What idea did I just give?

What am I supposed to get done again today?

When is this assignment due?

What was the name of that book I’m supposed to check out?

What am I supposed to get on this aisle again?

These are some of the questions that used to come to me, an easily distracted person living in the 21st century with a mind that wanders… until I started to write everything down.

Writing things down was one of the simplest and most useful routines I’ve ever adopted. It has helped me do well in school and been invaluable to me at work, especially now that I’m involved in multiple projects that are so varied in scope and subject.

Not only does writing things down keep me on top of my to-do list, it also allows my mind to be clear and present. David Allen describes this state of being as having found a system that your brain can trust. When I’m developing a project, writing thoughts down as they come allows me to pool together pockets of ideas so when I finally sit down to draft something concrete, I don’t start from a blank slate.

I write down my thoughts whenever and wherever I can. I don’t usually get ideas when I’m sitting at a desk in front of my computer; but they come when I’m on a train, walking in a park, or taking a shower. So I’ve used strategies ranging from pen and paper (I prefer blank paper with no lines because I draw and doodle and link things with windy arrows), to emailing myself when I’m commuting  – I write and scribble, type and text, even record myself, whatever I can do to save that memory. I also write to clear my mind before I have to focus on a big task. Journaling helps me release my feelings and thoughts so I can fully concentrate on what I need to do.

These practices have radically increased my efficiency and pace with which I work. It is a practice that I consistently recommend to my clients. Just adopting this one practice will make a world of difference. Try it and let me know how it’s worked for you in the comments below!

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My mind has the power to make or break me.

In my teens, going up to bat was my favorite part of softball practice. It felt so cathartic to swing the bat, hit the ball, and watch it go. As I got better at batting, my coach started giving me more opportunities to play during games. It should have been a real confidence booster, but my mind wasn’t having it. I would consistently crack under pressure, strike out, and let my team down. Eventually I was benched entirely.

I knew had a lot of work to do. In addition to tackling my (painfully obvious) issues, I developed strategies to trick my self-sabotaging mind into excelling and succeeding in spite of itself.

The opportunity to practice these mind games first presented itself in school. Though most of my education has taken place in Singapore, I spent three years of upper primary in the US public school system. The transition back to Singapore for secondary school was very tough for me in terms of academic rigor, lifestyle, workload, expectations, etc. I found myself overwhelmed, out of depth, confused, and sleeping less to get all my assignments done.

To survive, I had to figure out ways to work within systems I had little control over. So I started with the basics. This is what I knew about myself:

1)   Stress was not my friend;

2)   I was more effective when tasks were spread out rather than crammed together in a tight deadline;

3)   I enjoyed working on multiple things at the same time (not to be confused with multi-tasking).

Within these perimeters, I started my personal  time management experiment.

I began developing strategies to give myself breathing room while completing tasks/assignments/projects and enjoy the process of doing it. I would plan backwards once I knew my deadlines, break down my work into smaller steps, give myself motivational rewards, and always schedule more time than I think I needed to complete a task (these strategies and more will be discussed in later posts). These are practices I still depend on today.

While pursuing my undergraduate degree in Canada, these methods enabled me to excel academically, work part-time, volunteer, lead teams, plan events for a student club, travel, and put a small photography/poetry book together, while having (what I would consider) a very healthy social life. It was so effective that I started helping people around me manage their time if they felt overwhelmed in a new school system with a new course load.

These first time management ‘consultations’ went something like this – “Let’s meet up. I can help you plan your schedule to meet your deadlines and in exchange, you can buy me lunch.” I  found these meetings extremely enjoyable and at the same time rewarding as I was able to mix my three favourite activities – meeting new people, enabling their potential and being a control freak.

Since then, I’ve formalised this service and have worked with a range of people from students to creative professionals to retirees. I listen to each person’s specific challenges, goals and needs and collaboratively customise solutions that are in line with their character and lifestyle. My goal for myself and for others is to be in the flow and not to go against it.

“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.” – Maya Angelou

 

This is a constant journey and I am still learning as I go along – with what I do know, I use it to enable the potential in others.

– Joy

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My father’s father – we called him Yeye – was and is one of my favorite people.

