23:20 on Jan 23, 2009

Words between Siblings (Spoken or not)

There was such a night:

After the festive family gathering,

Having bode their aged parents goodnight,

Dad, the big bro, said “We need to talk about money”

To his brothers.

Parked their cars along the road, stepped out to the side walk

In the chilly wind, they

Left their children on the cars

And spoke.

* * *

Discussion soon turned ugly argument

Loudly the men spoke

While the women looked on.

Each had his own concerns

And all failed to take a step back to put themselves

In each other’s shoes.

* * *

I tried not to speak

The chaos outside was drowning out my own Bro’s phone chatter, and the radio’s.

I listened but didn’t want to hear

Just hiding behind the latest edition of Economist

Squinting in the dark

I don’t want to know.

* * *

“You have no idea how tough my business is getting.”

“I have work so hard to put things in order in this family.”

“You called this accounting? Hah!”

“I am so tired.”

“And you expect me to pay you back – all ten grand – in one go – now?”

“Think I am in an easy position?”

“Don’t think that you are indispensable to us!” –

I guess that must hurt. A lot.

Cruel words as such

A brief silence.

* * *

And there was the radio

Soft and mellow in background, until

The clock struck 11:30.

Wailing relatives lamented

Deadly accident cost six lives

Gone instantly on the road

With no chance for farewell – or any other words – at all.

“Money can’t bring my dear bro back,

“What’s the use giving me that?”

* * *

In the awkward air

No words exchanged between me

And my dear bro

Except that I wanted so much

To scream

I don’t want this to happen between us

Never

But is it something inevitable

When we grow old?

* * *

Phone rang

Out came the frisky voice of an 8-year-old.

Through the two panes of glass

I saw my cousins in their family car

Smiling and waving

Locked up in their own little quiet world

Sweet, innocent kids they are

Little brother and little sister

Seeing but not hearing

Their beloved aunts and uncles growl.

“Tell me what they are saying,

“We want so much to know!”

Necrology

We were shown this little gem of a short film in Mr. Ho's second lesson. I've wanted to write something about it for quite a while.

There is an air of suspension almost throughout the whole film, from its beginning with its title "Necrology", to the last men and women before the credits roll. It is created by the music score (which sounds like the kind very often used in black-and-white silent thrillers), and the viewers' expectation for something to happen (as provoked by the macabre association with the film's title). When the credits finally roll, however, the viewers immediately feel the humor of the director. Although the film is obviously without an obvious storyline, it does create a desire in the viewers to want to know what is going to happen, and provide some sort of "resolution" in the end, albeit in a non-traditional way. Also, like any other good stories, it sets one's mind musing after watching it.

The "resolution" comes when the credits give little bits of information of each character the viewers have just seen in the film. The viewers grab the sliver of information they have, trying to make sense of the faces and figures seen previously on the film - which have seemed so trivial to them a moment ago. Doing so gives them a sense of consolation, and they feel that they have known so much more about what has been happening. Of course, the big irony is, do they really know a lot more? What does it tell you when someone is being introduced as "a man who just got his tooth extracted" other than that, well, he just got his tooth extracted? Interestingly, people naturally think that they know more than they really do.

When I was invited to play a sort of ice-breaking game with a classmate at the beginning of Mr. Ho's first lesson, the first thing I blurted out, pretty much without thinking, was "But I know her!". In a second, it came to me that I had fallen into such a trap.

It sounds like a huge blind spot, but grabbing whatever information we can get hold on and figuring out the rest by ourselves may just be the way we get by. We have to know the name, some basic information and, even better, a story of a particular person before we can feel connected to them as human beings. That is why the media include little stories or photos of individual victims when reporting disasters. No matter how brief or trivial the stories may sound, they bring weight and meaning to the reportage. Without the stories or photos, the news would just be a listing of the number of casualties to the readers/audience, and lose its power to move people and evoke empathy.

This reminds me of a recent read. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in his book "The Black Swan", writes about how the partiality to what can be seen blinds us. He uses the example of the hurricane Katrina to illustrate that people only focus on what they can see. The reportage of the hurricane, which did not run short of stories of the ordeals and struggle for life of the victims, filled pages after pages of newspapers and countless airtime on television. Attention and financial aids for the victims flooded in as a result. Taleb points out that much less was given to cancer research and patients even though during the same time more of them died every day than Katrina victims - because the former did not get much mention.

Sure we all need stories, no matter how brief or flimsy, to feel connected to each other.

To Death, of course, your identity or story does not matter. Death sees everybody just like how you see the random faces on the short film as they roll by - with equal apathy.