What a Lovely Transformation!

Dear Ms Kam

I am very glad to run into you this evening. Being your student has given me a great foundation in English and I remember your stories vividly. It has been a long time and I have grown quite a bit, haven't I? ;-P

There is much to learn about the spoken and written form of the English language still. I often fear that I 'speak funny' for a Singaporean who is born and bred here. I would like to think that I have a 'sing-song' way of speaking. A little more animated and lively than most Singaporeans. Hence, the perceived 'un-Singaporeaness' or accent. In any case, I hope to truly develop my own way of speaking plainly and accurately for all to understand me.

The last fifteen years have been challenging in many ways. My parents' bankruptcy was a big blow, and I lost my directions for a few years. I joined the workforce at the tender age of seventeen. I was a junior office administrator, a flight attendant with United Airlines, a Personal Assistant to a Director and HR Executive in large multi-nationals etc. There were many bad days and I despaired and blamed all the Gods in the world for the obstacles in my life. I remember walking forty minutes to save a few cents. Thank God that there were also showers of wonderful moments of joy in the miraculous opportunities and blessings that would come in the nick of time to console me and encourage me onward in my life journey.

I worked and studied for over 5 years to get a diploma in Mass Communications, a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration and a Graduate Diploma in HR. Thinking back now, I do not know how I made it. I think God was truly carrying me when I needed Him most.

After almost eight years in Human Resources, I became a headhunter over a year ago. I focus on mid to senior level roles in all functions within the IT and banking industries.

My corgi, Sydney, is just over five years old. She is a real darling and is very dear to me. She is not well-versed in performing stunts and little tricks but we have a genuine connection and she shares my pillow with me at night.

Here's a photo of us taken recently for your collection. Thank you for the address to your blog, I will be checking it out real soon.

In the meantime, here's your River Valley High School student Huang Huiling signing off. May you be blessed with good health, friendship, love and success in your ventures in the year of the dog.

Best wishes
Sharon

The above is an email I received yesterday from an ex-student. I stopped teaching in 1994 due to constantly losing my voice. I miss my students and often wonder how they are faring after graduation. Hence I would always be so thrilled when a
young man/lady comes up to me and asked, "Are you the Ms. Kam who taught me English in Secondary school?" When I taught English in school, I had often reminded the kids that it is not English for O level exams only, it is English for life. Language is such an important tool for expression and helps in healthy and effective communication. It is also an important tool for problem solving because as a man thinks, so is he.

It is heartening to know that some of my ex-students like Hui Ling have managed to overcome life's adversities and achieved not only success but the realisation that despite their sufferings and hardship, they are precious to the One who has created them and has the best plans for them, and that through their toils, they actually emerge stronger and more victorious. It is like you have survived a tsunami; the next torrential storm would appear like little showers of rain!

I hope Hui Ling's email will be an encouragement to you. I hope that my ex-students could drop me an email to share how they are doing. If possible, I would encourage them to start a blog.... to continue their creative writing which they had once excelled in.

As someone has so rightly said, "A teacher touches eternity. He does not know where his influence stops". Teaching is and will always be my first love.

Gan Chau

Wonderful Creation

I was at the Pacific Mansion lobby and about to take the lift when I noticed two cages of hamsters at a corner. Thinking that someone had left the cages there and would come back for them, I took the lift and showed my client's unit for rental. After the showing, I noticed that the cages were no longer there, yet I felt compelled to ask the cleaner if someone had taken them. "No, thrown away! Rubbish dump!" All my adrenalin surfaced, and I requested that the cages be given to me, so that I could find a home for the hamsters. One of the cleaners smiled widely, relieved that I was going to take away the cages rather than let the poor creatures be cruelly killed in the incinerator!

I advertised for pet lovers to adopt the hamsters. The best place would be the notice board at Cold Storage, Centre Point. Three days later, and I still had not received a single call. Getting worried, I decided to approach a pet-shop to see whether they would adopt the hamsters.