When I was in lower primary, my school was a 10min walk from home. Yeye lived with us and would pick me up from school everyday. At the time, low coconut trees would line the sides of the street on our walk home and I had an obsession with being an explorer. Yeye would walk next to me while I ‘waded’ through the forest of my imagination, parting the low-hanging coconut leaves and taking exaggerated steps above the ‘tall’ grass. Yeye would never laugh at me or hurry me along and when we got home, he would make me the most delicious glass of iced Milo, with lots of ice and too much sugar.

[Evidence of my explorer aspirations in Maryland when I was 10.]

Yeye had the straightest back of anyone I had ever known. He was also the tallest man with the bushiest eyebrows in my 8 year-old world. I asked him once, “ Yeye, how do you get such a straight back?” He smiled and said, “Just sit up straight.” And I have, ever since.

Yeye was a prolific gardener. We used to have Rambutan, Starfruit, Mango and Chiku trees around our house, in addition to lots of bouganvilleas and cacti. He also had this thing about catching rats and drowning them. Anyway, I remember my dad having a phase where he would lock my sister and I in our room on weekend afternoons to make us take naps. That was also the time when laundry would be done and the washing machine would be humming and pushing out soapsuds just outside my window. I felt I was too old for naps, so after 15mins or so of being under ‘room’ arrest, I would climb out the window, play in the soapsuds, then go round to the back of the house where I’d sit and watch Yeye trim the Rambutan tree.

He was also an amazing chef. Hainanese men have a reputation for being great at cooking and he didn’t disappoint. I would sit in the kitchen often watching Yeye make dinner. The heat would be higher for vegetables and lower for meat so I learnt to recognise the different sounds the wok makes at different temperatures.

[In the kitchen where I watched Yeye cook.]

Yeye would sometimes take me to the wet market, this magical place with too many people and too much fishy water on the floor. I used to hold onto the back of his shirt so I wouldn’t get lost. Sometimes Yeye would buy these live blue Flower Crabs. He would take them home and put them in the sink. On one of these occassions, he flipped one over and stabbed it with a metal chopstick at the tip of the V shape part of the crab. The crab’s legs and pincer moved around for a bit, but stopped shortly after, then Yeye pulled open the V shape part and the crab just unravelled. Then he asked me to try. That’s when I learnt how to kill a crab.

Yeye could speak Hainanese, Teochew, Mandarin, Malay, and English. He taught himself to read and write English. He had the most beautiful cursive I have ever seen and only wrote with a fountain pen. He read the newspaper with a magnifying glass and I used to borrow it to try to set the grass on fire with the sunlight.

He was diagnosed with Esophagus Cancer in 1998 when I was 11. Once when he came back from the doctor, he lifted his shirt to show my sister and I the purple markings the doctors had made on his chest. I didn’t understand what it was, but he made it seem fun that he went to the doctor and got drawn on.

There was one evening I remember clearly. The first time I felt that angels were real. Yeye was resting in his room. He was too weak to eat with us, to cook, or to garden anymore, and going to the washroom wasn’t easy for him. My dad was having a cigarette outside and we were eating our dinner not too far away from Yeye’s room. All of a sudden, I felt this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and then a ‘thought’ came to me – “Check on Yeye. Something isn’t right.” I leaned my chair over to the edge of the table so I could see into his room, and I saw him with both hands on his throat, gasping for air. He saw me and mouthed, “I can’t breathe.” Every hair in my body stood up. I ran to my dad outside yelling, “Yeye can’t breathe! Yeye can’t breathe!” My dad ran in and started rubbing his back down while my mom called the ambulance. After that, he needed to be hooked up to an oxygen tank, which he said tasted weird.

[The dining table where we had our dinner is in the back of this picture – on the left.]

Yeye had a line for his grandchildren as he patted us on the head – “you are Yeye’s good girl/boy.” It was this repetitive yet reliable phrase that always made me feel loved. I don’t remember the first time he said it to me, but I remember the last.

 

It was the morning of a school day and he was sitting in his lawn chair watching the sunrise. He told me I was “Yeye’s good girl” and I should “study hard.” He said some other things I can’t remember, but as I heard his words while I tied my shoelaces, tears were streaming down my face and I knew something was going to happen that day.

