JYSim for jobless-yokel Sim

It’s strange how you can come home for your holiday instead of going away to some far and exotic places for summer or winter. I guess it’s something we’d have to face one day - leaving home. Home will eventually become something more or less like a holiday resort to us, at least for the next 10 years.
And if I’m eligible to comment on my holiday this time I’d say I’m having one of my best yet. I felt so reluctant of leaving from the first moment my plane landed in KL. In fact, since the start of the winter holidays I’d taught myself not to think of the near future (returning to Taiwan). I brainwashed myself that this winter holidays is as long as I’d wish and it’s almost never-ending (at least when you see March 2nd from January 23rd it’s a long time to go still). Little did I prepare myself for facing the end of the holidays and having to drag the baggage out again to be stuffed to its brim.
3 days back home my room had already shown signs of occupancy, as if I never left, and indeed I felt I never left before. It’s like living the idle days we had during January to May last year. The past 4 months of hardwork, sweat and struggle to adapt to a new environment was almost, if not completely, wept out of me. I gained back weight, but not to the point before I left, and I can speak almost perfect Manglish again. It’s as if I had never left.
However, I’m forced to face myself yesterday when my air ticket finally get confirmed after my cousin asked his friend who worked in MAS to ‘pull some strings’. February 28th and March 2nd, although only 2 days apart, seems quite distant to each other. Out of a sudden I felt I’m leaving soon - in less than a week’s time. In less than a week I’ll be back to my school starting yet another semester in my 7 years of medical education. I can still remember vividly what my Dad’s friend said to me when she picked me up from Taipei Main Railway Station - ‘well, 13 more semesters to go!’ Getting off another from the 13 semesters might not seem essentially a big deal, but I missed terribly how the words sound back then - I was ready and excited to go home, and those words were sparks of encouragement meaning nothing more than to ask me to study hard for many years to come. However, now it seems to me it’s more like ‘13 more semesters, you can make it through still?’
When I recall my holidays now, I can little remember what I did or how I felt during the past few days. Perhaps holidays are meant to be so - blank, relaxing and of empty spaces. It’s the idleness of the holidays that made you wanting more of it, not because of the hustle and bustle of it, at least for me.
As my holidays come to an end and as I say more and more ’see you in July, maybe’ to my friends, I felt again the feeling of sending off someone (though I’ve never sent anyone off yet for now). For the next few years our friendship will not experience any positive growth, no. Time and our distances between us as well as our pursuit of our own dreams does not allow it. It’s good enough we maintain our friendship as what we had all these years, and we always try to prevent it from going deficit.
I might not have a lot more ’see you again in (what month you prefer?)’ to say, and that’s why I truly treasure how my friends (you guys) are willing to spend time with me during my short stay back home. Thanks for the hospitality all these while and I promise I’d come home as often as I can, at least when much of you guys are still here.

Chinese New Year is an excellent period for reunions - some distant cousin of yours will turn out suddenly and remind you of the good o’l times where children are still so naive and they can so simply play together without a proper introduction and handshake. Besides cousins you see only once every year (and maybe even fail to recognise even if he sits next to you coincidentally in GSC), there’s a great chance you might be meeting a relative you never knew existed. You see, my Dad comes from a great family of merchants with 9 siblings. And reunions are just a great affair as meeting our Prime Minister at his bungalow.
The small gatherings are nontheless welcoming too because you’ll always have people calling you ‘Dr. Sim’ already even though you still have 7 years to go. It’s a great chance to savour and partially experience the different walks of life your relatives are walking. And sometimes it’s just this little figures that inspire us more than Bill Gates or George Bush (if you idolise him at all).


Photographed here my babysitter’s daughter’s son (in short, my cousin angkat). This little guy reminds me of myself when I was small - always that energetic, charismatic and kuai-ku. Of course somewhere along the way I guess I gradually lose those characters and they got replaced with who I am today. And I think I looked a little like him when I was small.

My almost-complete photo of my babysitter’s family, all in red (
more or less). My babysitter’s the one in pink.

My cousin of my Mum’s side with me in the RM7.99 Fila. To Khang Ning - he is Jiin Ying’s brother. Again, this little guy reminds me of myself when I was of his age, mainly because of his double chin.

Me and my family in black and white. The one behind drinking a cuppa is my second aunt from my Dad’s side. Photographed in Penang Club today during our mass family gathering - the one I mentioned meeting distant relatives and cousins who looks always so alike with those waiters in Chopper Board.

Me and my cousins from my Dad’s side. Seated on my right are my smallest and 4th aunt from my Dad’s side also. Nowadays rank is so important you’ll get whacked by Mum simply because you called her ‘auntie’ instead of ’second aunt from the Dad’s side’ (in Chinese).

This is the prestige. Sitting in the center is my grandpa’s cousin of his Mum’s side. So generally you can see 4 generations in this one single photo. And they speak such traditional Hokkien you’ll mistake yourself in Taiwan.

Happy Chinese New Year, wherever you are. May this new year brought forth more prosperity and joyous occassions to all of you while you enjoy your brilliant results (may it be SPM, STPM or PMR) because it’s election year next year. And while you cheer for RapidKL taking over Penang’s rotten bus system, please do remember to give thanks everyday because we’re always so much better than somebody else who lives in terror-striken countries.

We all agree that we grow and mature with experiences and events that happens around us. However, you might find that my booklist have no great differences from those of the past few years (2 to be exact). This year I took the initiative to divide my books into 2 categories - Malaysiana and International. Names are self-explainatory. Books are not according to the ‘goodness’ order.

