Turtle Channel!!!

She was now almost at the village gates. She could hear the voices of the villagers coming from a distance. Everyone was waiting for her. The young girl despaired. What was she going to tell them? What would her mother say? Should she tell them about the dead flower? Would she have to shave her hair off when she got to the convent?

The horror of having to shave off her long black hair made her stop in her tracks. Suddenly she felt short of breath. Her head began to pound as she slumped down at the side of the village gates, wondering what to do. It was then that she noticed it.

Something was stuck to the bottom of her shoe. She took her shoe off for the first time in 3 days. And there, at the bottom of her shoe was a tiny, discreet flower that was ivory in colour. Now she understood why her shoe had felt so uneven throughout the entire journey. She had thought it was odd that her shoes felt uncomfortable, and had dismissed it as just slightly torn when she first started hiking up the mountain. Now it is clear that it wasn’t because her shoe was spoilt; it was because there was something stuck to the bottom of her shoe! And although she had trekked all over the mountain, climbed a cliff, swam in the waterfall and walked all the way back to the village, the flower had not died. It was still very much alive, a resilient little thing, and it still emitted the strange fragrance of its own. It smelt very much like the air after a heavy rainfall. She put it closer to her nose and smelt it again. It was indeed a very special fragrance.

She took a closer look at the flower. It looked very normal; it was just a very simple flower with a pale yellow center and tiny ivory petals. Yet it managed to stay alive throughout all the stomping, throughout all the rock climbing and throughout all the water diving. Its resilience for life touched the young girl’s heart.

She carefully carried the flower in her hand and took it into the village. This was a flower, surely, that could save her from life in the Convent. As she approached the villagers, they were excited. The most excited one was her mother, whose voice can be heard from all ends of the village. When she showed them the little ivory flower, the villagers could not believe that any girl would bring back something so simple, particularly this young girl for she was strong, intelligent and beautiful. Her mother could not hide her disappointment, and stopped talking to the girl at all. The only person who was accepting of her choice was her father. But she was saved, she did not have to go to the convent, and that was enough for her. She planted her little flower alongside her mother’s daisies and tended to it earnestly.

In the months that followed, the weather became very dry. Summer that year was a harsh one, all the rivers and lakes dried up and many plants died. The men could no longer work in the fields for their crops were either dead or dying. They could survive only through the sale of their livestock.

All the flowers in the village, and the nearby villages, slowly began to wither and die. All except one.

The young girl’s flower bush remained well and alive despite the lack of water. In fact, it continued flowering through the driest of months. It still emitted the fragrance of the air after rainfall. The fragrance became more and more seductive as the land dried up and the skies remained cloudless. Many people flocked to her village from all parts of the kingdom to buy her flowers. She sold some, and gave many more away, for she wanted to make everyone happy and hopeful for rain. Her village soon became known as the Village of Hope.

Eventually the rain did fall and after many more months, flowers grew again. But because all the flowers in the kingdom had died during the dry spell, the flower-hunting and cultivating tradition had to be stopped. Women were since allowed to make money doing other chores, such as selling handicraft or catering and some even opened bakeries. They had no more time to tend to flowers.

But the young girl continued to take care of her flowers. Her flowers were planted all over the Village of Hope and she tended to every one of the flower bushes.

As days turn to years and she became old, she would tell her grandchildren that she had once come so close to becoming a princess and showing off the most beautiful flower in the world that she got from the bottom of the lake. She told them of the beautiful petals and sweet fragrance of the flower.

And then she would go on to show them the flowers in her garden. She gently spoke to them:

“This may not be the most beautiful flower in the world. But beauty will fade and die away, and a sweet fragrance is just like another perfume you can buy off the street. This flower, on the other hand, will go through the hardest of times with you, and emits the smell of life even during the harshest of seasons. When you grow up in future, remember these words and you will be find all the happiness in your lives.”

THE END.

