FINDING THE PERFECT SHAPE

Standing on a basalt column of the Giant’s Causeway (known in Irish as Clochán an Aifir or Clochán na bhFómharach) the jewel in the crown of the fabulous coast of County Antrim, I cannot help but marvel at the 60 million year old volcanic wonder.
I was drawn to the site by the folklore that goes with it whereby Finn McCool, an Irish warrior tore away large pieces from the cliffs to make a sturdy causeway to Scotland so that he could fight his adversary, a Scottish giant called Benandoneer.

I was also intrigued by the hexagonal shape of the basalt columns which together resemble a beehive’s honeycomb or the scutes of a turtle’s carapace. However, there is a purpose for the shape and size of the columns. The hexagonal pattern is known for structural rigidity, density and optimal economy.

Everything that we see around us comes in all shapes and sizes. Yet, appreciation of shapes and sizes is relative: it differs from civilisation to civilisation and from age group to age group.
I am referring especially to the human shape and size.
While some societies think that big is beautiful there are others that worship the wasp-shape femme fatales or six-pack hunks.
I overheard a beautiful teenager complaining of having ‘bat wings’(The hanging flap under the arm seen on older women) and a ‘muffin top’. ( overhanging flesh (fat) that spills over the waistline of pants or skirts).

All I could see in front of me was a well-toned body that anyone could die for.
In this case, what does that say about the human perspective of oneself?
Perceived imperfection and low self esteem.
Whether we like it or not, the environment around us screams ‘you are not good enough’. With every feeling of imperfection, there seems to be a solution. So we try to become thinner or fatter, shorter or taller. We enrol for workout classes, we go on crash course diets, we go for special protein diets and we wait for the miracle to happen.
If we are food lovers or if we live in a society where eating is a national joy, we end up promising ourselves that we will start our diet tomorrow. Anyone from 15 to 50 years of age who likes to look good has gone through this rigmarole of going on a diet, promising to keep to the diet, breaking the diet and then going on a new diet.
Unfortunately, this becomes a struggle as age catches up and metabolism slows down and it is much more difficult to shed those extra kilos that you piled on during winter and promised yourself that you would shed them when summer came. Except that summer had gone and it is now autumn and approaching winter again and those extra kilos are still there.
Unless we are sitting on a time-bomb of high cholesterol and fats, it is good just to take stock of ourselves. Is it real or perceived imperfection? Are we who are healthy beings and structurally a size that is different from the mannequin feeling poorly because we cannot be a size 0? Can we walk into a department store, pick out a comfortable dress that gorgeously goes with the flow of our bodies or are we longing for that tiny, whimsical dress that promises the charm that we think we lack?
To be honest, it is very difficult.
Even so when we are surrounded by others who perceive themselves to be imperfect and have low self esteem and somehow want to include you into that very same sisterhood. We just have to grit our teeth and listen to the same old unsolicited comments like ‘You’ve lost weight’ or ‘You’ve put on weight’ never mind if a great catastrophe has struck a neighbouring country or the economy has crashed. Sometimes it is as irritating as a single person going to the annual family function only to be asked the same question, ‘You are not so young, when are you going to get married?’
Hopefully like most things age has a way to help us become more confident in the way we think or in the way we look. I have seen ladies, (definitely not a size 0) looking regal and charming in attractive dresses, sensible shoes and matching accessories.

I have seen men with flat caps and tweed jackets (definitely with no abs) looking classic and smart. A plus point is when they converse and they reveal a wealth of knowledge and experiences.
What they have is not show but character.

Source: The New Straits Times 20 Nov 2011 http://www.nst.com.my/top-news/finding-the-perfect-shape-1.8364?localLinksEnabled=false

OF NAMES AND TITLES

As a child I used to go to the cinema to watch Chinese martial arts films. There were usually rival martial arts schools with each school trying to be the best in the region. It was not uncommon for students of rival schools to crash into their competitors’ courtyards to try to disrupt kungfu lessons. When things got ugly and fights broke out, the first thing the rivals would do was to literally bring down the name of the school, usually engraved on a wooden board and hung up high, and break it into two. This amounted to the greatest humiliation a school could face.
In Asian cultures generally, names and titles are important. The name that a person has is usually chosen with great care by his parents to depict the best qualities ever that a child could have. Titles on the other hand symbolise respect and we address our aunts and uncles by their respective titles in accordance to their seniority and level of kinship. As a child, I dreaded going to my relatives’ houses because I had to address them by their titles according to which side of the family they were from. I would get an earful from my mother if I had used the wrong titles.
Acquired titles whether academic or bestowed upon for great achievements are also greatly guarded and carried with pride. I know of many who would feel offended if they are not ‘properly’ addressed.

Living in a land of strangers in Ireland, the first thing that I learn is that laughter is the best medicine and if I am not offended when no one knows my name or who I am or what I have been, then I am alright. Winston Churchill once said that ‘attitude is everything.’

Walking down the street one day with a bag of groceries, I laughed when a friendly Irish called out to me, ‘Fine day! Are you the latest kitchen help at the Chinese takeaway down the street?’

In another instance, I was at a poetry recitation gathering at a café nearby. A group of poetry lovers and academics had gathered for tete-a-tete. They were discussing the latest conferences and seminars which they assumed I would probably not have understood as I might have been a foreign house-help to one of the lecturers there.

Then there is this great difficulty of pronouncing Chinese names and recognising a Chinese face. To them apparently all Chinese look alike and all surnames must follow the first names. It is a great revelation to many that we do look different and our surnames come before our first names even though China has the largest population in the world and it has been one of the earliest civilizations.

I have been called by so many other names each time an acquaintances tries to remember my two syllabic name. So to make things easier I settled for ‘Soo’ which I thought was simple enough until a helpful acquaintance in a gardening class decided to label my rose cutting pot for me. She wrote ‘Susan’ beautifully and I asked, ‘Who’s Susan?’ and we all had a good laugh when the truth was revealed.
Then when I gave a dentist my name over the phone, he double confirmed it by saying ‘Sierra Oscar Oscar’? (A phonetic alphabet used to identify letters in a message transmitted by radio or the telephone)

I said, ‘Yes’.
He then realised that I must be non-Irish and probably didn’t speak much English, so he very kindly said again, ‘Sugar Orange Orange’?
When I related the incident to my family members we almost died laughing.

If names are difficult to deal with, titles in most cases are almost non-existent.
I made the acquaintance of a nice lady at the local mini market and the first problem that I faced was how to address her. Should I call her Mrs or Ma’am? With a weather beaten face that once saw better days, she whispered gently, just call me Evelyn.
That I found both strange and difficult to do. Disrespectful even since she is much older than I am. Back in Malaysia it is common to address an older person as Uncle Lim or Pak Cik Awang although he may not be related at all. We even have ‘Uncle Lim’s Kopitiam” and that café is certainly not run by our uncle. Likewise the senior woman who sells tau-foo-fah by the roadside could very well be Aunty Mary to all and sundry.

Children can call their caregivers kakak if they come from Indonesia and the Malay boy who sells noodles at the canteen is also known as Abang.

All said and done, the Irish are lovely people and people who can laugh at themselves. When an Irish acquaintance asked me what I am doing in Ireland, I said I married an Irish.

He replied, ‘You’ve married the worst kind’.

SOURCE: THE NEW STRAITS TIMES http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-199653308.html
6 NOVEMBER 2011