*Circa 1992. I was 15 then, working as an intern in an advertising firm called Libra.*

The workshop that I was working in was situated at top most floor of the building and had 2 staircases leading up to it. One being the main staircase, and another secret staircase (which was off-limit to everyone) directly linked from the boss’ office.

The boss and his first wife (Miss Wong) would use that secret staircase to pay us surprise visits from time to time. And we would be damned if caught shirking off inside the workshop. Of course, that never happened before… that was because we had eyeeeesss around the premise. Alright, that was the introduction of the secret staircase. Here comes the main plot.

The boss also had a son and 2 younger daughters. His son was alright. The guy would snuck up to the workshop from time to time to romp around with us. But the boss’ daughters on the other hand, were the complete opposite. We fucking hated both of them. The elder one, Denise, was about 1 - 2 years my junior (about 13 yrs old), while the younger one, ….. let’s not bother about her. You see, Denise was a fat and fugly creature, with a bad attitude to boot with. If she sees us shirking, she will go all out to complain to her mongoloid father… the boss. That was why, our ring of cronies inside that workshop never actually liked anyone from that Wong family (except the son).

After I started work at Libra for about 2 weeks, my fat cousin brother - Kelv - joined the company. Just like myself, he worked as an intern in that workshop and we had a great time working together.

One very hot afternoon, all of us decided to take our shirts off to bear with the sweltering heat. The idea was unfavorable to Kelv as he didn’t really like the idea of showing too much of his doughy physique overtly like that. But he was left with no choice, as it was freaking hot in there… After dawdling for a while, he couldn’t take any more abuse from all of us… he finally took off his shirt like a man.

But Kelv was kinda worried about the idea of Denise storming into the workshop, you know, he didn’t want her to see him shirtless like that. I guess he was too embarrassed about his body or something. So, he gave us an order, if we see Denise coming up from the secret staircase, give him a hoot - he’ll dress the fuck up. We’re like, alright man, don’t worry about it, continue to do you work or something.

Fast forward a few moments later, we actually heard some footsteps coming up from that secret staircase. Johnson peeked over from the top and saw Denise on her way up from below. Kelv was busy working on something and was completely unaware about her coming. That was when Johnson suggested we keep quiet about it and see how the encounter turns out. So we hid ourselves and peeped at the whole incident in hiding. The anticipation grew as Denise ascended near where Kelv was happily working on his stuff… and some of us were already suppressing ourselves from laughing…

When Denise came into the workshop, she started wondering where did everyone go. Hearing noise from where Kelv worked, she sauntered over to ask him about us. That was when Kelv had the fright of his life. He actually shrieked (it was like “Eeeeiiaaaaiii !!”) and dashed into a nearby storeroom… slammed the door shut and locked it like he was being chased by a gay werewolf. Somewhat startled, Denise went to the locked storeroom door, knocked and asked him what the hell was wrong with him. With a terrified voice, Kelv bleated “go away! go away!” from inside.

The rest of us were just laughing and having stomach cramps. It was definitely a day that Kelv will remember for the rest of his life… and I haven’t seen him take off his shirt in public ever again.

Kids are obsessed with fire. No doubt about that. I am no different from them when I was a kid. I did many crazy and stupid things with fire back then. And always do it when I am with my cousins - I never actually did it alone. Maybe part of the reason was, we knew nobody will believe anything when there was no one around to witness your feat.

The sight of fire burning anything… was a mesmerizing sigh for our immature brain. Explosions and the destruction caused by fire were the coolest thing. To us kids (then), fire were the root of all evil and all cool things combined. And it costs only 70 cents to buy a lighter.

Following were the stuffs I did with fire when I was a kid :

1) cooked with a discarded pot. We dumped everything we could find into it. Wild berries, earthworms, ladybirds, candles, leaves, mangoes, etc.

2) burnt a hole on a neighbor kid’s shirt and laughed out loud (with my cousins) during Chinese New Year. My cousin ended up paying that kid 10 bucks for the damage.

3) detonated a drum of diesel (it probably wasn’t diesel, but it looked like diesel) during Chinese New Year. We weren’t there when it exploded. We started the fire and bolted off - only to discover it disintegrated to pieces the next day.

