in the street without her husband: and two kids, a fifteen year old bespectacled chap who resembled his father a little and a twelve year old girl with plain looks quite like the mother.
Andy introduced them to Pei Wen who then occupied the front seat which had been intentionally left vacant for him. Together, they left for the barbecue. The house was a terrace in the middle of a sloping Frankel Avenue. Both sides of the narrow lane were packed with cars and Andy had to park at the lower end of the lane some fifty metres away. When everyone had alighted from the car, Andy made his customary checks on all the doors, including the boot, just to be on the safe side. He had always been a cautious man all his life. At the gate was a young man fanning some satay on a makeshift barbecue pit. There were three boys with him.
“Uncle,” the three boys called out.
Andy waved to them and led his group into the open space in front of the hose. There was a motley group of people, some helping themselves to food on a longish table, some making casual conversation. and some seated at a stone table. A voice called out to from inside the house.
“Andy, Andy. Here you are at last.”
Andy introduced Pei Wen to the host, Mr Goh, who was a renovation contractor. Pei Wen learnt later that the two of them were ex-schoolmates from St Patrick’s. Mr Goh held such gatherings frequently to allow his contacts in the business to mix with one another. It was his way of promoting closer ties between people who otherwise would not have a chance to interact, for they came from different walks of life. There were painters, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, bankers, some chaps from a real estate firm and one or two architects. It was an uncomfortable fit and it showed. The painters and carpenters kept to themselves, the bankers and the architects found some common ground, however, their spouses found no problems getting along with one another. Presently, Mr Goh led Andy and Pei Wen to the group of bankers and architects and they engaged in petty conversation.
“Mr Lee, so you are a bank manager,” said Mr Tan, an architect.
“No. I’m only an officer in the bank. I handle all types of loans – housing, personal, you name it, I have it.”
“I hear you majored in economics at the U.”
“Andy must have blabbed again. Actually, its my main area of interest. I like to be able to foretell the future of the economy. I like to dabble around with figures, so it is this a proliferation of what I like to do, nothing else.”
“So young and yet so humble.”
“Well, Pei Wen’s like that. You see, he lost his parents in a road accident when he was young and in spite of that, he has grown up into a fine young man. I am quite envious of him. I wish my son would be like him, but fat hope, that boy will never amount to anything. He can’t hold a candle to Pei Wen. Pei Wen..”
“There you go again. You are making me blush all over with those remarks.”
“But, it’s the truth, you know.”
“Mr Lee, since you are so good in this area, can you tell us whether the property market will go up again?”
“Yes, do tell us.”
“Let’s see, I am sure you are all aware that the government has recently pumped in five billion dollars into infrastructure works on the island.”
“Yes.”
“This goes to show the government is committed to boosting the local property market. They inject funds so that the construction sector would be propped up. They have a huge stake, you know, through their quasi-government investment vehicles, the statutory boards. Of course, theywouldn’t want their money to go down the drain. After all, it’s public money. They are accountable for it. There’s been some talk in the papers about reducing the land put up for sale by tender the last few weeks. In fact, just today, the radio has reported that the national development minister has approved this measure. This is bound to rev up the property market in the months to come. Less land equals less condos and other units to compete with. Am I going too fast?”
"No, not at all."
“Mr Lee, what you have said is very enlightening, even for an architect like me.”
“I have been telling Andy now’s the right time to move in- get a condo, not a landed unit – then wait for the market to move up again. Shouldn’t be a long wait. But, he.. he’s still mulling over my suggestion.”
“That sounds like a great idea.”
“Why shouldn’t one buy a landed unit?”
“The prices of landed units have not bottomed out yet. They are still quite expensive and an investment at this time is unwise.”
“What would you figure is the waiting period for practical yields on investment?”
“I would say, two to three years on the conservative side.”
“Three years only. This is worth considering. Andy, you are a fool. There’s money staring in front of you and you are not willing to pick it up. Come on, opportunity doesn’t knock twice. I am in the property field and yet I agree with Pei Wen’s forecast.”
“Let me think over first.”
A week passed and Pei Wen had not heard from Andy. Pei Wen had been busy with a new promotion programme for selling insurance to customers. His bank had switched to selling insurance to make up for the lacklustre housing loans market. He had to make trips to and from the head office to gather material and attend briefings on the new promotion. It was next Tuesday morning. Andy phoned Pei Wen.
“Can you get an application form for me? I have found a condo unit over the weekend and I have put up a deposit. I need a loan for the rest.”
“Sure, no problem. See you at the Troika at twelve.”
The bait had been snapped up. Pei Wen sighed. He was relieved. He had spent so much time and effort setting this trap for Andy, the one person responsible for his father’s downfall. He would make this man suffer. He would make this man pay for what he did to his father- nothing less would suffice.
With the loan approved, Pei Wen was in seventh heaven. In the following weeks, he began to distance himself from Andy. He offered all kinds of excuses for not being free, everything except the truth. He managed a transfer back to the head office, to work in the credit department. He schemed to get an appointment as head of the retail loans department. Soon he was working behind this desk.
That July, the Thai Baht fell, making half the banks in the country bankrupt in the process. In the ensuing months, the Malaysian Ringgit, and the Indonesian Rupiah were hit badly. The Indonesian Rupiah at one point managed an exchange of 16000 to a United States dollar, a drop of some five hundred percentage points before stablising at 9000 to a dollar. The Singapore dollar was not spared either. It went down to a low of 1.81 to the dollar before recovering to 1.72.
By late September, billions of dollars worth of shares had been wiped off the stock market in Singapore. Shares in property companies pulmetted to their lowest in a decade. Overnight, many Blue chips were selling at below a dollar. Prices of all properties in Singapore fell. Most now had a market value of just under half their worth before the onset of the crisis a few months back.
Banks were scrambling to recall their housing loans. Many property investors were badly burnt – especially those who had second or more properties. Andy was no exception. What made things worst for him was that Pei Wen was behind the scenes making sure he had no way out. Pei Wen promptly recalled Andy’s housing loan on the second property. Andy’s employer, the bank, didn’t make matters better for him. A thirtyish graduate in charge of staff accounts at the bank treated him the same manner he had treated Pei Wen’s father many years back. Pei Wen laughed in his heart. He felt Andy was getting back what he sowed. What had happened to his own father was now happening to Andy.