It was now nearly 3 in the afternoon. The young girl had just rested for 20 minutes. ‘I will try again’, she thought, ‘and if I fail, I will return with the orchid’. She took the deepest breath she could possibly take and dove, straight as a bullet, into the center of the lake. As her eyes fixed on the flower at the bottom, she began kicking her legs fiercely, propelling her body towards the plant. Her lungs began to hurt, but she had just only passed the halfway mark. She pushed further and her lungs hurt even more. ‘Just a little bit more, just a little bit more’ she told herself repeatedly.

‘Just a little bit more…’ as her hand reached out for the flower. She was now very dizzy, and her lungs felt as though they were on fire. Her chest felt like it was exploding!

‘Just a little…..’ and she passed out. Her body slowly floated to the surface.

Lucky for her, she was faced up when she reached the surface. She had floated there for almost an hour before she regained consciousness.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed, “I have to get back to the village!”

She swam to the bank of the waterfall. She climbed up the bank and instantly remembered the flower at the bottom of the lake. Feeling sad that she had failed, she looked back sadly at the lake.

At the other end of the lake, a red flower floated. It wasn’t…..it was…IT WAS the flower! She had succeeded in pulling the flower up! Even though she had passed out and almost drowned in the process she did manage to get the flower in the end!!! Shaking with excitement, the young girl dove back into the lake and swam unsteadily towards the flower. When she finally reached the flower, she took a long look at it. It was indeed red, with light spots of rosy pink. It was a large flower, almost as large as her arm’s length and smelt as sweet as the first day of spring. What a beauty!

She swam back to her bag and replaced the orchid with the new flower. She was so happy that she ran all the way back to her village! All the way back, she could not stop envisioning the villagers’ expressions when they saw her flower. She started to wonder which of the princes would marry her. She would be a princess! Would her dress be satin? Would it be silk? And she would carry a beautiful scepter made of gold, diamonds and gems! Her life would never be empty again!!

She was almost at her village when she felt the urge to look at her flower again. When she opened her bag, her eyes became very large and her jaw dropped. The beautiful flower was no longer red! Once bright red petals were now brown, and the sweet smell it emitted was now the smell of rotten eggs! What had happened?

Minutes passed by as the sun began to set. The young girl just sat staring at the once-beautiful flower. She had already thrown away the orchid. The beautiful flower from the bottom of the lake was dead. She was now flowerless. Even if she were to find another flower from just anywhere, she would not make it back to the village in time. The rancid smell of the flower filled the air. It was hard for her to imagine how a sweet smell could turn into something so awful in just moments after its death. Although it was the most beautiful flower when it was alive, it was certainly one of the ugliest when dead. And it died so easily too!

She slowly got to her feet and picked up her empty bag. Dejected, she slowly made her way back to the village and acceptance of her future life in the convent and the Sisterhood began slowly seeping into her heart.

(To be continued…)

The young girl spent the first two days searching for the most beautiful flower in the world. She worked very hard, climbing into the hard to reach places.

On Sunday evening, she cut herself very badly against the rocks of a cliff to get to a small landing in the middle of the cliff itself. There she found a very lovely and rare orchid that she knew was worth even more than the peach-coloured rose bush. She happily dug out the orchid plant and put it carefully into her bag. But she did not return to the village yet.

‘Wait’, she thought to herself, ‘I still have time. I may just find the most beautiful flower in the world if I work a little harder’.

So she made her way down the cliff and spent the night sleeping on a branch of a tree. Early the next morning, she woke up and ate a little bread to replenish her strength. She explored more of the land without finding anything new that could match the orchid she currently had inside her bag. As day became noon, she chanced upon a waterfall. She jumped in, happy to bathe and cool off from all her efforts hunting. As she swam to the middle of the waterfall, she could barely make out an outline of a flower at the bottom of the lake. It looked like an unknown species of flower.

‘Wow, that looks even more rare than my orchid!’ She thought excitedly. She took a deep breath, held it and dove into the lake. But she was not even halfway down when she ran short of breath and had to return to the surface. The lake was much deeper than she expected! Undaunted, she tried again, and this time she managed to go a little deeper. But she was still very far from the flower when she had to return to the surface again.

