It was a great evening. I had been corresponding with Sylvia Khoo, a Penangnite who had lived and taught violin in Singapore for the past 20 years. Sylvia invited me for an evening of SSO Young Performers Concert featuring Pan Yi An and Jonathan Lim on the piano. I got to know Sylvia because of our common interest in helping Ike See with the petition for deferment from National Service. After all, Ike See is Sylvia's student. Sylvia also graciously invited me for a Japanese dinner. I told her my good friend, Amu, would also be coming along. "Why, your name all so funny one, hah?" asked Sylvia. "There is Choo Choo, Bo Bo and now Amu". "Who is Bo Bo?"
I told Sylvia that Bo Bo was the name of my rough collie which had passed away two years ago. I guess Sylvia could probably guess that Amu is an Indian name.
The young pianists, Yi An and Jonathan, were really great. Such display of dexterity on the piano. The Singapore Symphony Orchestra has also improved tremendously since I last heard my niece, Kam Ning, perform with the Orchestra As the taxi queue was quite long, being a Friday night, I decided to take bus No. 56 home. I was thinking over the day's events and how thrilled I was to have finally met Sylvia. Suddenly an Indian lady with quite prominent buttocks plonked herself onto the empty space next to me. I found myself squeezed aginst the side of the bus. She looked at me and smiled apologetically. I smiled back. She was a fair Punjabi lady, well dressed with her hair combed neatly and a big bunch of white flowers were cascading down her long hair.
Suddenly I could smell something unpleasant and somewhat pungent... it smelt of diarrhoea. I wondered if the lady next to me had stomach ache and had a bit of diarrhoe on her clothes. Then I realised that the smell was actually caused by the decaying bunch of white flowers. I took a closer look and realised that the flowers were somewhat faded and stale. I guess with the perspiration from the lady's hairs, the flowers were fighting a losing battle to remain as fresh as they possibly could.
Flowers look nice on the hair.... but only if they are fresh. In our hot and humid weather, people must remember that the flowers don't last long on the hairs. It would be better if people could buy silk or non-living objects for decorating their hairstyle.
The bus was jam packed and there was no way I could get out of my seat to go to the back. I was trying to hold my breath during the journey but when I ran out of energy, I decided to use my tiger balm and tactfully rubbed some on my forehead and nostrils. Sigh!.... I really wish people were more sensitive to their surroundings. Especially in our crowded, air conditioned bus, the air is easily permeated with odours. This is why I dare not board the bus, MRT or taxi if I do not take a shower after a bout of exercise at the gym. Others would have to tolerate the odour and would be too polite to voice out just as I could not voice out to the Indian lady sitting beside me. I guess we all would need to spend a little more on cologne, perfumes, talcum powder and body spray. It is perhaps ideal to shower twice a day especially when the weather is hot and humid.
Gan Chau :-)
Saturday, July 08, 2006
The Importance of Being Fragrant
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4 comments:
Bet you wished you had waitied for the taxi now! Only kidding.
Was the bus full then? If not how come she decided to sat next to you? Im not meant to be a racist or being nasty, but I find alot of Indian people smell of "garlic". I jst dont know why it is? Sorry if I had offended anyone, but its not meant ot be.
Personally, I like a woman to smell clean. And tiny bit of cologne or perfume but not too much, and a bit of their natural smell. I find it a put off if a woman wears too much perfume.
I wrote the article after my return from the concert. Was a little sleepy but wanted to get the article out of my chest.
This morning I had edited my spelling errors and added more salient details. Yes, the bus was jam packed. Only wished I had summoned more courage to gently tell her about her flowers!! She seemed like a nice lady though.
Fortunately or unfortunately, I have a very sharp nose. I guess it is good whenever I am the first to detect leaking gas, etc. but not good in stinking situations like this.!!! Also, am the first to detect when someone farts!!! Sigh!
I'm also like you Stan, I think a lot of Indian people have very strong "curry" odours. Its just from the fact that they have curry smell wafting in their house and thier clothes just pick them up. After I go to an Indian restaurant (or Korean also does it), the strong odours stick to my clothes and I can really smell them. I once commented to an Indian friend that I could always smell what she had for dinner. Which meant that she changed her clothes more often and asked me if I could still smell it. I said I couldn't but that her school bag and school books also had the smell fully entrenched in them. :-)
I find I am like you more and more Choo. I also have an extremely sensitive nose. And like you said, you can be the first to smell a gas leak. On one camping trip, I said to about 10 people sitting at the table that something was burning. No one else could smell it, but I kept insisting something was burning. I asked the cook if she had left some food in the oven. She said no but I insisted she look. Inside the oven she found pasta that was burning that she had forgotten about. Conversely, I can smell so many bad odours and am constantly saying to others, "can you smell that, it really stinks", and they would just say, "smell what". Oh well, there's pros and cons to everything.
Koreans smell of garlic because they eat kim chi almost everyday.
Kim Chi has been proven to be good for SARS. During the Sars. outbreak, so many countries were hit, except Korea.
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