Pei Wen arranged for his bank’s lawyers to serve legal papers on Andy at Andy’s workplace. First, the demand letters, then the lawsuit, the judgement and finally the bankruptcy petition – all in only two months flat. Andy’s appeals to Pei Wen fell on deaf ears. At first, Pei Wen would promise to look into the matter. He did this as a ploy. He wanted Andy to get his hopes up. He didn’t want Andy to look elsewhere for help until it was too late. His sweet talking convinced the poor Andy, who by now had turned desperate. Andy begged Pei Wen to help him. He tried to push for a meeting, but Pei Wen had many ready excuses. He did not know where Pei Wen lived though they were friends. Pei Wen had wriggled out of telling him that detail the many times they were together. He couldn’t get into Pei Wen’s workplace. It was restricted to staff only. He could only speak to staff at the counter and they were of no help at all- they couldn’t make decisions.
On 22nd December 1998, three days before Christmas, Pei Wen pored over the notice page in The Straits Times. Under the heading “Bankruptcy Orders” he fingered the names, one by one, till he came to one that read:
Tay Siew Chye, Andy 26B Ah Hood Road Singapore 274023.
How he laughed! Then he cried. It was a loud wailing of sorts. But it was all right. He was alone at home. He let out his frustrations, welled up over the past eight years inside him. Sweet justice, he thought to himself. He snipped the whole portion of the paper and highlighted Andy’s name in blue. He had taken leave for that day. He had a place to visit. A taxi took Pei Wen to the carpark in front of the cremation hall at Bright Hill Temple. He walked inside. The hall was filled with mourners, some in black and some in blue. They weregetting ready for the cremation ceremony. He took no notice of them, made a right turn down a long corridor on both sides of which was a pond with tortoises here and there peeking out of the water. He entered the columbarium, and shuffled past the shelves till he reached the one where his father’s remains were kept. He folded his hands in prayer and spoke to his father in his thoughts. He told him what he had done and placed the newspaper clipping, neatly folded, under the urn. He arranged the urn such that no one would be wise to the fact there was something under the urn. He spent a good half hour in the place.
That night, as Pei Wen sat on his bed reading a book, with the television set switched on, his attention was suddenly drawn to the set when a reporter who was at the scene of a crime was speaking to the viewers. The television set flashed snippets of a car in which the bodies of two children were lying side by side neatly arranged in the back seat and another two, apparently the parents, were in the front seats. He heard this was a case of suicide cum murder. The parents of the children had smothered the children to death before leaving the air-conditioner on.
The windows were all wound up and the carbon monoxide in the car had killed the parents eventually. The car was found by some young teenagers in a remote spot in the MacRitchie Reservoir area. The camera moved backwards to show the whole car. It was a grey Toyota. Pei Wen cried in horror. The licence plate told him it was Andy’s car.
Pei Wen placed his face next to the television screen to get a closer look. Just then, the screen flashed back to the newsroom where the presenter proceeded with a grim summary of the tragedy. Pei Wen was stunned. His face changed into a gory white colour. He was now crying uncontrollably. He cried as if he had never cried before. He didn’t mean for this to happen. He merely wanted that guy to be made a bankrupt. He was ever so sorry. His remorse showed in his actions. He sat by his bed staring blankly at the television set for hours.
Alas, he had gone too far. His conscience had finally surfaced from beneath all that hatred. But, it was too late for his target- the man whose only crime was being too ‘kiasu’.
*
The casket rolled on the conveyor belt into the furnace. Cries broke out in the hall as Pei Wen sobbed in his thoughts. He could not allow his tears to show. He was a man after all though he was only sixteen years old. As he knelt next to his mother, he could feel the anger and frustration in her cries. Aunt Caroline was by Mother’s side, holding his mother in her bosom and crying above his mother’s head. Several metres away, bereaved relatives of another dead man lined up in front of his coffin, ready for the cremation ceremony. But Pei Wen’s mind was already far away.
He was thinking hard about the past few weeks. Things had been moving all too quickly for him and his family. His father was alive just last week. He had taken his own life exactly four days ago, on a Thursday when his mother was at the bank, sorting out her accounts with the bank manager. She was the first to find his body, slumped in the toilet bath on the ground floor and frothing at the mouth. By the time the paramedics arrived at the house, it was already too late. Andrew had stopped breathing and his wife was in a daze. There was noone else in the big house to tell her what to do next. She was lost. It was later that morning that Aunt Caroline, whom his mother had contacted, and her mother stepped into the house at 98 Tampines Road.
“Yoke Kuen, Oh Yoke Kuen,” Aunt Caroline spluttered.
“Oh Yoke Kuen, I’m so terribly sorry to hear the news.”
That brought tears down his mother’s face again. Her face was sallow enough but now her cheeks sagged as well, revealing lines of wrinkles normally kept hidden behind her makeup. She was all of forty-two, a cashier turned housewife after she married Pei Wen’s father. He was a bank manager in the Private Banking Department of a large foreign bank based in New York.
“Caroline, thanks for coming, I ..I.really don’t know what to do,” sobbed his mother.
The two of them needed no more words between them. They had been bosom friends since young and understood perfectly how the other had felt. The tragedy brought them even closer. Aunt Caroline was his mother’s cousin. Both of them had spoken to each other on the phone the evening before when Aunt Caroline had advised his mother to close all her bank accounts immediately to avoid them being frozen by the government when his father was made a bankrupt. His father was sued successfully in court by his creditors – two stock broking companies – because he had failed to pay them for his huge contra losses in his share trading facilities with them. Thereafter, everything fell apart. As the banks came to know of the suits, they jumped into the bandwagon, cancelled his overdrafts, loans and credit cards. They, then, issued demands for his father to pay up his outstandings with them. Their house, which was mortgaged to a bank, was to be placed on the auction block by the bank as his father had failed to pay the last few instalments. His father’s employer, for whom he had slogged for seventeen years since graduation, had cast a blind eye at his predicament. His repeated pleas to his employer for financial assistance to tie him over the difficult period had failed to draw any sympathy. He had been left to fend for himself. The bank watched indifferently as his father faced lawsuit after lawsuit the past few months. It even placed a hold n his father’s current account with it, requiring him to obtain its approval before withdrawing any sum of money from his own account. It was, least to say, humiliating.
Each month, for the past four months, his father had to swallow his pride as he approached his colleague and friend, the officer in charge of current accounts, to get authorisation to release funds from his current account so that he could pay the household bills. The bank had cleverly arranged for the salary to be credited into his father’s current account and there was no other way for his father to make a withdrawal except through cashing his cheques personally at the counter. His father had tried to clear his own cheques through an account with another bank to avoid this humiliation. But, each time the cheques had been returned to him unpaid and marked “Refer to drawer”. When his father had inquired at the bank’s loan department, his colleague, Andy Tay, in charge of staff loans, had put it very clearly to him that he still hadloans to pay off and the bank had to ensure sufficient funds remained in the account for the loan instalments. Hence, the hold on his current account would remain.
