Voices In Harmony

What is it about singing that moves us? What is it about putting words together with music that resonates deeply within our soul? We sing when we are happy, we sing to mourn, we sing in our showers, we sing through our tears after a break-up.

My brother and I have (unwisely) been taking singing lessons for the past week. It has been really interesting standing before our singing teacher, who could pick up immediately what was wrong with our singing.

The main problem, she says, is the fact that we were singing. Our singing should be outlawed, she said. We should be arrested by the Singing Police and locked up in a soundproof prison. She then ran away screaming with her hands over her ears, never turning to look back at our dejected faces.

Hahaha!

I remember one of the things I was doing while pretending to be oozing mystery as a teenager on my school bus was that I would be softly singing to myself at the back of the bus.

"Oi, Heng Khuen!" came the jeering voice of the St John's boy behind me. "Trying to sing ah? Afterwards the snow come then you know!"

Often in Malaysia, when we are trying to insult someone's singing, we say that their singing, like the frogs', would bring the rain. This insult brought it to a whole new level. Bastard!

Back to the singing lessons. She taught us how to warm up our voices by running through the scales while blubbering our lips. We sounded like singing motorboats....

*leaves his blog writing to write his To-Do List: Make A Children's Programme About Singing Motorboats. ABC Kids will love it!*

.... and then we went through other vocal exercises. What was interesting was seeing how our voices started out thin and strained, and by the end of one lesson, she made it a lot more rich and resonant, surprisingly. Can't wait to see what the other lessons will bring!

Random Memories: Fourteen Years Old

One of the things of having a brother two years older than you going to the same school with you are the inevitable comparisons.

My brother was often labelled a little eccentric while I was the sensible younger one. Don't get me wrong, I love my brother as he is and I wouldn't want him any other way. When you are an awkward teenager growing up, however, the temptation was always to distance yourself from your brother at school.

This distance carried on at home as well, and it was often difficult being two different individuals under the same roof, which often led to arguments and fights.

One night, however, I was standing at the study room door, while he was sitting down on the swivel chair. He started singing a church song, and I added in the harmony. Our fraternal voices blended together in golden accord, and I must say, there was a little bromance right there.

We tried a few more songs in simple harmony, and there was something inexlicably bonding about singing with your brother. As we grew older though, I find our voices became a little more discordant.

Hopefully these singing lessons will help us rediscover a little lost love.


I'm the thin one. of the group, of course.  With the feminine shirt.



In Justice

I walk into the room and she is on the phone with her partner. She just wanted to hear his voice, to know that he was okay, and the kids were okay. Because right now, she wasn't okay.

I catch traces of her voice '...turn off ventilator...' '... out in the sun...' '...it was expected, but still...'

I take my seat next to her and try to be unobtrusive.

'Everything okay?' I finally ask when she puts down the phone.

'No, everything's not okay,' she says. 'My friend's sister died today.'

I offer my surprised condolences. How old was she?

'39. She had porphyria, but like a really severe attack, you know? They did everything they could at the A for her - they kept her in ICU, she had continuous immunoglobulin infusions, they even rang experts in Europe for advise but no one could offer any answers.'

'They turned off her ventilator today at 1 pm. I knew it was coming, but still...'

Her voice drifts off.

'My friend asked me if I could be somewhere nice at 1 pm, just for her sake. So at 1 pm, I just walked out of here for awhile, you know? And just as I stepped out, the sun came out.'

Did she have any children?

'She had two kids, 4 and 6.'

The mention of kids unlocked the floodgates.

She pulls off her glasses and pinches the bridge of her nose and allows herself a small cry.

'It's just not fair, y'know? She was a doctor, she was such a bright, lively character... Some dickheads live to be a fucking hundred, and...' she breaks down. 'It just isn't fair,' she protests.

I put my hand on her, and learning from an auntie who did the same for me during my father's death, said absolutely nothing.

She sniffs her tears dry and years of Emergency Medicine training takes over as she suddenly snaps out of it. 'You know, I'll be alright. That's just life, isn't it?'

She straightens out the pile of paperwork before her and forces her pen to start writing the patient's notes again. There was very little room for proper grieving at work in an Emergency Department.

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There is great injustice in this world, naturally. All of us intuitively react against it - as kids we will go 'That's not fair!' or 'That's cheating!' without ever needing to be taught.

I think about this fallen world, filled with injustice, and about how if there wasn't the promise of a new heaven and a new earth, all this would be meaningless.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21:3-4

Get A Haircut

BSS | Straight Razor from Bruton Stroube Studios on Vimeo.

Karen showed me this video from the same guys that brought you Breakfast Interrupted.

It also got me thinking about that wonderful scene from Gran Torino.

Indeed, it is a shame that we are losing our old ways. There are some shops in Malaysia where you get a number by vending machine, and then a silent hairdresser efficiently snips away your hair in under ten minutes. No idle chatter, no friendship. Just business.

Whenever I am home in Malaysia, I will always visit good ol' Johnny for my haircut. It may be cheap and tellingly so, but at least the trip is interesting.

Random Memories: Haircut through the Years Part 2

I remember when Dad lost his ability to walk, the church were swift and eager to help us through our first few difficult years. A member who owned a music store donated a box full of music cassettes to us, while the church donated a RM400 exercise bicycle to my father for his initial physiotherapy needs.

One of the many helpful aunties in the church decided that she would ease our financial burdens by giving the family a haircut. Her intentions were noble, God bless her soul, but the outcomes were often... interesting.

She would bring her hairdressing gear to our house - a pair of sharp stainless-steel scissors and a somewhat interesting manual razor. This razor was made out of plastic and shaped like a clam. You could separate the two halves of the clam and then insert a razor at either end, depending on whether you wanted a rougher shave or a finer shave.

Instead of a cloth thrown around our necks to keep away stray hairs from our collar, we improvised instead by cutting a hole in the middle of a newspaper foldout, and fitting it around our heads.

Inevitably all our haircuts would end up looking like this:

 

Minus the funky earrings, of course

One more reason why I have no illusions of having expensive haircuts.

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There were always murmurs among married women that you should never let women hairdressers touch your husband's head. Too many stories about how Mrs X's husband ran away with the hairdresser after she 'put a spell' over his head. I suspect that the head was not all they were touching, to be honest.

Fuelled by both raging adolescent hormones and curiosity, I made my way up the stairs to one of the dodgy looking hairdressers in my Taman (suburb) one day, my heart pounding with each step that I took up the stairs.

I got an enticing lady, all right. All fifty-five years of her. Curly grey haired and gruff, her sleeveless underarm dingle-dangles (that's a term I learnt from Karen) wobbling as she snipped away at my hair.

It was an ultimately anti-climatic moment in my teenage life, but hey, it wasn't a half bad haircut.

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I think most of my later years before I ended up with Johnny were spent mostly at Indian barbers.

If you wanted old school, this was old school, man. Swivelling barber chairs, chequered floors, candy stripe out the front. The works.

The Indian barbers themselves were pretty adept with the electric razor and scissors. Most of the time, however, everyone who walked in for a haircut (inevitably men) would always walk out with the same hairstyle - a buzz cut to the sides and back, and short at the top.

Haircuts at the Indian barber would set you back by RM10. Added to that value for your money was the wonderful 'head cracking' service at the end of it. The barber suddenly turns amateur chiropractor - steadying your head at the top and at your chin with both his hands, he twists it one way and then the other to give a satisying 'crack' as if you were cracking your knuckles.

Except that, you know, it was the spine of your neck.

That's us Malaysians, living on the edge of danger - walk in for a haircut, and a 5% chance of paraplegia.