50-50
The 9 days I spent in Singapore was a heck a lot of fun. During those days, met up with a lot of people, both former high schoolmates and former OCFers. All of them gave me my dose of comic relief. I seriously think that Singaporeans are the funniest people whether they know it or not. Or rather, Singaporeans say and do the darnest things. The best was an incident regarding a slow cooker. So good was the laugh that my friend who was with me had to apologise on behalf of Singaporeans.
The other common theme was the constant "nagging" of coming to Singapore to work from friends. There are a lot of things that I like about Singapore. In many ways they are playing catch-up with the Melbourne culture which is great. Many times I thought to myself that I can get used to Singapore. It feels comfortable. But I know that there are other problems lurking beneath as mentioned by my fellow Singaporean friends. In the line of work that I am looking into if I do decide to come here and work, there are plenty of issues that I may not want to get into. Work culture is another turn off. It kinda made a little bit of sense that Singapore regularly shows up as one of the unhappiest nation.
And so I still remain divided. It's another one of those cases whether the grass is greener on the other side. More often that not, it's still the same shade of green except a different kind of grass.
Geography and History Lesson
First visit to a South East Asian country apart from my home country and Singapore. Phnom Penh was an interesting city in that it kinda reminded me of old Penang mixed with a rural town. After going to the sites made famous during the Khmer Rouge reign in the mid-70s, it is very hard to not be moved by it. War sets back the progress of a nation by at least a generation, Cambodia is no exception. Much has progressed since the end of the war but you still see many of the consequences of war still present.
After visiting the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, one can't help but think that this is a more heinous act of genocide than the Holocaust. I am not trying to water down what happened during the Holocaust, it's still a brutal act. But it's one thing to eradicate people of a different nation but it's another thing to eradicate your own people. It is said that every person in Cambodia has known at least one person within the family who have died at the hand of the Khmer Rouge during its 3 year reign. The many ways in which these people died seem to be more brutal and savage than what the Third Reich did to the Jews. The seemingly greater injustice was that when the Khmer Rouge were eventually toppled, most of the Khmer Rouge including the leader Pol Pot, lived to ripe old ages. They even died of old age, free from wrath of a nation persecuted from one of its own.
Angkor Wat was everything I've heard and more. It was massive and even more amazing when seen in person. The detail in its architecture was nothing short of phenomenal. And Angkor Wat is just the most well known of the temples around. There are hundreds more of varying size with the same kind of attention to detail. One can imagine what it must have felt when the first explorers stumbled upon this area centuries after it was abandoned.
Tonle Sap Lake appeared in much of our geography textbooks in Form 3 and seem to provide everything. A visit there turns out to be rightfully so. It may not look like much but fish caught here are sold all over the country. You may even mistake it for an ocean because doesn't appear to be surrounded by land.
Time Line
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
at
2:30 AM
Past
Present
Future
- Highly blessed by church and bible study group.
- Tremendous growth at work.
- Acted silly and depressed.
- Rediscovering the meaning of community.
- Steeling myself to stop my ridiculous behaviour. I've indulged in it long enough.
- Enjoying home in ways I never thought I would.
Future
- Take up a new ministry (or rather same same but different ministry).
- Pick up the things I used to know. Language, math, friends.
- Go to less weddings.
Not-so-distant future
33 years old. It's a good time to stop. Almost poetic, I'd say.
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