Again and again, the young girl tried. Each time she got a little closer, but each time she was more tired. She had to rest longer in between her tries to catch her breath. After 4 hours of diving, she finally gave up and walked away. But she could not stop thinking about the flower, for as she had drawn closer to the flower, she could see that the flower was indeed very beautiful. It was red in colour, and was about an arm’s length. It COULD just be the flower her mother had told her about. It could actually be the most beautiful flower in the world!!!

She ran back to the waterfall. ‘I will try again and again until I get that flower, even if I have to drown in the process!’ She thought persistently. And so she spent the entire evening and night diving for the flower.

Tuesday morning came, and she was still trying. She had not slept all night, but she did not want to stop. She knew she had to start making her way home soon, or she might not make it back in time. Her mother would be very disappointed in her if she finally would have to join the convent and the Sisterhood.

(To be continued…)

Yeah I am dumb..no idea how to post up a picture for my profile, so this step was recommended by blogger...haha....

Little pink kitty ears here! I LOVE PINK!!!

For as long as she could remember, the little girl’s mother had always told her to find a better flower bush than the one that was currently growing outside their front yard. Her mother had found a fairly common species of daisy. Even though the daisies she sold every morning brought quite a respectable sum of money, she was still unhappy. She spent most of her life wistfully wishing she had more time to find something better. “Perhaps I should have gone North of the village, or perhaps hike up the mountain”, she would say.

The strange thing was that the little girl’s father would take care of most of the household expenditure despite it being the woman’s responsibility. He neither smoked tobacco, nor drank at the taverns hence he always had extra silver to bring home unlike most other men in the village who like to spend everything they earn from working in the fields on getting themselves ridiculously drunk at night. The little girl’s mother would always have enough for new clothes and accessories. Yet in comparison with her best friend, she had little, for her best friend had very fortunately found a rare peach-coloured rose bush that fetched quite a tidy sum of money every week.

Anyhow, the girl’s mother got more and more excited as the time for her daughter to venture out for three days in search of a flower drew closer. She seemed to think that her daughter’s success in finding a flower would mean that she would get more spending money. The young girl felt a lot of pressure and anxiety and fear that she may not be able to find something that would please her mother.

Again and again, her mother told her how capable she was at finding the most beautiful flower in the world. “I have such high hopes for you”, her mother told her everyday. “You will be the first village girl to become a princess!”

On a bright Sunday morning, the village celebrated her venturing out. She was to return before the sun went down on Tuesday. In her bag, she had packed some bread and drinking water. The young girl said her goodbyes and turned to walk away. As she left her village, she could her mother cry out, “Go to the mountains! Get the most beautiful flower in the world!! Make me proud!”

And so up the mountain she went.
(To be continued…)

Reflections on the past always reveal who we are. When we reflect, we somehow have a tendency of looking back on the bad stuff in our lives and highlighting them. I have heard so many complaints from friends throughout my life. They tell me about their families, the lack of love they were receiving, the lack of understanding and bond, as well as comments on how their siblings were better loved and cared for. The eldest child always felt as if they were picked upon, they had more responsibilities and their younger siblisngs are spoilt and more loved. The middle child always felt neglected. And the youngest child always felt judged, or that they had to measure up or was looked down upon.



All the above are very trivial when you look back on it. We always swear that we would never inflict what had happened to us on our children. We always think we would be better parents. Yet I feel a sense of deep compassion and sympathy for such thoughts, for if we have such a reflection, we had not grown from our experiences.



We reflect and feel sad and lonely for all the pain we went through. But we have reflected on the wrong things. We only perceived how others made us feel. If we look deeper, there is something in us that causes the pain, anger, sadness and utter loneliness. It is our inabilities, our fallicies as selfish humans. Yes, it is selfishness. It is the need to put ourselves the centre of our universe whether or not we realise it. We feel neglected because we expect to get loving attention. We hurt because we expect to have equal or better treatment than our siblings. We are angry because our expectations are not met, or exceeded.