On the fourth day, to my relief, a young student, Jay, phoned and adopted one pair which appeared to be the parents of the babies in the other cage. A mother with two young daughters adopted the other cage of 6 hamsters. I was relieved that Jay, despite his youth, is an expert on hamsters. He also keeps rabbits and gold fish. An obvious animal lover! Shortly after, Jay wrote to me that eight baby hamsters had been born. I wanted to go immediately to see the baby hamsters, but doting and knowledgeable as Jay was, he explained that the babies could not be removed yet, as they still needed to suckle their mother's milk. The mother hamster would eat up her babies if she thinks that she and her babies' lives are threatened, or if she reproduces so fast and feels she cannot provide enough milk for her babies.

When the babies could be viewed, the timing coincided with the lunar new year. What an auspicious time! When I visited Jay, I was most delighted that the mother hamster just had another bumper of newly born babies! Wow! Our Senior Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, would be delighted if our population could grow at this rate! Jay is a generous boy. When my friends wanted to adopt some hamsters, he readily agreed to give them four of the babies.

There were four dainty hamsters running happily in the cage. Their colour was a soothing beige and Jay told me that the other four babies could have been eaten by their mother. Jay pulled aside the cloth covering the cage and fleetingly showed me the mother with her batch of eight newborn babies. Amazing. They were so tiny ... about two and a half cm and their bodies were almost transparent and hairless. Jay explained that at this stage, the mother hamster was highly sensitive and nervous and that was why he draped a cloth over the cage to give the hamsters more cosiness and privacy.

After conception, hamsters are born after about fifteen days! Wouldn't it be nice if this could apply to humans too? Then mothers would not be heavily laden with child for nine full months before the child sees the world! But I guess, because man is God's highest form of creation, he has to be carefully and painstakingly made.

Jay's parents were very hospitable and it was indeed a great visit. Jay's mother told me that they would usually do their shopping in their heartland mall, but during the Christmas period, they decided to shop at Orchard Road. That was how Jay noticed my advertisement.

Truly, if something is meant to be yours, it is yours. I went away, having learnt a lot about hamsters from a young student.

Emerson had so rightly said, "Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that I learn of him."

Gan Chau

Durians vs. Smelly Tofu, Blue Cheese and Kim Chi

It is interesting that my article on "The King of Fruits" had garnered a lot of interesting feedback. My university buddy, Richard Tam, had encouraged that if you had tried smelly tofu, you should not have problems with durians which are actually comparatively more tasty than smelly tofu. Another Canadian buddy, James Dunlap, had tried durians once. Although he found the smell somewhat offputting, he would try durians again.

I would also encourage my Korean friends to try the durians because if you can take Kim Chi (with the pungent, fermented garlic smell) durians will not be too difficult to swallow.

I remember I was first given yogurt as dessert when I was studying in Canada. I wondered why my landlady, Anne Smith, had given me something that had turned sour. Not wishing to be impolite, I asked my landlady if I could bring my dessert to my bedroom to eat. I flushed the yogurt down the toilet, thinking the cream had really gone bad! Yogurt and durians would pale in comparison when blue cheese comes into the picture.

My Rialto customer Niketan Rao, had written to say he would try some durians as soon as he is able to overcome the smell, since he had heard that the taste is divine. So hurry, my friends. Don't waste another day like I had wasted 16 years! Try the durians! The divine taste is the reward. After a while, you will gradually even think the smell is actually quite uniquely fragrant after all.!

Interestingly, another university buddy, Moshin, from Taiwan but who now resides in the States, has shared that it took him 26 years before he ventured on his first bite of sashimi with wasabi. Now he loves the Japanese delicacy! It has also taken him 35 years before he tried his first rare Steak!

I guess, it is all in the mind. Beer drinkers will tell you how they first disliked beer and gradually grew to like it. Once the initial inhibition is over, the taste of anything edible on earth will gradually become acquired.

My university buddies and I are planning to have a reunion... venue yet to be decided. But if Singapore were the venue, you can be sure durians will be on the menu!

Gan Chau