Retrospecting

Just came back from a mini-vacation. Went to watch Sam Hui in concert. This man supposely came out of retirement to cheer up the Hong Kong people, who were feeling down due to the economic downturn, passing of Anita Mui and Leslie, SARS, inflow of China mistresses etc. And he was superb! The stage is the most pretty one I have ever seen so far. I guess when the whole country is involved in the entertainment business, they can afford to make better ones each time. Then when you compare theirs with what we have, our indoor stadium looks like a secondary school hall.

The people watching are mostly in their forties and above. What do you expect, Sam is already 57! And it is depressing to see your idol age, cos your hero is not allowed to age! Some people ask me why I idolise this dude, I am not really sure myself and I don't even understand Cantonese most of the time. Then why bother fly all the way there and inconvenience Jia Hui and Song Yu to look after the centre? (Thank you ladies!)

I suppose its the feel good factor that I need to have, to re-live the 'good old days'. His songs are mostly about day to day mundane stuff like mahjong and love, mostly fatalistic views, targetted at the average working class person. And as a country, we were all once working class people. My first movie as a kid was in 1976 and the Hui Brothers were in it. Those days movies cost $1 to watch and pocket money (if there's any) was just 10 cents a day. I think everyone was just trying to make ends meet. Very few people are considered well to do, both in Singapore and HK. Thats why they have the working class category. Now, it's hard to find a person without anything to eat and there are only a few things to worry about: the prices of COE and who will become the first Singapore Idol.

Somehow when I talk to people my generation or older, I get this feeling that we were happier then. Everyone was struggling in life, we had lesser but we enjoyed living more. Strange isn't it, when you have made it and have more, you feel you are better off with less. I think we all connected with each other in more ways than now. Entertainment for me would be catching spiders and climbing trees with neighbours in the Kampong. Of course now I play the X-Box, cos they cut down all the trees and all the spiders died. But there is good old days to talk about you see. I cannot imagine what I can write or talk about when I reach 57, like what happen in life as a 30 or 40 year old person, what happened today, next week or next year.

Of course life has to be forward looking, cannot keep looking at the rear mirror and brood in retrospect. The thing to do now is cherish every living moment. For once I fully appreciate the phrase 'make every second count'. And no matter how difficult a parent or situation is, I am just going to look at the lighter side of things and know that all things will pass. So for my lovely Evelyn who keeps saying she has no life, I think the only time when anyone can say that is when we are buried in Choa Chu Kang. Scary right? As long as we are breathing, just live! Good or bad, pass or fail, pretty or ugly, right or wrong, happy or sad ... thats about all we can do in this limited life. Unlike my bank account, life has a ending point, a point where everything dries up. Every withdrawal makes it shorter, and you cannot deposit life. In case you are not aware, everyday you are making withdrawals on your life account. So maximise every withdrawal and not waste any of it.

From now, its going to be a new start and a new perspective. I will try and slow down the aging process to maximise time, so I will be shopping later at Watsons for all the moisturizers, toners and face masks. And like superman, I hope one day I can reverse the earth's rotation and live those precious moments again.

But first, I must create those precious moments, otherwise what's there to look back, right?