JYSim for jobless-yokel Sim

I was chatting with my junior on MSN yesterday night, after the Welcoming Party of the International Students’ Club. As you might probably remember my junior shares the same birthdate as me, so from the first moment I saw him I got the creepy feeling that I am actually talking to my duplicate self. At first glance you’ll notice that we both have the same small eyes, same charming smile (heh) and probably the same cheeky expression, just that he does not have eyebrows as thick as mine.
The only difference I noticed is that my duplicate self finds himself more comfortable in the school environment compared to myself when I was here last year. I do not only see a little of myself in him, but also how he fared better than me. I saw the blunders and mistakes I made last year as a freshman - overly confident and a little arrogant (as with most Chung Ling students). I am glad he does not follow my footsteps, and I sincerely hopes his 7-years here will be happy and smooth-sailing.
It’s mid-autumn festival exactly one week after school started. This also marks I’ve been away from home for more than one year. You might have heard this thousands of times before from my blog, but this one year came and went with much pains and gains. Having literally battled myself into a medical school, I assumed studying medicine would be a long hard war with books and cadavers and lectures. I bury myself in the library almost everyday, not knowing the golden period for co-curricular activities lies during the first and second year of your medical education. I missed out a lot of fun we share as a wholesome class, and I was lonely. I overworked myself not knowing what Medicine requires of us is actually only a small fragment of the effort I invested.
And during those darkest period I sincerely thank my best friend Tsan who automatically approached me and brought a little joy into my miserable life. I was touched by his sincerity during the early months - he was mostly there when I don’t feel good about a certain issue or when I had problems with adapting myself in a strange environment. The parallel lives we lead during the early months was both meaningful and memorable for me. Nevertheless, as our lessons got more demanding and as he is kept more and more busy with co-curricular activities I dwindled deeper yet into the labyrinth of darkness again. Long after we’ve left these memorable months behind, I will still recall the carefree days when he insisted I wear a raincoat when I pillion his motorcycle. I gave thanks to Almighty and him for a harbour of comfort, and I asks for apologies in the event that I scarred both our feelings, which I did numerous times in the course of our friendship. Impulsiveness.
Now comes a second friend who provided warmth and comfort during the winter months. My senior who always listens silently and gave advice which not necessarily helps but definitely provided comfort was there with me until I board the plane home for Chinese New Year. It was his Year 3, but he’s always willing to spend time listening to my troubles and worries all the while.
As I step into a more-challenging second year it’s often good to be able to look back at the good-but-painful old days when I literally learned by falling down and climbing up again. I know now that my attitude and Chung-Ling arrogance played an important part causing the pain, but I am glad I recovered from these falls quickly enough to have a small network of friends now. I shed away the Chung-Ling arrogance (which isn’t necessarily bad by the way), and learned to be more tolerant. I am proud to have inherited the famous Malaysian hospitality, which I find useful in my SCOPE jobs.
I am still trying to abandon the typical Peter-Pan syndrome, to think from other perspectives and to look at things from all 360 degrees. With God’s strength I hope I will end this semester (and these 6 years) being a better person. To Hueih Ling (if you’re reading this I hope you persevered up till now), taking things easy will sometimes produce unexpected (and better) results. To my junior (even though you might not read this), I sincerely hope you, my duplicate self, will be happy and fares better than the original self (and now I’m confused as to whom is the duplicate and who’s the original). To Tsan and the senior, thank you for everything.

The 300-seater A330 was only filled with 158 passengers as it soars over the skies of Tai-Chung before landing in Taoyuan International Airport. 6.47pm, and it’s already as dark as the Malaysian 8pm. I met my 3rd Mum (first Mum being Mum, second Mum being my babysitter) Aunt Qiu Xia less than an hour later at downtown Taipei before we haul up all 40kgs of baggage into her car. And I was home again.
The next day I weave my way through the elite districts of Taipei looking for the Malaysia Airlines Ticketing Office. The officer told me to get off at Nanking E. Road MRT station and to locate the baseball stadium, the office is just opposite the stadium. What she did not tell me is that I will still have to walk across 2 sections (as in from Midlands to Gurney) to be able to locate the stadium. Nevertheless, the ticketing process took less than 15 minutes and at a quarter to 10 I was out and breakfast-hunting. I walked into Ikea Taipei, which is just 2 units away and paid NT$39 for scrambled eggs, 2 pieces of ham, a huge bun, and bottomless coffee.
A few hours later I was juggling with my 40kgs of luggage in Hualien Train Station, aided by my senior, I managed to pull all of them up the malfunctioned elevator without breaking anything. The moment I stepped into my room I abandoned for more than 2 months, I dropped everything and switched on the computer. I Skype-d back home but nobody’s there to answer. After several attempts I hastily packed some tau sar pneah and rush out for a meeting-cum-dinner. Thanks to my patient senior, I finally came to know what the committee I’m representing the university, SCOPE, stands for. It’s actually the Standing Committee Of Professional Exchange, a subcommittee tied under IFMSA - International Federation of Medical Students’ Association. Heading the committee for this year along with my partner, we’re responsible for taking care of exchange students from all over the world, as well as organizing a selection test for outgoing students. It suddenly dawned on me that I will be insanely busy this year.