At his funeral, a three-day Taoist ceremony where we burnt paper money for him to receive in the afterlife, I remember the casket had a clear glass case over his face. I would go over there and look at him, upset first of all that they parted his hair wrong and combed it in the wrong direction. Also, his cheeks were too pink, his lips were too pink, and they pulled his face into a kind of smile that was unnerving to my 12 year old self. Nevertheless, I would look at his face and say with my sincerest inside-my-heart voice, “Yeye wake up. Wake up. Wake up and we can go home.” I willed him to open his eyes, but it didn’t work.

I didn’t cry at his funeral. I think I was numb, but I told myself he said goodbye to me the day he died so that’s why I was ok. But on the day of his cremation, seconds before they put his body in the oven and all of us were behind this glass wall, I felt a sudden rush of questions – What if I forget how his face moves when he’s happy or sad? What if I forget how tall he is, the sound of his voice, what he smells like, what his hand feels like? I felt swallowed up by tears and basically burst into a wail that scared me. So I buried my head in my mom’s tummy.

 

As soon as the rush came, it left.

[I’m in the centre on Yeye’s lap.]

It’s been over 15 years and I have forgotten all those things, but I’ve never forgotten what it felt like to be loved by him. So every few years, I look back on his letters from a time before I was born and for the few years we were in D.C. and I have a good cry, grateful that I knew a love like that.

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I’m usually a DIY kind of person when it comes to my skin, but spending the afternoon with Peggy and Lily convinced me that if there was anyone I’d trust to put their hands on my face, it would be these two!

Meet Peggy.

I’m like a skin consultant, but my customers tell me I give very different advice. I learnt a lot from working with skin doctors and doing research on the ingredients that go into skincare products, so I don’t like to push services or brands because we all have different skin types and conditions. I mix and match what I use based on each customer’s skin, especially because many products are not made for Asian skin in Singapore’s weather.

For some reason, a lot of teenagers come to me for help and I really enjoy it because they tend to have lots of issues. I like difficult problems like that because the challenge gives me a greater sense of satisfaction when I see improvements.

I had a customer who came to me once with very bad skin. It made her so quiet and soft spoken that she wouldn’t even look me in the eye. After five to six sessions, her skin started to improve and her confidence started to grow! She’s been with me for 6 – 7 years now.

I came from a poor family in Malaysia. After my parents’ divorce, we moved to JB (Johor Bahru) and my mom started a job selling bread. I was with her one day when she was working in the heavy rain. I offered to help her, but she asked me to stay in the bread truck. I remember watching her with her raincoat on and loaves of bread going door-to-door trying to make a sale. It hurt my heart so much. I told myself that when I graduated from school I was going to do all I could for her not to have to suffer like this anymore.

I started this business because I wanted to spend more time with my children and I love seeing the transformation in my customers’ character and attitude when they go through the treatment. You know healthy skin has such an impact on self-confidence. I feel successful and so satisfied when I see results.

Lily and I met while working at an aesthetic clinic. Actually she was the one who interviewed me! We work so well together because we share the same outlook on how service should be done, how things should look and especially how to treat people. We believe in honest, open communication and value this in our relationship with customers.

Meet Lily.

Most of my work in Style Coaching is for everyday looks. I guide people of all ages to groom and dress in ways that allows their true selves to shine. It’s beautiful to see how knowing the right colours, textures and cuts can change peoples outlook on themselves and the way they interact with others.

My interest in beauty started because of my own skin issues. Growing up, my skin problems and the lack of acknowledgement at home caused me to battle with low self-esteem. I became a perfectionist who was very sensitive and aware of issues around beauty. Because of that, I decided to go to beauty school.

At beauty school, we were trained like nurses almost – understanding the intricacies of how the skin functions, how the machines work, etc. I came out of that programme knowing how to take care of myself better and it inspired me to want to teach others to deliver quality work in this field. So in addition to style coaching, skin therapy and hair & makeup, I teach part time at a beauty school in Singapore.

I got this compass because of an urge I felt to get another tattoo. I didn’t realise till after I got it that a compass symbolises direction and I was at a crossroads at the time. So I feel the compass grounds me in a way and points me towards the right path.

