What the Modern Woman Wants

By Amanda Chong Wei-Zhen


The old woman sat in the backseat of the magenta convertible as it careened down the highway, clutching tightly to the plastic bag on her lap, afraid it may be kidnapped by the wind. She was not used to such speed, with trembling hands she pulled the seat belt tighter but was careful not to touch the patent leather seats with her callused fingers, her daughter had warned her not to dirty it, 'Fingerprints show very clearly on white, Ma.'

Her daughter, Bee Choo, was driving and talking on her sleek silver mobile phone using big words the old woman could barely understand. 'Finance', 'Liquidation', 'Assets', 'Investments'... Her voice was crisp and important and had an unfamiliar lilt to it.

Her Bee Choo sounded like one of those foreign girls on television. She was speaking in an American accent. The old lady clucked her tongue in disapproval...... 'I absolutely cannot have this. We have to sell!' Her daughter exclaimed agitatedly as
she stepped on the accelerator; her perfectly manicured fingernails gripping onto the steering wheel in irritation.

'I can't DEAL with this anymore!' she yelled as she clicked the phone shut and hurled it angrily toward the backseat.. The mobile phone hit the old woman on the forehead and nestled soundlessly into her lap. She calmly picked it up and handed it to her daughter..

'Sorry, Ma,' she said, losing the American pretence and switching to Mandarin. 'I have a big client in America . There have been a lot of problems.'

The old lady nodded knowingly. Her daughter was big and important.

Bee Choo stared at her mother from the rear view window, wondering what she was thinking. Her mother's wrinkled countenance always carried the
same cryptic look. The phone began to ring again, an artificially cheerful digital tune, which broke the awkward silence.

'Hello, Beatrice! Yes, this is Elaine.' Elaine. The old woman cringed. I didn't name her Elaine. She remembered her daughter telling her, how an English name was very important for 'networking', Chinese ones being easily forgotten.

'Oh no, I can't see you for lunch today. I have to take the ancient relic to the temple for her weird daily prayer ritual.' Ancient Relic. The old woman understood perfectly it was referring to her. Her daughter always assumed that her mother's silence
meant she did not comprehend.

'Yes, I know! My car seats will be reeking of joss sticks!' The old woman pursed her lips tightly, her hands gripping her plastic bag in defence.
The car curved smoothly into the temple courtyard. It looked almost garish next to the dull sheen of the ageing temple's roof. The old woman got out of the back seat, and made her unhurried way to the main hall. Her daughter stepped out of the car in her business suit and stilettos and reapplied her lipstick as she made her brisk way to her mother's side.
'Ma, I'll wait outside.. I have an important phone call to make,' she said, not bothering to hide her disgust at the pungent fumes of incense. The old lady hobbled into the temple hall and lit a joss stick, she knelt down solemnly and whispered her now familiar daily prayer to the Gods. Thank you God of the Sky, you have given my daughter luck all  these years. Everything I prayed for, you have given her. She has everything a
young woman in this world could possibly want. She has a big house with a swimming pool, a maid to help her, as she is too clumsy to sew or cook. Her love life has been blessed; she is engaged to a rich and handsome angmoh man.
Her company is now the top financial firm and even men listen to what she says... She lives the perfect life. You have given her everything except happiness. I ask that the gods be merciful to her even if she has lost her roots while reaping the harvest of success.

What you see is not true, she is a filial daughter to me. She gives me a room in her big house and provides well for me. She is rude to me only because I affect her happiness.. A young woman does not want to be hindered by her old mother. It is my fault.
The old lady prayed so hard that tears welled up in her eyes. Finally, with her head bowed in reverence she planted the half-burnt joss stick into an urn of smoldering ashes.