4) dumped firecrackers into a mailbox full of letters during Chinese New Year. It was fun to see smokes billowing out from the gaps of the mailbox.

5) burnt a pile of discarded newspapers inside a big metal container. When the fire became too big, we had to put it out using a fire extinguisher. Once fired the extinguisher, the metal container exploded due to the built-up pressure inside… and the whole place eventually became charred with carbon debris… including ourselves.

6) lit and dumped firecrackers into drain cracks where a big community of roaches known to dwell. Even poured kerosene to torch the hole up. But it didn’t work due to lack of oxygen.

7) wrapped crackers in newspapers and lit them up before dumping into the drain. When it exploded inside the drain, we would be so awed to it blast the drain water everywhere from the explosion.

shot countless of firecracker rockets (during CNY) at countless dogs and cats in the neighborhood.

9) shot countless of firecracker rockets at neighborhood kids. When they shot us back, we would engage each other like we’re in a war…

And much more that I’ve forgotten.

I felt so lucky to be alive and in one piece after all those mischievous deeds I did together with my cousins from hell. Maybe part of the reason was, because I’m smart. All the kids back then were smart. We knew about the risks of playing with fire… and always did them with proper manipulation. We did not take any unnecessary risks.

But the main culprit isn’t probably the fire. The main culprit is the fact that when kids got together, they do dangerous stuff that they don’t normally do when they’re alone. Just watch out for them. Especially during Chinese New Year… when kids would turn into little devils… destroying everything with fire…

To all the wonderful people out there … have a happy and safe Chinese New Year.

I suddenly recalled of an incident…

It was circa 1992, while I was working as an intern during my school holidays for an advertising firm (called Libra), my colleague Johnson summoned me to the office to meet him there. Located 3 floors below the workshop (where I was working), I capered down happily into the office. Johnson was standing near the office entrance and then gave to me a bunch of documents. Note: my back was facing the entrance.

Johnson : “Hey Mike… can you get these documents to Miss Wong?”
[Johnson was my supervisor and a friend]

Me : “Sure dude. But I need to know who is Miss Wong first. I have no idea who she is. And also tell me, where to find her?”

Johnson : “You don’t know who is Miss Wong? Where have you been, kid? You remember that tall lady? The one with glasses?”

Me : “Hmmm… nope… that doesn’t ring a bell. How does she look like? Is she hot? heheh” *wink wink*

Johnson : “She’s the boss’s first wife… haven’t you seen her before? The one who sits at the 3rd floor office desk?”
[Believe me or not... the boss has 2 wives working in Libra... and they are not hostile towards each other]

Me : “Is it the one who always come up to our workshop? That skinny lady?”

Johnson : “Yes. That’s her. That’s the Miss Wong I’m talking about…”

Me : “Oooooh… that damn old hag is it? Why can’t you just describe properly next time goddamn it? Addressing her ‘Miss Wong’ is very misleading man… she’s so old, wrinkled and saggy like that. You should address her as Aunty Wong next time… Hahahh”
[I actually quoted 'see lau ee' in Hokkien - which literally translates to 'damn old hag']

Johnson was quiet and did not respond to me at all. His face was as livid as a fish’s belly and his cheeks were intermittently twitching. I initially thought that he must be having a spontaneous food poisoning or something (you know, shit happens). Or maybe he didn’t like my crude and derogatory remarks about Miss Wong, he must have liked her too much I guess. I was like staring at him for approximately 2 seconds. But he’d just stand there without saying a thing.

It was then, I realized that there was somebody standing behind me… because I could see Johnson’s eyes were fixated to something behind me. When I turned around expecting not the worst, I saw Miss Wong looking at me with a cold hard look. She was emotionless, you know, like she had a thousand thoughts running through her mind at that very second. Like a dog. What happened next was pretty blur to me. I kind of forgotten how I reacted but, it was pretty embarrassing.

I just remember that I immediately gave her the documents without saying a thing… and skedaddled the hell out of there, up a few flights of stairs to the workshop. In just 10 - 20 minutes, the news was widespread like a wild fire in workshop and the office. The fellowship of colleagues can be heard laughing like jackasses upon learning about the blunder I had… while I waited with bated breath for the worst to happen.