Being able to help people who want to see change in their lives and working with them to find their style makes me so happy. The outward and inward transformation from Style Coaching gives me such a sense of satisfaction that it’s almost therapeutic.

Peggy is patient, thoughtful, and sunshine personified, while Lily is intuitive, contemplative and gentle (like the moon). Together they’ve formed a seamless partnership that impacts lives through enhancing natural beauty. In an industry that can be harsh and predatory, it’s comforting to know that there are genuine souls like Peggy and Lily out there.

Drop by Freshskin Beauty Specialist at 470 North Bridge Road, Bugis Cube #04-18 if you’ve been thinking about improving the health of your skin or changing up your style. Not only will you be able to see Peggy and Lily without their masks on, but if you tell them about this photostory, you’ll also get a 10% discount on your treatment! Total win-win.

The post Peggy Chan | Freshskin Beauty Specialist & Lily Loh | Hundred Ways | Singapore appeared first on Joy-Wong.

Concentration is something that really grips me. It’s that intense focus of creating. The feeling when the world fades away and all that’s important is what’s in front of you. I feel that way when I photograph, and I connect on that level with others and the work that they’re passionate about.

Inspiration is sparked through conversations about the project and the stories told. As I become more and more a part of my clients’ world, my mind and my heart tune in, and my imagination goes *pop* *pop* *pop* as the ideas and the vision start becoming clearer and dearer. It’s a very collaborative process.

I believe the best work happens when hearts burn together for a purpose greater than material. It all becomes very exciting when I start to see more than just another subject to photograph, but a story of love poured out. I can’t describe this feeling.

Photography is really difficult. It’s not just about technical knowledge and ability – it’s art. It’s telling a story of trust between photographer and subject, and it oftentimes reveals a creator’s heart. It’s a very heavy responsibility, and to be honest, I am afraid most of the time.

My dad passed away when I was 15, and all I have to hold on to are the memories and experiences that we had together. The greatest impression that he left on me was that he really loved people.

Life is tough. We all face difficulties and challenges, but I find many people often feel they have to put up a front. I can’t blame them, I do it too, but it does make me very sad. With this in mind, I wanted to create an environment where people, and my clients, can be honest and vulnerable with me. I think it’s key to building relationships and trust. It is not always easy though. If you want others to be vulnerable with you, you have to first be vulnerable with them, and that can be risky. However, I think it is a risk worth taking because it gives me the chance to impact lives.

When I was thinking of the name for my studio, I wanted to find a trait that resonated with the brand and it was gentleness. For the work, to be gentle is to exercise great care, and I want to have a relationship with my clients beyond transactions.

People have told me that my photographs convey a romantic feeling. To me, I use lights to reflect a serenity I feel inside. It’s like the feeling when you see rays of sunlight peeking through clouds on a rainy day. The way different emotions are conveyed when light hits a subject is very intriguing to me. It sort of becomes therapy.

*Photographs courtesey of The Gentle Studio

Many of my clients at the moment are new start-ups who value a picture’s ability to make an impression, and I am always excited to be a part of the growing process with them. Of course, I do hope to work with bigger brands in the future as well.

At the end of the day, the human aspect, the care, and the attention to detail and precision is what drives me and The Gentle Studio.

My cousin Sam is as brilliant as he is sensitive, as conscientious as he is brave and as giving as he is talented. If you are looking for a fashion, still-life, or documentary photographer in Singapore who will capture the essence of your product with care and precision, Sam at The Gentle Studio is the force who can make this happen. And if he likes you, you might be able to sing to ‘No Scrubs’ together.

Samuel Wong
The Gentle Studio
hello@thegentlestudio.com

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He said “Everyone likes the ‘rubbish’ in my shop and many people take pictures so you can too, but come back on Monday”. So I did.

Now, I’d like to introduce you to Chris, a skilled tailor with over 50 years of experience who is full of stories and full of smiles. He came to London in the 1960s after leaving the unrest in Cyprus. He lost everything during the conflict and had to start over.

As he drew up the lines on a piece of cloth that would become someone’s pants, he gave me a tip.

“I’m 70 and I have perfect eyesight.”

“How did you manage that?”

“I eat a lot of carrots and vegetables. In Cyrpus, everyone had land for a farm and we would have fresh vegetables.”