She bowed once more. The old woman had been praying for her daughter for thirty-two years. When her stomach was round like a melon, she came to the temple and prayed that it was a son. Then the time was ripe and the baby slipped out of her womb,
bawling and adorable with fat thighs and pink cheeks, but unmistakably, a girl. Her husband had ticked and punched her for producing a useless baby who could not work or carry the family name.
Still, the woman returned to the temple with her new-born girl tied to her waist in a sarong and prayed that her daughter would grow up and have everything she ever wanted.
Her husband left her and she prayed that her daughter would never have to depend on a man. She prayed every day that her daughter would be a great woman, the woman that she, meek and uneducated, could never become. A woman with nengkan; the ability to do anything she set her mind to. A woman
who commanded respect in the hearts of men. When she opened her mouth to speak, precious pearls would fall out and men would listen. She will not be
like me, the woman prayed as she watched her daughter grow up and drift away from her, speaking a language she scarcely understood..
She watched her daughter transform from a quiet girl to one who openly defied her, calling her laotu, old fashioned.... She wanted her mother to be 'modern', a word so new there was no Chinese word for it. Now her daughter was too clever for her and the old woman wondered why she had prayed like that. The Gods had been faithful to her persistent prayer, but the wealth and success that poured forth so richly had buried the girl's roots and now she stood faceless with no identity, bound to the soil of her ancestors by only a string of origami banknotes.
Her daughter had forgotten her mother's value. Her wants were so ephemeral, that of a modern woman. Power, wealth, access to the best fashion boutiques and yet her daughter had not found true happiness.
The old woman knew that you could find happiness with much less. When her daughter left the earth, everything she had would count for nothing. People would look to her legacy and say that she was a great woman but she would be forgotten once the wind blows over, like the ashes of burnt paper convertibles and mansions.
The old woman wished she could go back and erase all her big hopes and prayers for her daughter now that she had looked out of the temple gates. She saw her daughter speaking on the phone, her brow furrowed with anger and worry. Being at the top is not good, the woman thought, there is only one way to go from there – down.

The old woman carefully unfolded the plastic bag and spread out a packet of beehoon in front of the altar. Her daughter often mocked her for worshipping porcelain Gods. How could she pray to them so faithfully and expect pieces of ceramic to fly to her aid? But her daughter had her own gods too, idols of wealth, success and power that she enslaved to and
worshipped every day of her life.

Every day was a quest for the idols, and the idols she worshipped counted for nothing in eternity. All the wants her daughter had would slowly suck the life out of her and leave her, an empty souless shell at the altar. The old woman watched the joss stick. The dull heat had left a teetering grey stem that was on the danger of collapsing.

Modern woman nowadays, the old lady signed in resignation, as she bowed to the east bone final time to end her ritual. Modern woman nowadays want so much that they lose their souls and wonder whey they cannot find it. Her joss stick disintegrated into a soft grey powder. She met her daughter outside the temple, the same look of worry and frustration was etched on her daughter's face.

An empty expression, as if she was ploughing through the soil of her wants looking for the one thing that would sown the seeds of happiness. They climbed into the convertible in silence and her daughter drove along the highway, this time not to fast as she had done before.
‘Ma,’ Bee Choo finally said. "I don't know how to put this. Mark and I have been talking about it and we plan to move out of the big house. The property market is good now, and we managed to get a buyer willing to pay us seven million for it. We decided we'd prefer a cosier penthouse apartment instead. We found a perfect one in Orchard Road .. Once we move into our apartment, we plan to get rid of the maid, so we can have more space to ourselves....."

The old woman nodded knowingly. Bee Choo swallowed hard. "We'd get someone to come in to do the housework and we can eat out – but once the
maid is gone, there won't be anyone to look after you. You will be awfully lonely at home and, besides that the apartment is rather small. There won't be space. We thought about it for a long time, and we decided the best thing for you is if you moved to a Home. There's one near Hougang – it's a Christian home and a very nice one."

The old woman did not raise an eyebrow. I"ve been there, the matron is willing to take you in. It's beautiful with gardens and lots of old people to keep you company! Hardly have time for you, you'd be happier
there." "You'd be happier there, really." her daughter repeated as if to affirm herself.

This time the old woman had no plastic bag of food offering to cling tightly to, she bit her lip and fastened her seat belt, as if it would protect her from a daughter who did not want her anymore. She sunk deep into the leather seat, letting her shoulders sag and her fingers trace the white seat.

Ma, her daughter asked, searching the rear view window for her mother. "Is everything okay?

What had to be done, had to be done. "Yes" she said firmly, louder than she intended, 'if it will make you happy,' she added more quietly..