By the time Aunt Caroline arrived at the house, Andrew’s body had been taken to Changi Hospital for examination by a pathologist, for he had died an unnatural death. While Yoke Kuen was groaning over the loss of her spouse, Aunt Caroline had the presence of mind to call up Pei Wen’s principal and it was he who came to Pei Wen’s class to break the news to Pei Wen. Pei Wen had dropped everything he was doing and hurried home, eyes clearly red with shock and disbelief. He regretted that he hadn’t been close to his father. His father had always come home well after he had retired to his bedroom and the two of them seldom spoke to each other. But, suddenly, his father ’s death had torn a hole in his heart, a hole so big, everything in it had fallen out and there was nothing left to occupy it. It was indeed a broken heart. He cried silently as he waited for the taxi. It was strange, just when he needed these things, they were never around. His tears, unable to find their way out, wetted his heart as he sat in the taxi. It was a long journey, perhaps, the longest he had ever taken in a taxi.
The roar of thunder jolted Pei Wen out of his thoughts. The drizzle outside the hall had changed into a downpour and the rain itself was now crying as if it had lost its mother. Its cries were so loud they drowned out all the wailing in the hall. Presently, the ceremony was over. It was time to go home. The group, a mixture of relatives, his mother’s close friends and ex-colleagues of his father, made their way out of the hall to the waiting chartered bus, umbrellas at the ready. His father’s ex-colleagues took their leave and left the crematorium in two cars.
Pei Wen led the way up the bus. In his hands, he clenched a black and white photograph of his father. His father’s remains would only be released to them in three days and they would have to make another trip to the Bright Hill Temple to inter the remains in an urn which would be laid to rest in the adjoining columbarium. The return journey was quieter. Occasionally, there was chattering in the back of the bus, but mostly, there was an uneasy silence. This bus, which was accustomed to incessant chattering from students and housewives during its weekday runs for the Singapore Bus Services, today seemed stripped of all its candour. Pei Wen had not spoken a word the whole day, but then he had always been a quiet and reserved boy, and kept his feelings pretty well hidden in his heart.
At last, the bus came to a stop outside the house. After unloading its human cargo, it left hurriedly, as if it was glad to be finally rid of the mourners. There were workmen dismantling the tent in the garden. Pei Wen was directed to a new altar in the living room where his mother took from his hands the photograph of his father and placed it ever so carefully in the centre, with the elder Lee looking at them from behind his spectacles. That photograph had been culled from his father’s passport. The Lees seldom took pictures together and it was most difficult to locate a befitting photograph of his father at such short notice. So, his mother, on the advice of the undertakers, had snipped off his father’s photograph from the passport and given it to the photo studio for enlargement and framing.
The living room which was unaccustomed to having so many visitors looked uncomfortably full.There were Pei Wen’s maternal grandparents; his three maternal uncles, their spouses and children; Aunt Caroline and her mother; Uncle Leslie, his father’s elder brother, and his wife; and a sprinkling of distant relatives from his mother’s side. All of them had earlier washed their faces with water from two pails strewn with pomelo leaves and were now helping themselves to food placed on two small tables at the side of the room opening into the garden.
“When do you have to move out?” asked Uncle Leslie.
“I really have no idea, perhaps next month, perhaps next week… I really do not know.”
“Yoke Kuen, have you found a place yet?”
Just then, Pei Wen’s grandma interrupted the conversation. Her voice boomed across the room.
“Nothing to worry about. Nothing to lose sleep over. Both of you can stay with me. You know very well my other bedroom is vacant. It just needs a little tidying up. No worry at all.”
“Thanks, Mother.”
“It’s all over. Just forget the past. You have got to carry on. Pei Wen is so young. You just leave the rest to me. I will arrange everything for you.”
“Yoke Kuen,” Uncle Leslie resumed, “If you need anything, I mean anything at all, come to me. Andrew was my brother after all.”
“It’s okay. I’ll manage somehow. I still have some money in the bank. Of course, I will have to get a job again, what type I just now can’t figure out. I’m still in a daze as it is and it will be some days before I can get myself together again. Still, don’t worry your head over us, we’ll manage, somehow.”
“My sister is a strong woman. She won’t give up just like that. I don’t see how she could marry that brother of yours. I mean, he’s got no backbone at all, fancy going away just like that and leaving her and poor Pei Wen alone. He didn’t spare a thought about them at all.”
“Teng Joo, this is not the time for such nonsense,” said his elder brother.
Teng Joo was Pei Wen’s second maternal uncle. He was one who never minced his words. He never could resist jabbing others when he felt like it. Pei Wen never once liked Uncle Teng Joo. He thought this uncle of his was a show-off from whose mouth would reel nothing but uncalled for remarks and ridicule. But, this time, the jibe at his father had some substance in it. Secretly, Pei Wen wondered why his father was so cruel as to leave him and his mother so early in life. Everyone would have to go, sooner or later. Why did his father take things into his own hands instead of leaving it to heaven? Try as he might, Pei Wen could find no answers to his questions. He wondered whether his mother had harboured such doubts in her mind. But, these few days, whenever he looked into her eyes, he saw nothing. Her eyes were devoid of expressions. It was as if her soul had left the body.
On the third day after the funeral, Pei Wen accompanied his mother to the Bright Hill crematorium. They were met on arrival by Aunt Caroline, who had taken a half day off from work. Together, they filed into the same hall where his father’s cremation ceremony had taken place. They took turns to pick up pieces of burnt ash which were the remains of his father and place them into a yellow urn on which was inscribed:
ANDREW LEE
BORN 16th July 1952
DIED 12th February 1989
The urn was then set to rest on the third level of one of many rows of shelves in the columbarium, differentiated from all other urns by a number “1129D” inscribed above the photograph. The Lee house was quiet the next few days. It was an uneasy calm, the kind that came before a storm. Pei Wen’s mother put on a strong front, seeing to his daily needs as before, pretending nothing had changed. But her usual cheerfulness had disappeared. When he had gone off to school, she would sit by the verandah, and stare blankly into the garden forhours. There was no one to accompany her; his grandma had to work and so had the rest of the relatives. But it was quite safe. She wouldn’t do anything foolish – she couldn’t or Pei Wen would be all alone.
The day of reckoning came barely a week later. Staff from the Public Trustees Department stuck a notice on their main door. It required them to move out of the house by the third day and leave all furniture intact. An official affixed a sticker bearing the seal of the department to every item of furniture . Nothing except clothing was to be removed from the house. Mrs Lee had earlier, on the advice of Aunt Caroline, moved over to her mother’s flat a few pieces of furniture dear to both her husband and her. She couldn’t fit any more things into the tiny bedroom and had left these in the house. She was now glad her precious things were safe.
