Snapshots

We may be in our mid-20s but our dad still packs dinner for us by hand…

Daddy-o is a cool cat. He lets me call him daddy-o, pops, poppaloppaloff, pa, papadeedoo and his response is always the same: “hehehehe”.

He takes the family teasing about his weird music taste, random gifts (Persian lemon, anyone?), Cina ah pek food choices, and “I must take you there, it’s a secret place” moments. He puts up with our dumb comments and jokes, and disinterest in what he does. He sponsors my mum, my sister and me, AND doesn’t complain we are doing Dharma work.

He doesn’t make us go on family trips with him. He doesn’t complain that we don’t spend time together. He doesn’t insist on family dinners. He doesn’t dictate that we should all stay at home with him. He doesn’t force us to get married, study things we don’t want to, or groom us to take over his company.

We do our own thing, and he does his. He gives us advice and if we don’t want to take it, he will gripe a little, more out of frustration that we’re usually about to make a mistake, then let us make the mistake anyway to learn for ourselves. And if it does go right, he congratulates us without feeling bad that he was wrong.

But I know he misses us. When I SMS, he calls back just to chat. Sometimes, he will call me then as soon as we finish talking, he will call my sister who is just next to me. Whenever I ask if he’s free for dinner or just to chill out, he’s always free. So on the rare occasions he does ask me for something, I try my best to accommodate him.

We couldn’t do what we do with such freedom without your quiet support so thank you for being as awesome as you are. Daddy, we love you!

My mother.

When I was growing up, I didn’t see a lot of my mother. We were well-off so she was always out gallavanting with friends, flying to different countries, buying different clothes, and just generally finding new ways to spend money.

Was my mother a bad mother? No, not by a long shot. She was generous to us with both her emotions and finances, and she was fair and quick to discipline. She was there to celebrate our successes, and to tend to our bruises, cuts and scrapes. When our family wasn’t doing well, she made sure that we kids never felt the pinch no matter how tight things were for her and our father. In fact, it wasn’t until over a decade later that any of us knew we’d ever been in financial trouble.

But my mum was also unhappy and short-tempered, so it was always difficult to predict her mood swings. She’d be perfectly okay one moment but then the smallest things could set off the biggest rages…how I put down my fork, how I scraped my chair back, running my hands along a wall, how I shut a door, how I held my pen…literally the smallest things.

As I grew older, I began to see even less of my mother but the reasons started to change. She met Rinpoche and she decided she had had enough to living selfishly, and wanted to do something for others. So she devoted herself to the Dharma centre, doing whatever needed to be done to keep Kechara going.

So even though I saw less of my mother, when I did see her, I noticed that she was considerably happier and more even-tempered. She would still put up a fight if she felt an injustice was being committed, and she wouldn’t hesitate to shout at us to instil some discipline.

But the difference was that she stopped doing it as a reaction to some other part of her life that wasn’t going so well.

Why I love my mother is simple - she never keeps the truth from us. When I was 15, my mother told me, “If I knew back then what I know now, I never would have had you kids. I am now spending over 20 years dedicating my life to just three people, when I could’ve have spent 20 years dedicating my life to so many more.”

Most people would think that that’s sick, weird and twisted, and something totally inappropriate to tell your child. Well, you know what? When my mother told me that, it made me respect her all the more.

Why? 1) she had the courage to tell me that, and she knew I’d understand, 2) that is how great her capacity to love is.

If a child is supposed to get a mother’s unconditional love, and my mother is saying that actually, EVERYONE deserves her unconditional love, you do not know how lucky you are that my mother thinks that way of you. She will stand up for you when you’re down, make sure you learn the right lessons about life and teach you to stand on your own two feet…and you didn’t even have to come from her womb.

That’s the kind of person my mother is. So my mother might not be the richest, smartest, prettiest or most well-connected in the room but I KNOW my mother will always be the kindest wherever she goes, and that’s why I love my mother.

(Taken from Reader’s Digest)

Someone once said to me, “Want to hear about MY problems?”

True dat.

(Taken from 9gag - http://9gag.com/gag/1978428)

Too bad we’re all grown up.

(via godhasnosides-deactivated201207)

Wise words.

(Taken from…I don’t remember where)

It just goes to show, you can’t argue with a Buddha.

A nice Saturday.

(Taken on my iPhone)

After three hours shut-eye last night, I woke up and had trouble getting back to sleep. So when 5am rolled around this morning, I could hardly be bothered to get out of bed.

God, am I glad I did.

5:45am and Chris and I were out the door, and making our way to Thanon Kraisi. It seemed like the rest of Bangkok was waking up too, to beautiful blue skies after days of intermittent thunderstorms.

It was around 7am when we finished making dana offerings to the monks (probably one of the most addictive activities I’ve ever done!). After going to Ethos, only to discover it was still closed, we did what any classy person would do - we dropped by Burger King to ‘wait’ until Ethos was opened ;)

One shared onion rings, a Coke and a coffee later, and Chris asked if we could go to Wat Phra Kaew because he’d never been before, and he was already too full for Ethos.

Okay, I need to get this out of my system - I hate being cheated out by greedy people, just because I’m a farang and they assume I’m too naive to know any better. Approaching tuk tuk drivers insisted Wat Phra Kaew was 60baht away, and some taxi drivers refused to use their meters and said they wanted to charge 50 to 60baht.

Oi listen - I’ve walked to Wat Phra Kaew before from Khao San Road, and it is not a 60baht trip. It’s not the cost dude, it’s the principle.

Luck was with us though, and we found one driver who took us there using the meter. It came up to 40baht, but we gave him a 20baht tip anyway because he was nice and not greedy.

Having arrived at Wat Phra Kaew at 7:30am, we found ourselves too early for the temple’s opening (they open at 8:30am) so we decided to take a stroll in the direction of the Tha Chan Pier.

What we found was both disturbing and fascinating - water from the river spilling over into the pier and into an outdoor dining area, with a wall of sandbags built up to channel water out onto the street and into a manhole.

After staring for much longer than was necessary (and given I’d cut my toe earlier in the morning, standing ankle-deep in floodwater was not really advisable), we walked back to Wat Phra Kaew.

We made our way inside, dodging past hordes of mainland Chinese tourists who, just 30 minutes before entering the temple, had stood outside the same temple mocking some Falun Gong protestors. After a few photos of the grounds, we made our way into the Emerald Buddha hall and after making our prostrations, sat down to do our sadhana.

About 20 minutes later, over 100 monks of all ages filed silently into the hall and sat down. They began their chanting and I can tell you this - it’s quite something to hear so many monks chanting in Pali and in unison, in front of Thailand’s most holy Buddha image. Chris and I were gobsmacked by the opportunity to recite along with the monks and later, to prostrate to over 100 vow holders.

It rounded off what was a very nice, and very pleasant morning full of unexpected surprises, much needed after days of stressing about the floods.