‘It's for you, Ma! You will be happier there. You can move there tomorrow, I already got the maid to pack your things.' Elaine said triumphantly, mentally ticking yet another item off her agenda. 'I knew everything would be fine.' Elaine smiled widely; she felt liberated. Perhaps getting rid of her mother would make her happier... She had thought about it. It seemed the only hindrance in her pursuit of
happiness. She was happy now. She had everything a modern woman ever wanted; money, status, career, love, power and now freedom without her mother
and her old-fashioned ways to weigh her down......

Yes she was free. Her phone butted urgently, she picked it up and read the message, still beaming from ear to ear. "Stock 10% increase." Yes, things were definitely beginning to look up for her and while
searching for the meaning of life in the luminance of her hand phone screen, the old woman in the backseat became invisible and she did not see her in
tears.

meeting napo

Yesterday, was a beautiful lazy days. Woke up with the intention of not wanting to do very much and proceeded to make that come to life.

Think to a large extent the day was made special because of S- a lovely Italian man, whose eyes crinkle and hide in his face when he is laughing and he laughs a lot. We spent a day together only and in that one day this is what I got to learn about the incredible life he leads...

A person with a regular job, in the middle of which he expanded his comfort zone with small steps. First small step was him commencing to dabble in theater, learnt a bit of reiki and did the most incredible thing that I got to know about in real life

Mission - Improving Communication


The plan was to talk to people, without any additional plan. So instead of thinking about it, he did something simple. set up a table in a market square, placed a small billboard on it stating "free for a conversation. no charges"

It was hard, people looked at him like he was mad, he was alone with everyone walking by. There was no trust, there were jokes and sniggers. Till one person sat down and they talked. Then another.... soon he enrolled a friend and they had 2 tables and everyweekend, the world he knew expanded while he remained rooted to his real routine.

This trigged in him a desire to see the world and that is what he has been doing. 1.7 months and counting.....an experience that can have few parallels.

Some S'isms that struck a cord in me are:

• life comes in 7 year cycles, there is a up and a down, makes the best of each stage
• the hardest thing about planning a long travel is deciding to do it- the rest flows from there
• people are the same- and yet so different. What you give out is what you shall get back
• Travelling soon changes from becoming an external thing about seeing and visiting to an inner journey, watching yourself grow and change, adapt to uncertainity, learning to remain curious and open, taking hiccups in your stride and letting it be. 
• These two years are my lifes gift to me. 

As I peeled myself from the table, where the remains of an incredible italian dinner lay scattered, I caught myself wistfully wishing for having the courage, savings and potential to gift us this exploration. The form may differ but the sheer vastness of the landscape is non paralleled. 

Relationships are built on very fragile threads.  Here I don’t mean only the romantic relationships, but each bond in the form of your partner, parents, colleagues, friends, acquaintances, the neighborhood guard- almost each person has a format of interaction that gets developed with time.

They are the greatest teacher and the biggest deceivers.  Somewhere in the middle of one, the relationship gets a life of its own- people stop thinking of what they want, and make the other person more important.

The first masks comes up.

Honey, will you meet me tomm? I would love to spend some time in the evening with u… the accurate answer may actually be- aah! No!!! I have shit loads on my plate being a Monday morning and cant make the time and come all the way, but instead the answer that comes is.. sure thing, shall definitely try and come there

Both parties are happy.  One building a dream evening, the other content with a commitment that has been half promises.

Lies said for the others benefit, to keep things from heating up.

We all do it. The frequency and the extent may vary but somewhere down the line, we find it easier to be franker with our friends and colleagues that with the closest relationships we have. Don’t want to hurt them – or worse don’t want them to know who we really are, because then they maynot love us anymore.

Phew, finding myself a close spectator to the turmoils of a friends relationship has made me wonder. IS there a better way ?

Don’t have one.  The breakup of a relationship that somehow you allowed to become central to your life, sweeps the ground off your feet. Nothing makes sense, you cant eat, cant stay away from the phone the only person you want to speak with is the one person you should not reach out to.