“You had organic food before it was a thing!”

*No comment*

Chris said he worked very hard to build his business and his biggest regret was not spending enough time with his children when they were young.

“Sometimes when I came home late, I would take pictures of my kids sleeping!”

He said that his shop is small because land is so expensive, but small spaces still work because jewish tailors/ seamstresses made do with very little space in the past, sitting on tables and sewing on their little “cushies” (cushions – picture below).

“Do you make clothes for women?”

“I used to make suits for women but I stopped because [women] change their mind four times a day! I had this one customer who asked for alterations after we had agreed on her fitting, then when she came back again, asked for it to be altered back to how it was in the beginning. I said that’s it, enough. I didn’t want to do that anymore. I don’t know if that is true, but it is my experience.”

Chris was working for another tailor when he decided to buy up a space and start his own shop 45 years ago.

“Sometimes I  get customers coming in with their cheap suits made in Thailand saying ‘Hey Chris, what do you think?’ They are my customers and I don’t want to make them feel bad so I say that they look good, but those suits are rubbish.”

“How can you tell?”

“I can see it! That same customer came back to me asking if I would fix some of those suits from Thailand. I said no. He put all 10 suits on my table and asked me to take them away and make him two good suits. My friend ended up taking those 10 suits to sell at the market!”

Chris Georgiou doesn’t work alone. Meet the other Chris. He is a semi-retired tailor who used to have a shop in the West End. Chris and Chris G. are old friends and since last year Chris has been working here part-time.

Chris also left Cyprus in the 1960s and  has three children, two girls and a boy. He said his son is a graphic designer who now lives in Amsterdam.

They told me that in Cyprus, you learn how to tailor as an apprentice from the age of 12. The first thing they make you do is to put a thimble on your middle finger and use it to push the needle through cloth to practice sewing (just as he’s doing in the picture below).

Chris has a different style from Chris Georgiou, he adds his flavour to each piece even as he steam irons a jacket

About two hours into my visit, Joseph walks into the shop to say hello. Both Chris and Chris start speaking to him in Cypriot Greek without looking up from their work. Joseph is clearly a regular visitor.

Joseph left Cyprus in the 1950s and told many stories of how the city has changed over the last 50 years. St. Pancreas used to have many garages (auto repair shops) he would visit, the decimal was  introduced to the British currency in the 1970s (http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/moneyold.htm), etc.

“I  met Queen Elizabeth when she was still a princess and I couldn’t believe how tiny she was, she looked like a doll!

He also spoke about the difficulties of being an immigrant.

“I’ve lived in London for 50 years but I am still considered a foreigner. When I go back to Cyprus to visit I’m a foreigner…”

I couldn’t help but be moved at how dignified and well dressed these gentlemen were. The way they spoke and how they carried themselves evoked a sense of self-respect,  humility and satisfaction of lives well lived.

If you’re a man, visit Chris and get your tailor made suits at: 120 King’s Cross Road, London WC1X 9DS. T: 020 7278 5837

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Uncle Five is still the strongest man I know, but now, because of prostate cancer, he wears a urinary catheter and unrelated to cancer, he only has sight in his right eye.
Somethings don’t change through, he is still a man whose smiles are like rare treasures, he still walks slowly with both hands behind his back, still has a hearty appetite despite having only one tooth and is still hard of hearing, making him a professional at selective conversations.
When the idea first came to declutter his home, we wanted to hire help to clear everything in a few days. Uncle Five refused and told use that there were valuables in his house that could be sold. He needed to be part of the process, no outside help was welcomed, and so began our journey. Every Saturday morning for 4-5 months in 2014, we picked him up from the nursing home and brought him to his flat.   Since he is in his mid-eighties, we started by working an average of 2 hours per session. As his stamina increased, so did our hours. He readily tossed out old shoes he collected and mended, but was adament about keeping his handmade boxes and furniture that was covered in a layer of cockroach eggs, dead roaches or daddy long legs spiders.