The first night in his grandma’s flat was strangely uncomfortable to Pei Wen. Though he had slept over many times before, that night was new to him.
He couldn’t sleep. Perhaps, it was because there was no air-conditioner in the bedroom. Perhaps, it was the unending cornucopia of noises from upstairs and downstairs and the opposite block. Perhaps, it was the loud footsteps from the staircase behind the wall where he slept. Whatever the reason, Pei Wen tossed and turned until finally at four in the morning, he fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.
The next few nights were no different from the first. Pei Wen began to miss his own bedroom at 98 Tampines Road. He missed the quiet of the old neighbourhood. It was, indeed, a good place to study in, he realised, albeit a little too late. His mother, who slept in the bed across from his, got up many times in the night to go to the kitchen, whatever for, Pei Wen did not know andhe did not find out. He guessed she wanted to reminisce the past from the kitchen window and didn’t want to wake her up. Perhaps, it would do her a bit of good to escape from this world for a while. He, too, was guilty of such forays in class nowadays and could not complain.
It was difficult for Pei Wen to concentrate on his lessons in class. He would find himself subconsciously looking out of the French windows into the open field. But his teachers who normally would have barked at him now left him to his daydreams. His form teacher, Mr Koh, was worried for him as he was to take his “O” levels four months away. Mr Koh called on Mrs Lee one evening when Pei Wen was out and had a long chat with her. That night, when Pei Wen was about to sleep, his mother sat on his bed and spoke to him. She stroked his hair with a hand.
“Your father left us at the wrong time, but he had his reasons. You musn’t give up. You can’t give up. He was a strong man in spite of what other people have said so you mustn’t blame him for what he did. If you want to, go ahead and blame his employer. Blame his colleagues who wouldn’t lend him a helping hand. Blame him for having the wrong friends, but never blame him for leaving us. Your father was a proud man. He had been one all through his life and proud people cannot be humiliated constantly. They just can’t take it.”
She stopped for a moment to catch her breath and then continued.
“The only bank he worked for gave him an umbrella in the form of credit facilities when the weather was fine, and yet, when a storm was brewing, this same bank snatched it back from him and left him to the mercy of the elements. It is something a proud man finds hard to swallow. It is what made your father do what he did. He didn’t leave any notes for us, not even a word of goodbye. Perhaps, it is just as well. Your father was a man of few words. I understand how he must have felt. In fact, the very morning I was at the bank, I felt uneasy, as if lightning was to strike. That was about the only message your father sent me before his death. But, the two of us have to put the past behind us. We have to go on living. You have to get on with your life, and your studies- make your father proud of you.
Pei Wen soon woke up from his self-inflicted spell and began studying for his “O” levels in earnest. Nobody knew what drove him on these days, but everyone was unanimous in finding him a changed person. They didn’t mind, though.
The year of the pig arrived shortly. It was his first new year without his father. His mother had started work as a clerk in a property firm to support the family. Things had got better progressively. However, emotionally, his mother still needed more time to heal her wounds. More money had come in over the next few months, mostly from his father’s CPF account. His father, in his lifetime, had accrued some four hundred thousand dollars in this account. The Public Trustees were unable to get their hands on this sum of money as, under the law, CPF proceeds were detached from any claims on debtors. Though Pei Wen’s father had died a bankrupt, he was able to leave a sizeable inheritance to his family, untouched by any creditor.
February 1990 saw the release of Pei Wen’s GCE “O” level results. He had scored 6 “A1s” and 1″A2″, almost a miracle, considering the turmoil he had been through the previous year. His mother was elated at the news. More good news was to be heard. Over the next few years, Pei Wen immersed himself in his studies, first at a junior college and then at the National University of Singapore. He put everything else on the shelf. He never found time for relationships with anyone. He kept pretty much to himself. Soon, he distinguished himself in economics and won a first class honours in the subject. With his academic pursuits at a close, he entered national service and spent the next two-and-a-half years sweating it out in the combat field. When he completed his tour of duty, instead of taking a break like most of his mates, he pored over the classifieds in The Straits Times every morning.
He found his first job in a local bank as a retail loans officer. Just when the managers were starting to like him, as he had shown much promise, he resigned. Within a month, he had found another job with another local bank, this time as a personal financial consultant. And he would resign again after barely three months on the job. This strange practice of his went on for a few more times. But, he never had difficulty locating a job. After all, he had impeccable credentials.
Banks were looking out for people like him. Finally, it appeared as if he had found the right job at last, for he had lasted exactly four months on this latest job, that of a personal investment officer at Tai Hua Bank, a local group with twenty odd branches in Singapore. The year was 1997, roughly eight years after his father’s death. It was late May and he had been posted to Tai Hua Bank’s Serangoon Garden branch at Serangoon Garden Way. As a personal investment officer, he was responsible for all credit facilities at the branch, reporting directly to the credit department at head office in Cecil Street.
He struck up a friendship with the manager of the bank across the other street. They would go for lunches together. The manager could get along with this fine young man who topped his class at the university, though they had a gap of some twenty-five years between them. One afternoon, while they were having their meal at the Troika restaurant three doors from Pei Wen’s branch, Pei Wen broached the subject of property investment.
“Andy, you should buy another property now. The time is ripe for a killing. Trust me, it won’t be long before the market moves up again. You buy at the low end and sell high.”
“I don’t know. The property market has gone down quite a bit and the dust has yet to settle. It doesn’t look too good now.”
“Look! You know pretty well the government won’t allow the property market to collapse. They have got plenty of money invested in it through their proxy representatives, the statutory boards. Trust me. I majored in economics, you know. I can foretell trends.”
“But I don’t have enough spare money. I am already quite committed with the condo unit I am staying in now and it is just not wise.”
“Don’t forget, I am a loans officer. I can help you. Remember- we are friends. I mean, what are friends for, anyway? Your account with my bank is safe. Didn’t I treat your clearing cheque as good last week when you were short of funds in your account? If not for that, your cheque would have bounced and it would have been most embarrassing. Fancy a bank manager having his cheque bounced by another bank. Come on, if you are afraid of everything you will never get to do big things or earn big money.”
“Let me think about this first.”
With that, the conversation turned to other things. That Saturday evening, Andy invited Pei Wen to tag along to a barbecue at his friend’s house in Frankel Avenue. They arranged to meet on the main road outside Frankel Avenue. Andy was punctual, as usual, arriving in his grey Toyota. He had his family with him- his wife, a plumpish sort of lady whose face you wouldn’t recall if you had met her in the street without her husband: and two kids, a fifteen year old bespectacled chap who resembled his father a little and a twelve year old girl with plain looks quite like the mother.
