The Kite Song Girl

Two years ago, I was blessed to intern for Dr Gerald Koh, Asst/Professor of then Department of Occupational and Family Medicine(since renamed dept. of epidemiology). The job provided me with renewed inspiration to pursue medicine, as well as new role model and inspiration in the Prof about what a Doctor should be. However, that is a story for another day, what is more significant is that his set of a chain of very interesting events. I interned for the Prof during the month of December, so he was nice enough to give me a book called Kite Song. It was written by a then second year medical Student named Tan Wai Jia who was a missionary raising money for an orphanage in Nepal. It was an inspirational story about a little girl and her kite, unfortunately I have since embarrassingly misplaced the book so I cannot properly recall the plot. I won't because I don't want to embarrass myself further, but it had very cute pictures.

Two years later, I was having lit tuition with Ben at the National Library, we were in the middle of discussing one of my failed attempts to conjure up a GP essay(I was unskilled then, however I have since resolved that deficit) when an old man suddenly appeared and commented on my copy of Great Expectations strewn upon the table. He was delighted that some of the young were still taking delight in the joys of literary classics. He introduced himself as Hideo Asano, he was a homeless wondering author and poet who travelled the world writing stories and poems, living on generosity and sleeping in airports. Naturally, that was the end of our literature lesson and we offered him a seat. He is an interesting man, a japanese who speaks very fluent English and distances himself from his cultural heritage for their lack of individuality due to their constricting systems. We talked about mostly about philosophy and literature and then we parted ways. I went home that night, and I googled him in hopes of checking his authencity and out of curiousity(how often does one get accosted by a homeless wandering philosopher?) and that is when I stumbled upon her blog.

It turns out that Wai Jia had also met Hideo a year before and had blogged about it in her, blog. Her posts greatly intrigued me, they deal with the struggles she faces in life, balancing God, mission, school and many other things, unlike the bland uninspired blogs of most young people, and she overcomes them in a most inspirational way. Naturally, I was also delighted to discover that there are other people out there who blog long essays like me and so I have followed her since then. (You should too, I never fail to be taken in by her entries.)

Flash forward to 2009, I had fortunate opportunity to acquire some money without prior work. I found $50 on the floor of the loading bay at camp one morning, and living with a bunch of crooks, I realized that I wouldn't be able to return it to the rightful owner, so I decided that I would donate it. A week later, after Mass, I was caught with my grandparents in the middle of the large downpour, I offered to run to the car and get umbrellas, I am the impatient sort and didn't really want to wait until the rain stopped. So I ran them, got soaked and retrieved the two umbrellas from the car and returned. I gave on to grandpa to bring grandma to shelter and I used to other to help ferry the other poor stranded souls from the porch to the other building. In reward, my grandmother gave me(or forced into my hand) $50, which I knew I couldn't keep for myself, so I decided to donate this as well. And as fate would have it, Wai Jia had recently blogged about Alisha, a deaf nepalese girl who needed a cochlear implant and whom Wai Jia had taken out the mountain of a task to raise funds for. I also thought I would help her financially with Zhou Yeh Yeh, a basker who she is very close to and whose medical bills she pays, as she was broke and I felt she deserved a break. This, I decided would be where I would place the money that was entrusted to me.

I did and was delightfully surprised when asked me if I'd like to meet for a repast. And so begins my story for the evening. This is the longest introduction I have ever written, and pardon me for my verbiage, I just didn't see any way I could fully explain the story. And so now the story actually begins.

Its a very special experience to meet some inspirational up close and personal, it's very different from reading their works. They have an effect on you whether you know it or not. The meal took place a few weeks ago, and as I said, it was an experience. How often does someone agree to meet stranger for a meal? I must say I was rather nervous and excited. All those questions were flooding my mind, what sort of person is she really? What does she look like? What does she talk like? Luckily, I wasn't the only person with those thoughts. She admitted later to having the impression that I was a tall skinny(I wish)nerdy weird kid with purple shoes right out of one those civics and moral education textbook that they have since removed from the primary school syllabus. We met and and exchanged greetings and a handshake and proceeded to look for dinner, finally settling on the food court at Funan mall owing to a mutual lack of funds and no desire to eat junk food.

As I said earlier, inspirational people have an effect on you, as we walked to Funan, she stopped to make conversation with two people selling tissue paper outside the MRT station's exit. They were members of St. Andrew's Cathedral. She inquired about another one, an Uncle Andrew, whom I would meet later. I remember being very awed by how easily she did it. These are the people that thousands of businessmen and corporate women walk past everyday, men and women leaders in their fields, yet how many of them would have the courage to stop and do what she does? Of course you could say they would brush it off as beneath them, but in truth it's out of their comfort zone. I would know, I'm amongst those people who have yet to step out of that zone.

Its interesting how a small act can really brighten these people's lives. The money is a necessity but its the kindness that lifts them. I could see they were quite happy to talk to her. I wonder how many people talk to them? And she tries to do this with every one of them she meets. You can see why I was quite taken aback. I guess that it's something that I would like to work on. Its a duty as a Christian to help the rest of God's children. I can talk on about pro-life, but how pro-life would I be if I allowed these people to starve on the street, when a small donation would help them?

And it wasn't just her generosity and kindness that amazed me, she had the ability to see God's hand working in her life, I, being the blind fool, honestly wouldn't have seen any of the connections that she brought up. She said that it was God that allowed us to meet, that he had 'taken [my] good deed and multiplied it into another'. It reminded me of the parable of the Talents. If you use what talents God has given you, he will multiply even them more. That is what happened to the first two servants. Alas, there is a third servant, who buried his single talent in the ground, and when the master returned, the servant was punished for wasting the talent when he could have at least put in the bank for interest. All my life, I have and I think many of us as well have been caught up with identifying with the third servant. Afraid that we are not living up to standards, wasting our God given talents. We have inadvertently fallen into a trap, and in doing so have ended selfishly burying our talents into the ground to be friends with worms. In identifying with the third servant and in our desire to avoid the master's castigation, we have become him. I think it also extends to not giving the master appropriate credit. After all, the talents were from him. This is what happened to me here, I was blind to his hand, and because of them I couldn't give him the praise that is his. I guess even if you invest the talents and make returns, it doesn't help if you bury them in the ground and do not return them to the master.

Maybe, I'm rambling a bit. Synapses firing in their disconnected ADHD way again. I'm not sure, but I was really touched that night, because I had also been praying for a while, to see God in my life more, and I was granted that. Thank you Wai Jia, I can now see God working in my life more evidently now and thank you for the lessons you continue to teach people.