From a seemingly dirty and laborious task, this became one of the most profound experienc
es of my life. Every week felt like I was walking into a time capsule. Not only was I learning about Singapore’s past through water bills from the 1980s, old kerosene lamps, opium pipes and sewing machines, but I also learnt so much about Uncle Five’s heart.   In making decisions about what to throw out, he often yelled out to no one in particular, “有没有用啊? You mei you yong ah?” (Is there a use for this?). Everything was about usefulness to him, how it could benefit someone else.

Sometimes he would make surprisingly sentimental decisions like getting worked up over a toy dog or toy guns I tried to throw out. “那个我要! Na ge wo yao!” (I want that!)
Sometimes amidst the rubble, I find clues to his life before. Passport photos that seemed to chronicle 50 years of his life; Two lone combs in a small plastic medicine cabinet next to the door in a room that was completely taken over by stuff (I once found two tricycles in that room, packed vertically in front of me, held up by a mixture of wooden planks, shovels and metal poles). Items like the two combs tucked away amidst all that chaos led my mind to wander and dwell on the man who used to look into the small mirror in front of the medicine cabinet and comb his hair.

And then there are purely puzzling moments. Once, we moved a huge sponge mattress that sat on a table and found smear marks from a squashed cockroach and 15 empty peanut shells. It was quite odd.

The closer we get to clearing the house though, we start to see walls and furniture and the house Uncle Five moved into 30 years ago comes to life. As the previous photo story mentioned, Uncle Five worked on ships for many years and finally settled back in Singapore in his 50s. With his brother’s (RIP Uncle Nine) help, Uncle Five’s savings were spent on buying a 3 bedroom flat, the first property he has ever owned. The pride he felt in his home reverberates off the walls today through picture frames of landscapes carefully hammered together and hung with precision.

The telephone with big numbers in the corner that still had a dial tone. When I asked him what his phone number was, he told me not to call him.

A glass case full of vases neatly placed and kept safe.   On the shelf above the desk he built, sat a beautiful wood carved ship, one of many ship motifs that reminded me of his love for handmade things and his 30 year journey out at sea.

Throughout the last two years, especially during this process, I’ve learnt some new stories about him as well.

When he was as 17, just after the Japanese left Singapore after World War II ended, he went out to run an errand for his mom on a damaged bicycle. On his way, the bicycle chain came loose and he stopped to fix it. It is unclear if he was in a traffic jam or caused the jam, but he was approached behind by a very big policeman who hit him several times on the back of the head with a batton. He said that it’s been 70years but his head still hurts.   When he was a young adult, Uncle Five would visit a relative who built things for the British Army. He would go often and observe him work for hours, then he would go to Sungei Road to buy the tools he saw and try to make things on his own.

Uncle Five has been on an airplane 4 times in his life. Twice to Amsterdam, once to Sydney and once to the US or UK for work. He told the story of how he had a job exporting butter from Queensland, Australia by ship. The route took him to parts of New Zealand, Panama, the west coast of the USA and Canada, down the east side to New York, to ports along the coast of the African continent, and back to Australia. He said the journey took 2 years. When I think about the world today with all the access to information we have; discovering the world that way Uncle Five did seem so arrestingly powerful and courageous.
And he didn’t just make stopovers. Uncle Five was institutionalized in South Africa once. As the story goes, he was dropped off during a work stint on a ship when he had a mental ‘episode’. He was eventually transferred to Singapore’s mental institution (called Woodbridge at the time) where a relative who worked there found him among the patients several months after our family lost contact with him.
When you look at his hands, his fingers are all bent out of shape, from a job hammering metal boxes together for 2 years. Having known all this about him, I visited one day and told him I had quit my job. He seemed surprised and asked me how much I had made there and why I had left. While trying to find the words, he furrowed his brow and asked me “辛苦吗? Xing ku ma?” Translated to English, it means “did it cause you suffering”. I looked at him at a loss for words. Of all the hardships that he has been through, being put in the mental institution multiple times, living through a war, hammering mental boxes that disfigured his hands… He asked me if I had suffered. At a loss for words, humbled and feeling the weignt of that moment, I nodded and he nodded in understanding and acknowledgement “辛苦 啊辛苦. Xing Ku ah xing ku.”