But it never happened. Miss Wong took it with such a steady sport. In matter of days, it was all forgotten and Miss Wong even treated me a great lunch when I left the company after the holidays. Maybe, Miss Wong wasn’t such a bad person I thought she was after all.

I had plenty of crazy and funny experiences during my employment at Libra. I would be blogging more about it under the title Libra : something

Circa 1994, when I was 17. It was the day I sit for my driving test. Back then, I was required to take a total of 4 tests to get a full pass. One of them was called ‘the uphill test’ - which the examinee was made to drive up a steep slope without fucking up.

Here’s exactly how it goes : The examinee is required to drive the car halfway up a steep slope, and stop when the front wheels of the car are right on top of a box (painted on the slope). Then yank the handbrake and switch off the engine. Examining officer will evaluate if the wheels are inside the box. Once ascertained, the officer will give a signal, and the examinee shall start the engine again and ascent the remaining of the slope from static without stalling or going astern. Only 2 attempts are allowed.

It was a test that dreaded by many but not me. ‘The uphill test’ was way below my standard. To me, it was as easy as lifting my ass cheek to rip out a rhythmic fart. I totally have no problem with it.

But the story I was about to tell, is not really about how awesome I was. It is about something that I witnessed that day. It happened while I was waiting for my turn to sit for that ‘uphill test’.

There was a big crowd waiting for ‘the uphill test’. I had waited the whole morning and I remembered seeing many teenagers around my age failing for that ‘uphill test’. They’re almost all the fucking same boring routine. And most of them were girls. But one of them stood out like a sore dick in a sea of rotten beavers and burned an impression so deep in memory… that I graded it as one of the wackiest shit I’ve ever seen in my life.

The girl was about my age. Scrawny and pale in complexion (probably nervous and very scared). From the moment I saw her, I reckoned that she’s going to chicken out the very last minute, but she got to a good start. She managed to make that car climb up the slope and stop right inside the box. Not bad - I thought. I was probably wrong after all. But I was too quick to judge for the second time that day.

When the examiner flagged for her to start the engine and continue to ascend the slope, she started to get really nervous. I was looking right into her windows when that happened and I could see her sweating like she was in a sauna. She frantically cranked the engine, stepped on her gas pedal and released the fucking handbrake. See what went wrong? She forgot to step on the clutch and engage a gear. The end result was pretty much predictable - the car glided down the slope backwards.

That was when her panic went apex. She went into a temporary stupor… and completely lost her senses to even stop the gliding (backwards and downwards) car! The next few split seconds were really fucking hilarious - now, instead of stepping on the brake pedal, miss panic here decided to climb out of the car window to abandon car (yeah, it didn’t come across her mind that the door can be opened as well). Pretty much like what most doomed sailors would do in the event of the ship sinking. She was about halfway successful doing that when her quick thinking instructor came flying to her rescue and shoved her right back in and grabbed the steering from the windows.

and the only thing that she had in her mind was probably “I’M GONNA FUCKING DIE! I’M GONNA FUCKING DIE!”. She even forgot how to stop the car from gliding further.

“Brake bitch! brake!” the instructor shouted.

But she was too stunned to be able to react to anything. The poor instructor had to stop the car by dragging his feet on the ground for several more meters. The entire blooper reminded me of those goofy actions of superman trying to stop a speeding train.

The blooper got the whole crowd of spectators in stitches - everyone erupted into a fit inducing laugh and there were gallons of tears squirting out from a few hundred eyes. Although I did spare some conscience for that unfortunate girl but it was simply unbearable. It was so downright stupid and dumb, that it’ll be suicidal to suppress myself. So, I decided to fuck it - I laughed hard and suffered some cramps.

After that, she got her second chance to for the uphill test again. With tears still wet in the eyes, the crowd watched in anticipation. But it wasn’t too much of a suspense, as she got the entire thing repeated again. The exact same thing. This time, it wasn’t that mild. The crowd exploded and laughed harder. I myself laughed so fucking hard, that I had to squat down to avoid injury.