8.24, the meeting is finally over. Before this my choir members had called numerous times asking me to be back for a performance at 8.30. I exerted all the force used to cycle this summer (I did not cycle at all back home) to paddle the bike back to school. I was still panting when we went on stage. Face red like a flamingo, I sang into the absolute darkness below the stage, formulating what to say to ‘invite’ newcomers to our chorus welcoming party this coming 30th of September.
Fueled by adrenalin that evening, I only manage to shut my eye at 2am, knowing our class trip starts at 7.30 the following morning and a class trip usually means no sleeping for the next 24 hours.
The bus hover among hilly areas and empty expressways as we chatted amicably on what we did during the summer as well as mundane gossips and stupid things by our junior. We had lunch in a very touristy restaurant and subsequently took the 1.30pm boat to Green Island. The island, located 33km off the northern coast of Taiwan, is primarily known for its prisons and places of exile for political prisoners. Many current politicians now fighting for Taiwan to be enlisted in the UN had been there, as prisoners. An island smaller than Hawaii, it’s dependent on fishing as well as tourism now. The boat ride typically takes 50 minutes - the most torturing 50 minutes of your life if you, like my very bold friend, stood up all the way and jumped around like monkeys that were rubbed with belacan (bagai monyet kena belacan?). Crossing the Pacific Ocean is exactly like riding in a roller coaster ride, plus occasional sprays of seawater and spotting of flying fishes and dolphins.
Our Green Island trip started with a simple snorkeling in one of the coasts. Being a two-time snorkeler in Redang I am completely shocked by how the tour guides stepped on corals, fed the fishes (very unnatural and unhealthy for the ecosystem) and treating everything as simple as ABC. The coral reefs are vanishing faster than the tigers or pandas. Simple acts such as touching the corals, which will harm the protective layers of the creature, may exterminate the entire colony of reefs along the coast. Feeding the fishes there might as well alter the natural water pH which will in long term suffocate the reefs as well.
Later in the evening we went for a very-expensive BBQ, ate mostly free radicals, carbon particles and chemically synthesized foodstuff. The gang went back for the hotel’s karaoke system after a brief nighttime introductory to the island by our cincai tour guide. Nobody slept until 2.30am.
The next morning was free-and-easy till 1.30pm when I realized I should have put on some sunblock before venturing outside this morning. Quickly applying some in 7-11 while waiting for the boat, I battled over the decision of whether to eat a light meal of Maggie (of course it’s not called Maggie here) before departing. However, the fact that the school messed up with my school fees and now my money is still hanging in a computer system between Taiwan and Malaysia bothers me that I finally decided not to. The boat ride back was more bumpy than the one we had the day before, but all of us managed to sleep through it.
Back in my dorm at 8.30, the sight of my roommate studying his n-th repetition of Biochemistry shocked me wide awake from my happy illusion that summer is still not over. I managed to go through half a chapter before surrendering to sleep at a little after 12 midnight.

A few minutes ago I was gobbling down probably my last bowl of Hokkien Mee this year in my own kitchen, cooked in less than 5 minutes thanks to a company called Ibumee. Yesterday the Sim family gathered (again) at Prontip Thai Restaurant for the cheap-but-not-so-nice Thai buffet, which the cook deliberately added lots of coconut milk into everything in order to make you eat less. On Saturday Mum, Dad, my sister and me went to Chili’s to celebrate my sister’s birthday, the monstrous servings meant 4 of us only spent RM150+ including taxes. Back to Friday me, Jieyang and Soon Khen went to the latter’s sister’s restaurant opposite Cititel for Japanese food, which is only so-so but made worthwhile with the 20% discount.
The food-filled weekend is very typical nearing departure each time, a fact worsened by my slimmed down figure after spending one year in Taiwan. "If you don’t fatten up now, when will you fatten up?"; "Heh, so nice eh? Enjoy the food and fatten up here, and go back and slim down." Lots of my female cousins and friends are peckering me for ’slimming down tips’, which I do not practise any. In fact, sometimes I have supper as late as 11pm at night (in Taiwan), or even second dinners. I eat regularly, and I did not bring a calorie calculator wherever I go. I studied, but the pressure isn’t enough to compress me to such figure. So I guess it must be hormones, and the genes embedded so long ago that destined Jun Yi to be another sequel to the story of the ugly duckling.
I did manage to fatten up, a little, upon coming back - that’s the bad part about coming home for the holidays. I was strolling with Mum and Dad at the lobby of G Hotel after our dinner at Chili’s. The lobby was festooned with tour groups and youngsters probably from iNTI or wherever. I walked across the full-length mirror, took a glance, and walk away again. Shocked to discover a stranger in the mirror, I took a backward glance to discover it’s myself, slightly ballooned up in the belly part. This is not what I saw myself to be when I did the same thing in my dorm mirror two months ago. A bittersweet memory flashed back into my mind - on July 21st 2007, after completing check-in at Taipei Int’l Airport (and arguing with the China Airlines staff about allowing me to go onboard because the aircraft is ’slightly overbooked’), I went through Customs and Immigration. The queue is longer than the Great Wall of China, as usual, and soon the lady officer signalled me to come forward. She took a quick look at my photo in the passport before flipping to the pages where my visas are stuck. Mid-way through it she took another glance at me, and flipped back to the photo page. "You get anyhow tormented or tortured in Taiwan?". Not knowing how to react, I did my usual "h’m" procedure.