Nothing is free. A wise man once said that there is no such thing as a free lunch. When you get more attention and coddling, chances are you also get less freedom because you always have attention on you. You want to break free of your siblings' shadows but it is never easy. When you are given more responsibilties and forced to grow up faster, you may get less attention and coddling. But what you get in return is trust, freedom to make decisions and freedom to find yourselves. Yet we want it all. We want freedom and we want attention. We want love and trust, but we also want to push our parents and families away when it suits us to do so.



Sound familiar? Not true, we argue. We had it worse, no one understands what we went through. Perhaps no one understands. Perhaps it is because we were not starving to death, a victim of abuse or dying of a disease that no one is paying any attention, or sympathy or coming up with a cure for the void we feel in our lives. But there IS a cure.



Prayer. My strongest prayer, I feel, is when I run out of words. I just sit there and feel. I feel the world around me, I hear the world around me and with my eyes shut, I know the world around me also. If i concentrate hard enough, I begin to feel the emotions of the world around me. So much eagerness. So many people searching for something. So much sadness. Yet I feel the thoroughness of God and His compassion. When I pray with peace in my heart, I am closer to Him than all the times I pray with a sense of urgency in my heart. It is those times I let go of myself.



Those times, I understand why we need to praise God. It isn't about asking God for kindness and blessings. It isn't even about telling God about pain or happiness, greatness and smallness. It is about remembering how small, how little, and how humble we are. It is about realising how mighty, large and absolute God is. As I am overwhelmed by the "Bigness" of God, and I realise that all this pain and sadness means nothing. It is not about me. When I let go of Self, I let go of the pain. When I let go of my importance to myself, I let go of the anger inside of me. I am unimportant. I am humbled.



There is no more need to prove myself. No more need to compare with others. There is no more need to be loved "more". There is no more need for career success, branded shoes or bags, designer clothes and expensive cars to show one's self-worth. There is no more pain.



All that exists in the path of happiness and fulfillment is to be. To simply just be. That is all. I do hope you can understand the meaning of these words

Since she was five, her mother had told her the story of the most beautiful flower in the world. It is a big flower, of about an arm’s length. It has petals of a lovely shade of red that faded slowly into a rosy pink colour at the tips. It fills the air with a strong sweet smell and was a precious, rare flower that many would sought after. If you find one, you can sell it for 3 sacks of gold!

Find the flower, her mother always told her, and you will be happy for the rest of your life.

In fact, the flower is so rare, so exquisite and so beautiful that if you found one, you could present it to the castle and may actually be accepted by one of the princes! What a wonderful fairytale ending it would be for a young village girl to become a princess!!

The little girl grew up looking forward to the day she would be old enough to go hunting for her very own flower. ‘I would be a princess someday’, she thought.

Now it is the tradition in their village (and the all the nearby villages in the kingdom) that after a certain age, young girls must venture out for a maximum period of three days and find one flower to bring home and plant in their front yard. It was said to signify the coming of age. After the flower had been planted, the girl would be ready for marriage. The flowers that would henceforth bloom from the original plant can be sold in markets and the money would be the girl’s spending money. Women were not allowed to ask their husbands for any additional money for household expenditure!

If the girl was not home after a period of three days, when she returned she was to report to the nearest convent and become a nun. Her life would be a life of charity and penance. Although there are some girls who would voluntarily enter the convent, there was always shortage of nuns to do charitable works such as feeding the hungry and providing shelter to the homeless. Without the girls who could not meet the flower-hunting dateline, the convent’s Sisterhood would be in grave danger of extinction. The Sisterhood is an important part of their society as they are viewed upon as the life support of the kingdom, especially during times of war, draught and floods.

This flower-hunting and cultivation tradition is said to be aimed at grooming young girls to be responsible adults since they had to take care of the flowers in their front yard for the rest of their lives. If the flower-plant should die, the woman would be destitute and her husband had a right to divorce her (since she would no longer be able to care for the household expenditures).

(To be continued…)

Karma. Is it real?