Andy introduced them to Pei Wen who then occupied the front seat which had been intentionally left vacant for him. Together, they left for the barbecue. The house was a terrace in the middle of a sloping Frankel Avenue. Both sides of the narrow lane were packed with cars and Andy had to park at the lower end of the lane some fifty metres away. When everyone had alighted from the car, Andy made his customary checks on all the doors, including the boot, just to be on the safe side. He had always been a cautious man all his life. At the gate was a young man fanning some satay on a makeshift barbecue pit. There were three boys with him.
“Uncle,” the three boys called out.
Andy waved to them and led his group into the open space in front of the hose. There was a motley group of people, some helping themselves to food on a longish table, some making casual conversation. and some seated at a stone table. A voice called out to from inside the house.
“Andy, Andy. Here you are at last.”
Andy introduced Pei Wen to the host, Mr Goh, who was a renovation contractor. Pei Wen learnt later that the two of them were ex-schoolmates from St Patrick’s. Mr Goh held such gatherings frequently to allow his contacts in the business to mix with one another. It was his way of promoting closer ties between people who otherwise would not have a chance to interact, for they came from different walks of life. There were painters, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, bankers, some chaps from a real estate firm and one or two architects. It was an uncomfortable fit and it showed. The painters and carpenters kept to themselves, the bankers and the architects found some common ground, however, their spouses found no problems getting along with one another. Presently, Mr Goh led Andy and Pei Wen to the group of bankers and architects and they engaged in petty conversation.
“Mr Lee, so you are a bank manager,” said Mr Tan, an architect.
“No. I’m only an officer in the bank. I handle all types of loans – housing, personal, you name it, I have it.”
“I hear you majored in economics at the U.”
“Andy must have blabbed again. Actually, its my main area of interest. I like to be able to foretell the future of the economy. I like to dabble around with figures, so it is this a proliferation of what I like to do, nothing else.”
“So young and yet so humble.”
“Well, Pei Wen’s like that. You see, he lost his parents in a road accident when he was young and in spite of that, he has grown up into a fine young man. I am quite envious of him. I wish my son would be like him, but fat hope, that boy will never amount to anything. He can’t hold a candle to Pei Wen. Pei Wen..”
“There you go again. You are making me blush all over with those remarks.”
“But, it’s the truth, you know.”
“Mr Lee, since you are so good in this area, can you tell us whether the property market will go up again?”
“Yes, do tell us.”
“Let’s see, I am sure you are all aware that the government has recently pumped in five billion dollars into infrastructure works on the island.”
“Yes.”
“This goes to show the government is committed to boosting the local property market. They inject funds so that the construction sector would be propped up. They have a huge stake, you know, through their quasi-government investment vehicles, the statutory boards. Of course, theywouldn’t want their money to go down the drain. After all, it’s public money. They are accountable for it. There’s been some talk in the papers about reducing the land put up for sale by tender the last few weeks. In fact, just today, the radio has reported that the national development minister has approved this measure. This is bound to rev up the property market in the months to come. Less land equals less condos and other units to compete with. Am I going too fast?”
"No, not at all."
“Mr Lee, what you have said is very enlightening, even for an architect like me.”
“I have been telling Andy now’s the right time to move in- get a condo, not a landed unit – then wait for the market to move up again. Shouldn’t be a long wait. But, he.. he’s still mulling over my suggestion.”
“That sounds like a great idea.”
“Why shouldn’t one buy a landed unit?”
“The prices of landed units have not bottomed out yet. They are still quite expensive and an investment at this time is unwise.”
“What would you figure is the waiting period for practical yields on investment?”
“I would say, two to three years on the conservative side.”
“Three years only. This is worth considering. Andy, you are a fool. There’s money staring in front of you and you are not willing to pick it up. Come on, opportunity doesn’t knock twice. I am in the property field and yet I agree with Pei Wen’s forecast.”
“Let me think over first.”
A week passed and Pei Wen had not heard from Andy. Pei Wen had been busy with a new promotion programme for selling insurance to customers. His bank had switched to selling insurance to make up for the lacklustre housing loans market. He had to make trips to and from the head office to gather material and attend briefings on the new promotion. It was next Tuesday morning. Andy phoned Pei Wen.
“Can you get an application form for me? I have found a condo unit over the weekend and I have put up a deposit. I need a loan for the rest.”
“Sure, no problem. See you at the Troika at twelve.”
The bait had been snapped up. Pei Wen sighed. He was relieved. He had spent so much time and effort setting this trap for Andy, the one person responsible for his father’s downfall. He would make this man suffer. He would make this man pay for what he did to his father- nothing less would suffice.
With the loan approved, Pei Wen was in seventh heaven. In the following weeks, he began to distance himself from Andy. He offered all kinds of excuses for not being free, everything except the truth. He managed a transfer back to the head office, to work in the credit department. He schemed to get an appointment as head of the retail loans department. Soon he was working behind this desk.
That July, the Thai Baht fell, making half the banks in the country bankrupt in the process. In the ensuing months, the Malaysian Ringgit, and the Indonesian Rupiah were hit badly. The Indonesian Rupiah at one point managed an exchange of 16000 to a United States dollar, a drop of some five hundred percentage points before stablising at 9000 to a dollar. The Singapore dollar was not spared either. It went down to a low of 1.81 to the dollar before recovering to 1.72.
By late September, billions of dollars worth of shares had been wiped off the stock market in Singapore. Shares in property companies pulmetted to their lowest in a decade. Overnight, many Blue chips were selling at below a dollar. Prices of all properties in Singapore fell. Most now had a market value of just under half their worth before the onset of the crisis a few months back.
Banks were scrambling to recall their housing loans. Many property investors were badly burnt – especially those who had second or more properties. Andy was no exception. What made things worst for him was that Pei Wen was behind the scenes making sure he had no way out. Pei Wen promptly recalled Andy’s housing loan on the second property. Andy’s employer, the bank, didn’t make matters better for him. A thirtyish graduate in charge of staff accounts at the bank treated him the same manner he had treated Pei Wen’s father many years back. Pei Wen laughed in his heart. He felt Andy was getting back what he sowed. What had happened to his own father was now happening to Andy.