It was classic, and somewhat of a relief for the boring afternoon under the hot sun. It was blooper that had to be retold again and again as an unbelievable and yet entertaining story (at the expense of somebody’s misfortune…) And that’s exactly what I did during the lunch break that day, in a nearby shack cafe to a bunch of my new found friends who missed the event (yep, I make friends everywhere I go..). When we’re laughing at the story loudly inside that canteen, I realized that the scrawny girl was just sitting behind me — with a pale & mortified look. Shame on me for being such a tool - I should have looked around before telling my tale…

The girl of course flunked her driving test… along with her self respect and dignity.

Nervous girl… if you are reading this blog from somewhere, I just wanted to say that I was sorry for what I did at the JPJ canteen, and to blog this out…

Last night, I went out for a drink with my friend Charles. And in one of trivial conversation, we kind of mentioned about a friend named Jit. Jit is an old friend of mine, but Charles happened to get acquainted with him only fairly recently.

This Jit, he was in the same school bus as I was and that was how I knew him. Used to be a cute little chubby kid. I remember he was just a 7 year old when came riding with the bus. He had a vast forehead and a set of beady eyes. Always with a smile. He also had a falsetto voice and the guys would tease him for having such a pussy voice (you know kids can be cruel)

And because he had such a mushy and mama’s boy character, most of us would bully him. We would pinch his fat cheeks and mess up with his neatly combed hair. You know, stuff like that. But because he was such a bubbly kid, he wouldn’t give a damn about our mischiefs and would normally shrug it off with a cute smile. But there were times when he gets mad.

I remember when he gets mad, he would deliberately blush up his face (probably by holding his breath or something) and violently shake his boy tits, as if he was at the verge of imploding, and then he’d growl and say some shit funny things like “Don’t make me angry!… or I will turn into a werewolf!”

I guess he learned that from some stupid TV program. We’d normally feign ourselves being real scared and when he was content that his acts were drawing him some intended results, we’d smack his head, mess up his hair again and beckon for him to turn into a fucking wolf.

But of course, he couldn’t. He’d continue to issue more threats and if we don’t stop, he’d turn apeshit and start to assault anyone nears him. I saw him did that many times before. He’d close his eyes and spin his hands like vertical propeller. Those who weren’t quite enough to pull a distance off him would get smacked by Jit’s swinging hands. I had seen kids twice his size getting mowed down just like that. It was needless to say, far more dangerous than a real feral wolf.

The only solution to neutralize that blind propeller hands stance was to give him a kick square on the chest with your body stretched back. That would usually send him flying backwards and had him land on the floor hard. Then you can choose to pin him down and slap that guy till he no longer believes that he’s a wolf…

And if you manage to do that, he will never mess with you again. But his propeller hands had always been the most feared body weapon against even kids twice his age. One of the kids that always got a boner from Jit’s propeller hands was a kid named Ray. Ray was very much smaller than Jit, but what he lacked in size, made up for his intelligence… (and that’s why he was with us seniors to pull some mischief on Jit)

There was once, 3 of us (me being the leader) played truant during our school’s sports day event and walked home. But halfway through the journey, Jit decided to give up walking and flagged a bus home. And in the event of doing so, he told everything about our plans to the bus driver and almost got us into trouble (we had to hide and only flee later). Since that day, Ray and I called him ‘traitor’ and increased the frequency of harassment on him.

Good times… and that was many years ago. Jit would remain as one of our closest friend and an equally good wrestling dummy. (but in the later years, after I quit the school bus, we kinda separated our ways…)

About a year ago, while on our way to vacation at Thailand, Charles wanted to introduce me to a friend of his that resides in the area, also named Jit. When Charles told me that he was a Malaysian, came from the same secondary school as we were and was 4 years our junior, I was pretty sure that it was him. But I wasn’t quite sure because for one, the place was foreign, and then, I haven’t met Jit for about 13 years. I only managed to confirm that it was him when I finally got to meet him…

It was indeed him. With the round face (though not chubby anymore) and the same bubbly character. Same set of beady eyes. But he looked completely different from the werewolf kid we used to tease. He now has tattoos all over his hands and is now sporting a real man’s voice. He wasn’t as faggoty as he used to be as a kid…

At first, he could not recognize me. But when I told him about our school bus number and my name, it all finally came back to him… and then we gave each other a firm handshake and renewed our friendship again that night with plenty of drinks. It was like a great reunion with a very old friend.