We have been bombarded with so many movies on karma, that it has become some sort of a storyline. It barely seems real. Yet recently, I experienced something so profound and so real, that I begin to marvel at the awesome power of God. If you have the time, do read the following story :)

Someone I know (lets call them Mr. and Mrs. A) runs a business of managing an old folk's home in Australia. Since the home is partly owned by the government, they get loads of government subsidy. Now, the old folks who go there put around $200,000 as a guaruntee, on top of their payment to the home. When they die, the money is supposed to be paid to their family members. What Mr and Mrs A do is to keep the money and not return it after the death of the old folks in their care. When family members request for the money, they get hostile, put a lot of paperwork between them and the money and generally make it hell for anyone to get the money back.

They then take the money and spend it on their own. In recent years, they got so greedy that they started to water down the milk and juices. They buy cars and bill it to the company. They never spend a cent on household items. Instead, they bill everything to the company. As a result, they have become filthy rich. WHen they left Malaysia, they had practically nothing. Now they are multi-millionaires.

But are they happy?

Mrs. A spent a lot of money buying her doctor son an apartment in the heart of Melbourne, and a BMW 3 series. Her younger son got jealous, so she bought him an apartment as well, and a BMW Z3. Now her elder doctor son is very jealous as he felt he "suffered" more than his brother but his brother has a better apartment and car. Mr. A is forever suspicious of people cheating him and goes hysterical every time he finds a little money missing. He once caused an uproar in a bank because they charged him $2.00 for service.

Mr. A beats his wife regularly. He has a problem with anger and abuse. His sons suffer from depression and abusiveness. His doctor son has a massive self-esteem problem, and always seems to point out that he is a doctor, he drives a BMW and owns an apartment to prove that he is a wonderful man. He can't seem to ever admit his mistakes and for that reason, he has become some sort of a loner who is suspicious of everyone he meets in his life.

Why has this happened?

I experience this huge wave of pity and compassion for them. Upon learning to cheat and fraud, they have become money-obsessed. Yet all the money in the world cannot satisfy them. They are suspicious of everyone, they are envious of each other and they are such angry people without even realising why. Handling too much money became such a temptation that they couldn't keep their hands off it. Yet by yielding to temptation, their sadness increased day by day.

That money was really cursed. It was cursed from the beginning not because of some "ghost" haunting them. It was cursed the moment their characters became moulded into one with it. Perhaps prior to that, they already had a "seed" in them, a seed of greed and envy just like the rest of us. But they were put in an environment where that seed had a chance to grow, and now it has taken over their lives and their sons lives as well. And maybe even their future grandchildren's lives. So much sadness, tension and anger propagate from parent to child and I despair that they will ever find happiness. For they define happiness in terms of wealth, status, the clothes they wear, the car they drive, the place they stay in, the jobs they are working, and the life that they lead.

Karma. This is what it is. They say bad things happen when you do evil. SOme say God is unfair, for those who cheat and lie seem to do a lot better than honest folks. But we are only looking at the surface. For on the surface, Mr and Mrs A look so wonderful, they stay in a big house, drive a big car, have successful sons who also stay in big apartments and drive big cars. They are always smiling, they dress well, they have vacation homes in countrysides. But under all that "happiness" they are suspicious, angry and insecure. Imagine not being able to trust anyone. Imagine always feeling so angry that your partner isn't living up to your expectations. Imagine always feeling frustrated that you are not driving an even better car and staying in an even bigger house. Imagine meeting just about anyone and thinking "this person is playing tricks and mind games" or "this person is attacking me". That is really Hell on Earth.

It was an exceedingly warm afternoon. We sat quietly in our small canoe, hoping to reach our destination soon. Two days ago, some natives informed our camp about the sighting of an old temple just down the river. What they forgot to tell us, was that the river is about 20 kilometres long, and gets rather treacherous to travel on at the halfway mark.

Nevertheless, here we were sitting quietly in a tiny canoe that nicely fits 5 including me, Edwin (our archeological expert), and a native guide. Full marks to those who managed to guess who was rowing the canoe...Anyway, we managed to bypass the rough waters by trekking through 15 kilometres of swampland. It was awful and camping there during the night left us all exhausted, but at least we're alive, which is more than one can say against the rough river waters. Again, no surprises as to which poor soul was left dragging the canoe throughout the entire swampland adventure. It remains a mystery as to how the native is still strong enough to propel our canoe towards our final destination.