I was 76% asleep last night when something rang suddenly inside my mind. I suddenly realized I have quite an amount of problems to tackle when I return - my SCOPE stuff, choir paperwork, and my scholarship application. The relaxing atmosphere of late had turned Jun Yi into a lackadaisical creature managing to do nothing for the entire afternoon. After assuring myself that things will eventually solve itself out, I manage to fall asleep listening the cat’s meow in the back alley. I don’t feel as homesick as I was during my first holiday back home. The feeling is less painful now, and I hope to be optimistic though I am sure things won’t still be a bed of roses.
My many thanks to Soon Khen and Jieyang for the great times, Seong Ling and Zi Yi, Ying Jing, Sheng Yu for the hug, Ling Wei, Ping Hui for the afternoon at McD, Zhi Ming for the one and only badminton meet, and so many others who really coloured the holidays for me. Tham Min taught me these 4 magic words - "Give. Take. Put down. Move forward." Perhaps it’s best for everybody to live in the moment than to grasp what we had.

Time literally flies. As summer comes to a close I slowly come to realize that the many things I am doing now might be the last I will be doing in Malaysia. People at my age are flying away to all corners of the globe pursuing their future, and soon my summer back home (if any) might just end up being a driver for the family and chaperon for aunties shopping for groceries. Though the timeless Penang will still embrace and captivate me every time I come back, the past Penang will not be the same Penang in 2 to 3 years’ time. The lack of old friends made all the difference.
This summer is the firsts of many things for me - my first foreign friend came, being host for the first time, driving so much for the first time, first time being an education counsellor, writing a short story for a competition for the first time etc. The whole experience was exciting and rewarding. I am glad I had a summer well-spent. Many years later, I know I’ll look back on today and probably mention this summer to my friend while we reminiscise knowing it’s difficult to find slots to visit Penang. On the other hand, this summer also marks several lasts for myself - probably the last time meeting Zi Yi in Malaysia, last time seeing the good people in Form 6, last time having Mum beside me to slash the prices from the cunning Indian shopkeeper, last time seeing my cousin who’s migrating to New Zeland on November, last time sharing a single plate of O-Chien with 11 people, last time spending 5 hours in McD with Soon Khen and Jieyang with just one cup of Coke (refillable). The adults will tell you it’s a process of growing up - leaving some things you think precious, and embracing more of the future (though it might not necessarily be nice). I remembered one text message Ms. Lon Eng sent me on my eve of graduation - ‘this is life, to leave the good old things so that you can reminiscise it later in life, and to welcome the new challenges so life becomes more meaningful with each passing day’.
Looking back, there are so many beautiful things to appreciate and enjoy in simple everyday life - Tham Min teasing Beng Hong and Zhi Ming during free periods, the McDonalds’ Big Breakfast which comes with a HUGE cup of tea and it’s refillable, ‘The Star’ everyday with it’s witty Kee’s comics and Starscope, the library of pirated DVDs at home, Mum’s car which easily gears up to Gear 4 (on a bumpy urban road), and the sun shining through the bedroom windows everyday at 9am exactly. While there’s no certainty saying I’d be robbed of all these in the future, the prospect of having to savour these little everyday enjoyments seems bleaker as I approach 19 years of age. I will have to find little everyday enjoyments in my secular home, and slowly switch my definition of ‘everyday’ to ‘holiday’ as I stand more rooted to Taiwanese soil - the unknown guy shooting behind the dorm every evening, the beautiful, towering mountains behind the school, the glassy seas of Hualien coast, and the excitement of being included in a little class outing.
Home will always be something a wondering traveller seek. At Popular today I was randomly browsing, but my eyes will unconsciously rest on titles related to being to a foreign land, i.e. ‘Home’ by an Indian writer whose name I couldn’t remember, ‘Sister Swing’ by Shirley Geok, and Amy Tan’s. Homesickness is something unawarely tattooed on our souls.
I have a Chinese New Year to look forward still, the Form 6 people are still here, Soon Khen will be here, Kee Wai too, and it would be another holiday to remember, I think. However, as Dad gave the initial approval for me to participate in a medical conference in Tokyo next summer, I wonder if I’d want to come back next summer - Soon Khen is flying, the Form 6 people will be in their respective universities - hardly anyone left I think.
Home is a nice place to be during the holidays, but the turmoil and heartache one has to go through during each end-of-holiday is something enriching yet agonizing. At least we get to gain something every homecoming - for me it’s to appreciate things around me and to try out new firsts while I still have the might, and friends to accompany me.