You try to seek solace with friends and family… half heartedly head for that concert and movie. A shadow to yourself.  Your inner movie consuming all your space and attention. .. it takes a long time to bounce back from something that you cherished.. smooth nothings referring to destiny, many fish in the sea, there is something better waiting for you are words that fall off like drops of water on the surface of a lotus.

You cry, and sigh. Smile at the times gone by. Cringe when someone takes u to the same resteraunt. Miss holding a hand at the movies, and wait for a hug.

The good news is that it does get better.  You smile for no reason again. Buttercups in the rain are enough to make you happy and the happy you gets someone new ……. And there is one tiny difference- this time you KNOW that no matter what you will be OK.  

you will

up and away

Today is a super day.

Just because I say it is. For starters, am feeling elated happy and alive, and peppy. Peppy- i like that word reminds me of the magic gum that crackles in your mouth. As i drove in to work today there was a super radio show on with a music director Leslie Lewis and his band, recounting anectodes of a his life with musicians of yesteryears.

To the wallowing of hang out pals, there is a turn in events, my darling universe seems to have responded and how. There is a party on tonight where almost each person met shall be new and not known from before, a women group is meeting up over the weekend and there is momentum

now to fix work and get things a little more actionated there and i am set. The feeling alive shall translate into a happy productive day and that by itself is good.

Simple and easy. motto for the day- get cracking

All right then

Life for the past few days has been like a Karan Johar and a Sanjay Leela Bhasali movie rolled into one. This no matter how you look at it, sounds like a huge box of tissues must have been consumed. 

Lets get to the story.

Saturday morning,  the day started with Social Network the movie and like all weak people susceptible to external influences triggered in me the desire to do three things. All of which like someone puts it, are thoughts going round and round like a merry go round in my head

1.            Study abroad or more precise to be part of this huge student mass once more where 4 am          seems a perfectly legitimate time to commence a business discussion while pissed out of your  head

2.            For a while, be the hard-nosed high heel lawyer in a large conference room with a shield of        papers making me feel important and use polite sarcasm to make nonsencial point

3.            But a lot more than both – made me want for a while have that audacity, the focus and the        conviction where one breathed, moved, thought, delivered and did  only one thing – the abiding                 passion of that one project whose end result was not something that mattered

Stepping out from the luxurious arm chair seats, I looked around as the life that was where all three elements were missing by choice. Hummed to myself, ransacked the book fair for the lonely planet and returned with the Immigrant- by Manju Kapur

Set in the Indra Gandhi era, it chronicles the tales of  Delhi women a professor who is turning 30.. Thirty, thirty, the number and the implication are drilled into the reader as a dreary picture is painted of her life in the DTC busses, the searing Delhi heat, the one roomed house with the trapped memories pushing each other for attention complete with the widowed mother. Grooooooooooooooooooan!!!! You almost want to make something happen for her to make the book move.

Luck shines on her, she moves to Canada and the next level of “immigrant issues commence”… not being able to assimilate, the isolation, missing family yada yada yada. Made me wonder if I too would stick out as an outsider if and when we move…., but doubt that.  The simple trick to assimilating no matter where and how you go is to – DO MORE – make a move and get friends and vala u are all right

Bantering on.

Sunday was a photo-shoot, book reading, movie seeing, walk and a meditation. The string of activities made the mood flow from frumpy to grumpy to all out bawling. Reason- not sure, just a bad case of the blues.

The lack of hang out pals was making it presence felt more and more, stronger and louder. Made calls and vala, now we seem to have some sort of a womens club meeting for every Saturday that has been initiated

Its Tuesday today, 4 days of dramatic emotions and swaying mood swings

Am back on my feet, happier and lighter. Amen to the remaining week commencing on the same note.

mid week break

A mid week break is a thrilling thing to get, allows one to hit the pause button and remain in a whirling bubble over the rest of the week, observing the rest of the world scurry along. So all I did was sit and read assorted articles from the Time magazine, and 2 things leapt out and stayed with me

JFK Presidential Campaign

The Time did a photo essay releasing the so far unpublished images from his presidential campaign. By itself the topic was run of the mill and the images not path breaking.  Set in the 1960’s the campaign moved across the breadth of America gathering  votes and meeting people.  More than the President, the happy shiny faces of the people leaped out at me-  Optimism, surge of faith, hope all expressions colliding together to leap up and out.