Books - Malaysiana
1. Livin’ it! A Collection of Stories On Teenage Life
edited by Renee Koh, MPH Bookstores
These essays are truly Malaysian in the sense that they are composed from genuine Malaysian teenagers - those attending Malaysian schools, living in a spectrum of environments ranging from the over-protective Chinese Mum who goes ‘go to sleep-ah’ at 10.47pm to the loving Dad who was always there for his son (who went to Stanford). A truly enriching and surprising read if you have the time to scan through the countless fabulous essays.
2. Malaysian Flavours: Insights Into Things Malaysian
by Lee Su Kim, Pelanduk Editions
She is an authentic nyonya with a doctorate in English - so, expect her to go ‘what the heck are you speaking?’ at our Malaysian English. In fact, she did a whole list of Manglish words for the mat sallehs. Generally I like her book because her opinion is always centered and more moderate than another writer of this genre. The bonus of it was that also included her 3 articles on her life in Texas (for whichever reason she went to Texas I cannot truly recall).
3. This End of The Rainbow
by Adibah Amin, The Phoenix Press
Flawless English written in a Malay style - long twisting sentences which never fail to surprise, and bright, original sentence structures accompanies the shy Ayu (a Malay girl admitted into medicine in the then University Malaya in Singapore but chose to do literature instead) through her First Year. Quite a nice book for university freshmen, but do tolerate some post-World War Two ingredient in it - you know how nostalgic the Malays can become when they’re really into it. And this book really reminds me of this one particular quote of Tunku broadcasted on ntv7 - let us all as one remember that all Malaysians would live together as members of one big family.

Books - International
4. Nicholas Again
by Goscinny and Sempe, Phaidon
I love Nicholas in Nicholas. And now comes Nicholas Again! This book will remind you of how you were during primary school - always picking up a fight, eager to show off (even if it is just a poem marked 7 out of 10), and always oh-so-naive. The illustrations that accompany this book is truly award-winning. The French really do have talent in arts!
5. Love Notes - 101 Lessons from the Heart
by Jim Brickman and cindy Pearlman, Hay House
For those heartbroken blokes and gals, here’s your cure. Though I’ve never been in love, I think this book is, and would always be, a source of solace for those in love in any phase of ‘falling in love’. At the end of the day, always remind yourself that even though you might have been ditched a thousand times and you really sucked in your partner’s opinions, there’s always someone special just right there for you. (Not to be taken too seriously, mind you, JYSim has no falling in love experiences)
6. Essays of E.B.White
by E.B.White, unidentified publisher
Recommended articles: Once More To The Lake, Here Is New York, Afternoon Of An American Boy. The pioneering and one of the best American writers whose style and language influenced so many future Americans. You’ll need to read him to know and experience his magic.

I came back to Malaysia with a mental note to solve some problems I encountered in  Taiwan. Before this I had noted that my presence in Taiwan was a little of a semi-existance state - a far cry from what I experienced in CLHS. I suddenly became the youngest in my class, and whether it is because of that fact or not, I transformed into the young guy with near-to-zero credibility and hard to rely on. Perhaps it is due also to the sharp focus in my studies I decided to put effort into that I deliberately neglected other (often better) things. I did not participate very actively in co-curriculur activities (because there’s no marks allocated for it), and I no longer volunteer to become committee members of some planning group. In short, I became quite reserved (even though I wasn’t known for my active state in co-curriculur activities when I was in CLHS either).
Even before I came back I complained to Mum about the problem - I wasn’t the (blush) popular and (some say) brilliant guy I was anymore. I was a meagre medical student no one will remember after the semester, I was just the normal sim jun yi (note no capitals for SJY). Perhaps by now you’d say the Sim Jun Yi is so arrogant and he wasn’t anyhow popular or brilliant last time either, but all in all, my character changed from the first day I stepped into TCU.
Once I’m home I discussed the matter tete-a-tete with quite a number of people. And to my amazement, the problem just dissolved and shrank in my very own eyes. From my state of ‘oh dear, this gotta be corrected soon’ to ‘it isn’t that serious seriously’ to the current ‘aiyah, i can try to ‘activate’ myself next semester still’ - it was a comforting and always enriching experience to share my problems with all these people - Zi Yi, Ms. Cheah Joo Ean and a couple of teachers in school.
Up to this point I feel obliged to share the small observation I made from this semester - I noticed Chinese from South Malaysia tend to be more ‘Singaporean’, meaning they’re more aggressive in nature and they have this ‘go, let’s do it! Do it now!’ attitude. Chinese of North Malaysia are more relaxed in nature and they’re like ‘cincai lah, aiyah, whatever you do, as long as you give me the right things on time’. The North Malaysian Chinese, if it can be said, chooses to walk life with a slower pace. Of course at the end of the day we can’t say each and everyone of us is something described above, but at least I got the feeling of so. It’s just a generalisation after all.
At the end of the day, wherever our discussion may lead to, we will always end with ‘you still need more time to adapt to the different environment,’ ‘judging by your current circumstances, I think you did not bad overall. Allow yourself more time to evaluate and excavate your talents.’ etc.
These advices reminded me of my humble (and perhaps rugged) start in CLHS. I started Form One in Chung Ling not anticipating how Chung Ling would instill its good values into me. I wasn’t a very-typical Chung Ling student too, if you judge by the CLHS legacy. Anyway, I came out of CLHS with my very own ability to analyse things (very gifted in Taiwan), have a point of view of my own, and communicates relatively effectively in Manglish. Maybe TCU has other things to offer at the end of my 7th year too. And maybe that’s just what I have to go through in order to absord what it has to offer. And now I remember ‘nobody every said going on exchange (being a foreign student) was easy’.
I guess I’m still a typical Northern still - doing nothing is the best way of doing things, sometimes. That again reminds me of something Queen Elizabeth II said in ‘The Queen’ - that is how we do things, silently, and with dignity, and that’s what the world admire us for.