Every week for 4-5 months we went to Uncle Five’s house to learn bits and pieces of history. There were so many treasures that I couldn’t bear to throw away. Uncle Five’s many beautiful handmade made a particular impression on me. They were not made of the best material and would not win any awards for functionality, but in a world where everything is digital, something as imperfect as Uncle Five’s boxes makes such a deep print on my soul. I felt that those pieces ought to be be displayed in a museum and his story told.

Being part of this journey in Singapore with Uncle Five has filled my heart with so many emotions I can hardly explain them all. I feel so privileged to have been part of this moment of history being passed so symbolically through the house of a hoarder to me.   We had our last session on 8 June before Uncle Five moved back home. I am glad to get my Saturdays back, but a litle afraid too because I don’t know what adventure Uncle Five will be on next and I almost feel like I might not get the chance to see him again (also because he has never been responsive to knocks or rings from door bells).
The saying goes that no man is an island, but I felt like I have visited the island where one man lives. It is still largely a mystery to me, how a baby would become a man like him on an island and I will carry these memories with me for a long time to come.

The post Uncle Five Part II | Singapore appeared first on Joy-Wong.

This is my Uncle Five. He is my grandmother’s brother and the oldest of seven siblings. No one knows why his name is Five, but it has always been that way.

He rides his bike everywhere, wary of spending unnecessary money on public transit. Every sunday for the last few years, he would ride his bike to our house carrying everything from oranges to a full length mirror and a thick wooden single seater couch. We would sometimes watch dumfounded as he unloaded the furniture at our gate, hanging bags of expired food where he could find space, oblivious to our presence.

He was 19 when the Japanese invaded Singapore. He went from working at his parents’ bakery to being a coolie for the soldiers. He always had a heart to help people and left school after Primary 5 to support his family. The story goes that after he was tortured by the Japanese, he was never the same again.

As far as everyone knows, Uncle Five has been to Woodbridge three times. Rumours in the early days were that every patient who was admitted would have been greeted with excruciating electroshock therapy, regardless of the diagnosis. So now, when he goes for radiation treatment for prostate cancer, not only does he feel nothing, but he asks why wires aren’t being attached to him.

The first time Uncle Five was admitted, it was because he grabbed the neighbours daughter and held her tight. He fancied her and didn\’t know how to express himself. She screamed for help and by the time my father and his siblings came around, Uncle Five was having the daylights kicked out of him by her family. My father and his siblings, who were children at the time, had to drag him away. To keep him from jail, his brother, Uncle Nine, admitted him to Woodbridge instead.

Uncle Five’s mother was a formidable matriarch. She protected her flock with a firm hand and disciplined unapologetically. She was also a diabetic. In her old age, when her body began loosing its strength, she collapsed one day and became paralysed from the neck down. A relative who was not so fond of her, saw the incident as an opportunity and tried to suffocate her in the middle of the night. She didn\’t succeed. The whole incident created such a stir that the police was called in. To protect the family, Uncle Five took the rap for the incident and was admitted to Woodbridge again.

When Uncle Five was younger, there were days where he’d lock himself in his room, coming out only when my father and his cousins were making a racket outside. My father said that Uncle Five was a terror, that one time, his cousin had a hammer thrown at him barely missing his head. They all learnt to be careful around Uncle Five.

Uncle Five has worked at sea for over 20 years as a steward. He has travelled all over the world including places like Italy, South Africa, and Canada. He would often disappear at sea and come back home randomly. He never seemed to have all his bearings, but he always knew his way home.

He also loved to fix things for people. That was and still is his love language. My aunt laughs when she tells the story about how as kids, they would wear out their shoes and wouldn’t be able to afford new ones. At night, Uncle Five would thoghtfully cobble heavy rubber soles to their shoes so in the morning to their horror, they had to go to school with weights at their feet.

He lives frugally and conscienciously, living by the motto that what you don\’t give away to family, you sell.

Uncle Five loved to collect vases in his travels at sea. He used to have vases of all shapes and sizes in his room. They were so beautiful that a relative would often pop in when he wasn’t home to take a few vases for herself. Annoyed, Uncle Five glued thick blocks of wood to the bottom of the vases so the next time she came in, they couldn\’t be moved.

This is my Uncle Five. He is 85 and still rides his bike around better than I ever could. He loves to drink Soy Bean Milk and eat green bean soup.

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