As I sat gazing at those faces, on a random afternoon of Nov 2010, could not but help thinking that each of the young people captured in that one moment were not dead, or at best old and wrinkled. Each of them had lived their lives, each of them in that ONE MOMENT -  were people with real worries, some ambitions, some aspirations, and each made some choices. But at the end they faded , as shall you as shall me.

Sounds morbid.

But was not the feeling that I had. Remember a line from a Murakami, don’t remember which book.. he said

"Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting." -— Haruki Murakami

And another line the exact quote of which I cant get – which said

“ As I stood there gazing at the crowds rushing through the square, it hit me that a 100 years from now not one of these people shall remain, everything shall be gone, changed altered, the reality of this moment was fleeting”

This thought actually made me light, the realization that everything was and is fleeting, That the moment comes and goes, that the worries are never as big as we think, the achievements never that huge and there is nowhere really really to go.

That one day, everything we too know is going to poof off and go and what we shall be with with are a few karmas, some samaras and the memories. Nada is the rest.

Made me sign, get a drink and be silly. Be mad and a little glad, to shed a little of the worry wart and laugh. Got high, got silly made nonsense jokes and laughed willy nilly.

I like. 

fanning the embers of friendship

Last year around this time, my best friend sent me a letter. It was ironical because she lived less than a kilometer away from my house, but she decided that what she needed to say was too deep to be sent over an email or just blurted out over the phone.

That time I read the letter, understood it but it is only today that it sank in. As I stand at the same threshold, feeling the same vaccuum, the depth of appreciation for what she shared is more real.

Dont have the letter with me right now, but the extracts of what she said was:

There are more friends on my facebook than days in the year, there are a greater number of people on the phonebook, yet somehow when one needed a friend to simple be with, be around from the lists of people around there seemed no-one there to call. 


Law of diminishing marginal utility:


As children, we spent no time thinking about how to make friends, there was no conscious investment of time and energy, everyone just was there to laugh and cry and if someone was not coming down, a collective yelling below the staircase would compell them to appear ;-)

With the passage of years, the friends became fewer, time investment higher and the mindless easy moments orchestrated sessions that needed to be carefully planned juggling complex schedules and commitments...hence the law of diminishing marginal utility

Time spent on orgn a session to having fun - increased rapidly
time spent actually being together- decreased rapidly

as I stand now, I realize that the childhood years have rewarded me well. Soul sisters, soul friend remain scattered across the globe. Friends whom I merely have to contact and can pour my heart out, friends that shall be there at a time of crisis, non judgemental, supportive and real.

Friends whom I call home.

But sadly, it is not everyday that you have a crisis or need a heart to heart. On most days you just need a someone to have a laugh with, maybe head for a walk, sit on a bench and yap about the little inconsequential moments of life... someone who knows that for this week the biggest thing u are stressing about is not Iraq or the War, but much simpler getting the presentation right for the big meeting... someone, u can call and make a random plan to meet for a beer, with legs perched on the balcony railing watching the rain come in and laugh about how the day went.

Loserly though the above sounds, I find solace that this situation is not mine alone. Irrespective of geography, almost everyone I know is in a similar boat. Everyone, seems to have at some point or the other stood on the shore, and waved a hanky to friends who have departed into the isolated worlds of marriage, demanding jobs, higher education or simply other cities. 

Wiped their tears and gone back to building new ties.

A strange thing though is how when one relocates, the 'newness' is enough of a momentum to find new places and avenue. One is more open to doing and discovering alone, and in the course of this discovery finds some new faces to call home

Comfort in a city, breeds for contentment and instills a sense of reluctance in gathering up the energy to do new. ALONE...


Despite having a few avenues, and interesting ones of things to pursue I shamelessly find myself looking once more at the phone list, wondering hoping that someone, anyone would want to come along for the next concert or the next film.

I dont have an end yet to this. what i do have is belief and hope
belief that if you want to make a change, you can
your thoughts choose your actions, so think well
and i think of being in a cess pool of friendship :-)