Pei Wen arranged for his bank’s lawyers to serve legal papers on Andy at Andy’s workplace. First, the demand letters, then the lawsuit, the judgement and finally the bankruptcy petition – all in only two months flat. Andy’s appeals to Pei Wen fell on deaf ears. At first, Pei Wen would promise to look into the matter. He did this as a ploy. He wanted Andy to get his hopes up. He didn’t want Andy to look elsewhere for help until it was too late. His sweet talking convinced the poor Andy, who by now had turned desperate. Andy begged Pei Wen to help him. He tried to push for a meeting, but Pei Wen had many ready excuses. He did not know where Pei Wen lived though they were friends. Pei Wen had wriggled out of telling him that detail the many times they were together. He couldn’t get into Pei Wen’s workplace. It was restricted to staff only. He could only speak to staff at the counter and they were of no help at all- they couldn’t make decisions.
On 22nd December 1998, three days before Christmas, Pei Wen pored over the notice page in The Straits Times. Under the heading “Bankruptcy Orders” he fingered the names, one by one, till he came to one that read:
Tay Siew Chye, Andy 26B Ah Hood Road Singapore 274023.
How he laughed! Then he cried. It was a loud wailing of sorts. But it was all right. He was alone at home. He let out his frustrations, welled up over the past eight years inside him. Sweet justice, he thought to himself. He snipped the whole portion of the paper and highlighted Andy’s name in blue. He had taken leave for that day. He had a place to visit. A taxi took Pei Wen to the carpark in front of the cremation hall at Bright Hill Temple. He walked inside. The hall was filled with mourners, some in black and some in blue. They weregetting ready for the cremation ceremony. He took no notice of them, made a right turn down a long corridor on both sides of which was a pond with tortoises here and there peeking out of the water. He entered the columbarium, and shuffled past the shelves till he reached the one where his father’s remains were kept. He folded his hands in prayer and spoke to his father in his thoughts. He told him what he had done and placed the newspaper clipping, neatly folded, under the urn. He arranged the urn such that no one would be wise to the fact there was something under the urn. He spent a good half hour in the place.
That night, as Pei Wen sat on his bed reading a book, with the television set switched on, his attention was suddenly drawn to the set when a reporter who was at the scene of a crime was speaking to the viewers. The television set flashed snippets of a car in which the bodies of two children were lying side by side neatly arranged in the back seat and another two, apparently the parents, were in the front seats. He heard this was a case of suicide cum murder. The parents of the children had smothered the children to death before leaving the air-conditioner on.
The windows were all wound up and the carbon monoxide in the car had killed the parents eventually. The car was found by some young teenagers in a remote spot in the MacRitchie Reservoir area. The camera moved backwards to show the whole car. It was a grey Toyota. Pei Wen cried in horror. The licence plate told him it was Andy’s car.
Pei Wen placed his face next to the television screen to get a closer look. Just then, the screen flashed back to the newsroom where the presenter proceeded with a grim summary of the tragedy. Pei Wen was stunned. His face changed into a gory white colour. He was now crying uncontrollably. He cried as if he had never cried before. He didn’t mean for this to happen. He merely wanted that guy to be made a bankrupt. He was ever so sorry. His remorse showed in his actions. He sat by his bed staring blankly at the television set for hours.
Alas, he had gone too far. His conscience had finally surfaced from beneath all that hatred. But, it was too late for his target- the man whose only crime was being too ‘kiasu’.
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Monday 12 July 2010
World Cup
Check this URL out, especially if you are a soccer fan!
http://g.sg.sports.yahoo.com/football/world-cup/
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http://g.sg.sports.yahoo.com/football/world-cup/
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Monday 8 March 2010
Singlish - is it bad?
Should we speak Singlish?
Of these, 45 per cent of respondents, or 5,288 people, say that they are proud of Singlish and speak it.
The other 44 per cent, or 5,170 people, think it is okay to use Singlish - but they say it must only be used in certain scenarios and it is important to get the basic English right first.
Of the remaining 11 per cent, six per cent (705 respondents) believe there is no reason why Singlish should not be spoken, especially when some leaders even use it to address the public.
Just five per cent (588 respondents) think that Singlish should be dropped so the rest of the world does not think Singaporeans speak poor English.
Said an interviewee in a statement: "The general consensus is that there's absolutely nothing wrong with Singlish. It is part of our culture which defines who we are - we shouldn't hide from that. However, as the world is getting smaller, it is probably a good idea to make sure that we speak good English too."
MOST Singaporeans think it is okay to use Singlish in everyday conversation.
MSN conducted a recent online poll - Should Singlish be used in everyday conversation? - and found that 89 per cent of 12,000 respondents say they are comfortable using it.
Of these, 45 per cent of respondents, or 5,288 people, say that they are proud of Singlish and speak it.
The other 44 per cent, or 5,170 people, think it is okay to use Singlish - but they say it must only be used in certain scenarios and it is important to get the basic English right first.
Of the remaining 11 per cent, six per cent (705 respondents) believe there is no reason why Singlish should not be spoken, especially when some leaders even use it to address the public.
Just five per cent (588 respondents) think that Singlish should be dropped so the rest of the world does not think Singaporeans speak poor English.
Said an interviewee in a statement: "The general consensus is that there's absolutely nothing wrong with Singlish. It is part of our culture which defines who we are - we shouldn't hide from that. However, as the world is getting smaller, it is probably a good idea to make sure that we speak good English too."
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Thinking It Over:
Do you think Singlish should be dropped? Why?
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Jack Neo's scandal
What is your take on Jack Neo's scandal with 22-year old Wendy Chong?
Do you think he has done a Tiger Woods? Do you think his career will be ruined? Given that his movies are usually on family issues that propagate 'doing the right thing', do you think what he has done is an irony (completely opposite)?
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Do you think he has done a Tiger Woods? Do you think his career will be ruined? Given that his movies are usually on family issues that propagate 'doing the right thing', do you think what he has done is an irony (completely opposite)?
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Tuesday 9 February 2010
Are aliens among us?
Scientist: Alien life could already be on Earth
By RAPHAEL G. SATTER,Associated Press Writer - Wednesday, January 27
LONDON – For the past 50 years, scientists have scoured the skies for radio signals from beyond our planet, hoping for some sign of extraterrestrial life. But one physicist says there's no reason alien life couldn't already be lurking among us or maybe even in us.
Paul Davies, an award-winning Arizona State University physicist known for his popular science writing said Tuesday that life may have developed on Earth not once but several times.
Davies said the variant life forms most likely tiny microbes could still be hanging around "right under our noses or even in our noses."
"How do we know all life on Earth descended from a single origin?" he told a conference at London's prestigious Royal Society, which serves as Britain's academy of sciences. "We've just scratched the surface of the microbial world."
The idea that alien micro-organisms could be hiding out here on Earth has been discussed for a while, according to Jill Tarter, the director of the U.S. SETI project, which listens for signals from civilizations based around distant stars.