1 hour down, and we finally arrived at the above-mentioned temple. We were extremely disappointed to find that it was probably built 30 years ago judging by its condition, design and the fact that it had a fan and a power generator. Behind the temple was a hill, whereby some kind fellow had carved out steps on the ground to make some sort of a stairway to the hilltop. We collectively groaned when we saw that on the other side of the hill, there were gravel roads, which meant that we could have simply driven here from our camp!

Nevertheless, Edwin decided to make the best of our situation and climbed into a pond directy front of the temple. He was splashing himself to cool off, when we spotted a very tiny, green something sitting on a nearby rock next to where Edwin was splashing about. It soon became apparent that the green thing was actually a really small turtle (also known as a terrapin since it is obviously a fresh-water turtle). The species of this turtle is unknown to me, as it is nothing like any turtle I have ever laid my tired eyes on. It had a small longish but flat shell and its head protruded from its shell by almost the length of the shell itself. It seemed to be rather agitated at our close scrutiny.

Rather than retreating into its shell (which is what most turtles would have probably done), it poked his head further out and started snapping at me. I started back in shock! The turtle was actually snapping. It snapped at me again even though Edwin was closest to it (I don't know why, but I suspect it may have something to do with it being blinded by Edwin's pink shirt), and this time, we could see its sharp teeth rather clearly. A moment later, the tiny thing literally charged at me, swimming very fast across the pond and running towards me. I had NEVER seen a turtle that snaps, let alone one that has sharp teeth. And until this tiny thing came along, I was always under the impression that turtles move rather slowly on land.

This thing was running at me. I dropped my bags and ran for the hills. It was only after I had climbed half of the man-made steps up the hill that I dared to turn around and scout for the location of the turtle. Apparently the turtle had given up chase the moment we reached the foot of the hill and had headed back to the water. I couldn't really see much from where I was, but I had a feeling my companions may have captured it as it appears to be a rather significant discovery.

Most ppl have heard of the Princess and the Frog story. Bot how many have heard of the Princess and the Turtle? This story is actually the original story, which occurred before the Princess and the Frog story came about.

One day, the Princess was taking a walk in her garden. After a while, she came across a huge bon fire (bear in mind that in those days, the only way to get rid of rubbish was to incinerate it, hence the bon fire in the garden). She was fascinated by it, and decided to take a closer look. But along her path was a turtle, walking very very slowly towards the pond, which incidently was on the same direction as the bon fire. The Princess did not desire to dirty her long skirts by walking on the grass, hence she was reduced to walking at snail's pace behind the turtle.

After a short while, the Princess got very impatient. She found it ridiculous that she, a royalty, was delayed by a lowly turtle. In a fit of anger, she gave the turtle one hard kick, to which the poor turtle found himself in a very unnatural position in the air. Flying. Towards to blazing flames of the bon fire.

The Princess felt rather pleased, now that the path is open to her. She skipped happily towards to fire, just in time to see the turtle roast. The aroma of a roasting turtle was so mouth-watering that it sparked her curiousity. She picked up a long stick and tossed the roasted turtle out of the fire. And had it for breakfast. It was good. So good that she wanted more.

Hence she headed to to Castle pond, where she hoped to find more turtles. There she found a frog instead. Now I am sure u have heard of the Princess and Frog story, but what you need to realise is that there is no where in Heaven, Hell and on Earth will you find ANY girl (much less a Princess) who would kiss a damn frog, even if the damn frog can talk. The only reason why her lips touched that frog was because she couldn't find any turtles, only that damn talking frog. She wanted to taste and see if the frog would be as delicious as the turtle, but to her horror, it turned into a Prince.

The Princess lived happily ever after. TheFrog Prince had to learn how to cook, and serve good breakfasts to the Princess for the rest of his life! (He started to wonder why he wanted to become human in the first place, life was much better and more carefree as a frog!)