She said several of the scientists involved in the project were interested in pursuing the notion, which Davies earlier laid out in a 2007 article published in Scientific American in which he asked: "Are aliens among us?"
So far, there's no answer. And ever finding one would be fraught with difficulties, as Davies himself acknowledged.
Unusual organisms abound including chemical-eating bacteria which hide out deep in the ocean and organisms that thrive in boiling-hot springs, but that doesn't mean they're different life forms entirely.
"How weird do they have to be suggest a second genesis as opposed to just an obscure branch of the family tree?" he said. Davies suggested that the only way to prove an organism wasn't "life as we know it" was if it were built using exotic elements which no other form of life had.
Such organisms have yet to be found. Davies also noted that less than 1 percent of all the world's bacteria had been comprehensively studied _ leaving plenty of time to find unusual organisms.
"You cannot tell just by looking that a microbe has some radically different inner chemistry," he said.
Davies' call for alien-hunting scientists to look to their own backyards came as one of the pioneers of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence told the conference the job of finding proof of alien life in outer space may be more difficult than previously thought.
Frank Drake, who conducted the first organized search for alien radio signals in 1960, said that the Earth which used to pump out a loud mess of radio waves, television signals and other radiation has been steadily getting quieter as its communications technology improves.
Drake cited the switch from analogue to digital television which uses a far weaker signal and the fact that much more communications traffic is now relayed by satellites and fiber optic cables, limiting its leakage into outer space.
"Very soon we will become very undetectable," he said. If similar processes were taking place in other technologically advanced societies, then the search for them "will be much more difficult than we imagined."
But Drake said scientists at SETI were excited by the possibility of using lasers to send super-bright flashes of light into space for a tiny fraction of a second. The flashes could theoretically be seen up by an advanced civilization up to 1,000 light years away, and Tarter said infrared versions of the devices could possibly send beams even further.
But Drake noted that the interstellar equivalent to turning a flashlight on and off only works if a prospective alien civilization wants to get in touch to begin with.
"For this to work ... There has to be altruism in the universe," he said.
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Thinking It Over:
Could this be true? What do you think?
By RAPHAEL G. SATTER,Associated Press Writer - Wednesday, January 27
LONDON – For the past 50 years, scientists have scoured the skies for radio signals from beyond our planet, hoping for some sign of extraterrestrial life. But one physicist says there's no reason alien life couldn't already be lurking among us or maybe even in us.
Paul Davies, an award-winning Arizona State University physicist known for his popular science writing said Tuesday that life may have developed on Earth not once but several times.
Davies said the variant life forms most likely tiny microbes could still be hanging around "right under our noses or even in our noses."
"How do we know all life on Earth descended from a single origin?" he told a conference at London's prestigious Royal Society, which serves as Britain's academy of sciences. "We've just scratched the surface of the microbial world."
The idea that alien micro-organisms could be hiding out here on Earth has been discussed for a while, according to Jill Tarter, the director of the U.S. SETI project, which listens for signals from civilizations based around distant stars.
She said several of the scientists involved in the project were interested in pursuing the notion, which Davies earlier laid out in a 2007 article published in Scientific American in which he asked: "Are aliens among us?"
So far, there's no answer. And ever finding one would be fraught with difficulties, as Davies himself acknowledged.
Unusual organisms abound including chemical-eating bacteria which hide out deep in the ocean and organisms that thrive in boiling-hot springs, but that doesn't mean they're different life forms entirely.
"How weird do they have to be suggest a second genesis as opposed to just an obscure branch of the family tree?" he said. Davies suggested that the only way to prove an organism wasn't "life as we know it" was if it were built using exotic elements which no other form of life had.
Such organisms have yet to be found. Davies also noted that less than 1 percent of all the world's bacteria had been comprehensively studied _ leaving plenty of time to find unusual organisms.
"You cannot tell just by looking that a microbe has some radically different inner chemistry," he said.
Davies' call for alien-hunting scientists to look to their own backyards came as one of the pioneers of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence told the conference the job of finding proof of alien life in outer space may be more difficult than previously thought.
Frank Drake, who conducted the first organized search for alien radio signals in 1960, said that the Earth which used to pump out a loud mess of radio waves, television signals and other radiation has been steadily getting quieter as its communications technology improves.
Drake cited the switch from analogue to digital television which uses a far weaker signal and the fact that much more communications traffic is now relayed by satellites and fiber optic cables, limiting its leakage into outer space.
"Very soon we will become very undetectable," he said. If similar processes were taking place in other technologically advanced societies, then the search for them "will be much more difficult than we imagined."
But Drake said scientists at SETI were excited by the possibility of using lasers to send super-bright flashes of light into space for a tiny fraction of a second. The flashes could theoretically be seen up by an advanced civilization up to 1,000 light years away, and Tarter said infrared versions of the devices could possibly send beams even further.
But Drake noted that the interstellar equivalent to turning a flashlight on and off only works if a prospective alien civilization wants to get in touch to begin with.
"For this to work ... There has to be altruism in the universe," he said.
-------------------------------------------
Thinking It Over:
Could this be true? What do you think?
Saturday 6 February 2010
Informal Letter Writing: Format
What is the format of an informal letter?
(1.Your Address – you can make it up)
Blk 103 Lorong Ah Soo
#01-304
Singapore 559335
(2.The Date)
10th February 2010
(3. A reference e.g. Dear Uncle,)
Dear Uncle,
(4. Greetings e.g. How are you? How have you been?)
How have you been?
(5. Body of letter – You must elaborate on ideas within the question. Make sure each paragraph sounds sensible)
I heard from Auntie that you will finally be visiting Singapore. In my opinion, you must visit Chinatown. It has a long history….
(6.Yours sincerely or Yours truly or something appropriate)
Yours truly,
(7. Your Name)
Sam
------------------------------------------
Thinking It Over:
1. Why do we write informal letters?
2. Why are they necessary?
3. Do you think that informal letters are obsolete because of technology (e.g. email)?
(1.Your Address – you can make it up)
Blk 103 Lorong Ah Soo
#01-304
Singapore 559335
(2.The Date)
10th February 2010
(3. A reference e.g. Dear Uncle,)
Dear Uncle,
(4. Greetings e.g. How are you? How have you been?)
How have you been?
(5. Body of letter – You must elaborate on ideas within the question. Make sure each paragraph sounds sensible)
I heard from Auntie that you will finally be visiting Singapore. In my opinion, you must visit Chinatown. It has a long history….
(6.Yours sincerely or Yours truly or something appropriate)
Yours truly,
(7. Your Name)
Sam
------------------------------------------
Thinking It Over:
1. Why do we write informal letters?
2. Why are they necessary?
3. Do you think that informal letters are obsolete because of technology (e.g. email)?
Oral Exam: Picture Discussion
Can you discuss the picture that is shown below? Try this to practise for the 'O' Level exam...
Traffic Accidents: The Elderly and Motorcyclists
Feb 6, 2010
Elderly pedestrians, motorcyclists most at risk
By Mavis Toh
Elderly pedestrians, motorcyclists most at risk
By Mavis Toh
JAYWALKING was the biggest cause of deaths among elderly pedestrians last year.
Of the 20 people above 60 years old who were killed on the roads, 13 were jaywalkers. The Traffic Police listed elderly pedestrians as one of two key areas of concern yesterday, despite the number of fatalities on Singapore roads dropping to a 30-year low.
The other: Motorcyclists.
The Traffic Police pointed out that the elderly remained the most vulnerable pedestrians.
More than two in five pedestrians killed last year in accidents were aged above 60 years old.
The concerns were highlighted again this year when former national athlete Tan Eng Yoon, 82, was killed after he was knocked down by a car while crossing Upper Thomson Road last week.
His death followed a similar accident along the same stretch of road three months ago, when Mrs Helen Wee, 76, died after she was hit by a car.
Mr Wong Lit Shoon, chief executive of the Singapore Action Group of Elders (Sage) Counselling Centre, said that while there are elderly persons who have problems getting up and down the stairs of overhead bridges, many also jaywalk because they overestimate their own physical abilities.
"They forget that they are physically slower and think they can cross the roads before the cars come," he said. Sage also works with the Traffic Police to raise road safety awareness among the elderly by taking them to the road safety park.
The other group of road users highlighted are the motorcyclists and pillion riders. They remain the most vulnerable group on the roads - making up 91 of the 188 fatalities last year.
But compared to 2008, there was a drop of 17 deaths.
Most of these motorcyclists were aged below 35 and failure to have proper control, to keep a proper look out, and to give way to traffic with the right of way, were the main causes of their accidents.
But overall, there was better news on Singapore roads last year, as the traffic situation improved significantly. The fatality rate of 3.77 per 100,000 human population last year, down from 4.57 in 2008, set a 30-year low. The figure is comparable to other major cities like New York and Melbourne.
The dip is in spite of an increase in both human and vehicle populations last year. Fatalities across different groups of road users - from motorists to pedestrians and pedal cyclists - also fell, including among elderly pedestrians, which dropped from 28 in 2008 to 20 last year.
Deaths involving motorcar drivers and passengers fell from 23 in 2008 to 15 last year. Deaths of pedal cyclists and pillion riders also fell from 22 in 2008 to 17 last year. The only increase noted was for heavy and light goods vehicle drivers and passengers killed - from six in 2008 to 19 last year. These involved mostly lorries and vans.
There were no fatalities involving public transport.
Traffic Police commander Christopher Ng said that the statistics reflect the effectiveness of the Traffic Police's strategy of enforcement, engagement and education. This year, to reinforce road safety habits in the elderly, they will be included in the Annual Shell Traffic Games - competitions at the Road Safety Park to test students' road safety knowledge - to play the role of pedestrians.
The Traffic Police will also be installing banners with road safety messages at carpark exits or electronic parking gantries to remind motorcyclists to ride safely.
Expecting the number of people and vehicles in Singapore to rise past the current figures of 4.99 million and 910,546 respectively, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ng urged road users to behave responsibly to ensure safety for all.
He added: "A disaster on the road can be averted by being just a little more alert and patient."
----------------------------
Thinking It Over:
1. Who are the two groups of people most involved in traffic accidents? Why are these groups usually the ones involved in accidents?
2. What does 'fatalities' mean? Can you make a sentence with the word?
3. How does the Traffic Police intend to control the situation?
4. As a young citizen, what role can YOU play in ensuring traffic safety?
*
Wednesday 27 January 2010
On religious issues...
What is your take on this?Pig head find at Malaysia mosques
Several severed pigs' heads have been found in mosque compounds in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. The national police chief, Musa Hassan, linked the discoveries to recent attacks on various houses of worship.
Pigs are considered unclean by Muslims and their presence in the mosque compound will be taken as an insult.
In recent weeks, 11 churches, one Sikh temple and some Muslim prayer halls have been vandalised amid a row over non-Muslims' use of the word 'Allah'.
Religious tensions in Malaysia have increased since a court ruled last month that a Roman Catholic newspaper could use the word Allah in its Malay-language edition to describe the Christian God.
Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the people behind the latest incident would be brought to justice. "The majority of Malaysians are peace-loving people, the majority of Malaysians would not do this act," the AFP news agency quoted him as saying.
'Aggravation attempt'
AFP reported the police chief as saying he believed the attacks were being funded by a group that was attempting to worsen tensions in Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim nation which is also home to large ethnic Chinese and Indian communities. "By looking at the modus operandi of the two incidents... I think it is the same group that is involved in the previous attacks," he told reporters.
AFP reported the police chief as saying he believed the attacks were being funded by a group that was attempting to worsen tensions in Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim nation which is also home to large ethnic Chinese and Indian communities. "By looking at the modus operandi of the two incidents... I think it is the same group that is involved in the previous attacks," he told reporters.
"I think they are throwing money [to those carrying out the attacks] to cause such incidents."
He added: "Don't play with fire, I will not compromise on the security of the country. Please do not provoke the public or any parties to undermine the security of the country."
At least one severed pig's head was found at the Taman Dato Harun mosque in a nearby district, said the mosque's prayer leader, Hazelaihi Abdullah. The police chief confirmed this incident and said two others were left at the nearby Al Imam al Tirmizi mosque. Separately, Zulkifli Mohamad, the top official at the Sri Sentosa Mosque on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, said men arriving for early morning prayers found two bloodied pigs' heads in plastic bags in the compound.
"We feel this is an evil attempt by some people to aggravate tensions," Mr Zulkifli told The Associated Press. No-one has been hurt in the series of attacks on various houses of worship since the 31 December court ruling which allowed non-Muslims to use the word Allah as a translation for God.
Police have arrested 19 people in connection with the attacks so far. Correspondents say some of Malaysia's majority Muslim community suspect Christians of wanting to use the word Allah to encourage Muslims to convert to Christianity.
Analysts say the controversy has been stoked by hard-line elements within Malay Muslim political groups to assert Malay primacy in a shifting political scene. The government has appealed against the ruling, in contrast to countries such as Indonesia, Egypt and Syria where Christian minorities freely use the Arabic word to refer to God.
*
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