Transcendence, Part 3

Photography by Nguyen Thao Ngan

Here we are at last. The end of this little Transcendence trilogy, and therefore, in a way, an end of this self-defining, four-year journey of mine.

Dear readers, thank you for coming all this way. It sounds cheesy and overused as hell, but it really does mean more than me than any of you may realise. Some of you have been here since the very beginning (my first post was a cringe-worthy commentary on the movie New Moon), and I’m honestly stunned by your constancy in a world of variables, to quote a dear friend of mine. Some of you picked up along the way, several maybe only starting to read recently. That’s fine too; you don’t mean any bit less to me. I’ve been doing this for six years now, and there’s no greater joy than to discover that someone is reading and commenting on your latest post; that they can relate or, even better, that it helped them in some way. I’m humbled to have been able to write for you, and entertain/amuse/shock you for a brief part of your day.

I may sound extraordinarily reflective today, and it’s no coincidence: this is my last major contribution to Suburban KID, and quite possibly the last feature post from Suburban KID, ever. There will possibly be a lot of questions arising from that statement, and I promise to answer some of them both in this article, and in a follow-up post after this.

Before that, I’m going to start with a lesson on — stay with me here — economics.

Transcendence, Part 2

Photography by Nguyen Thao Ngan

In part 1, I celebrated the personal resurgence I was blessed to have in Junior College. I recalled how attitude can be the ultimate factor in determining your happiness; in other words, one has the final power to put on a smiling face in the face of difficulty (pun mostly unintended). What this means is that, theoretically speaking, you can always be happy; it gets harder the more difficult your life is, but it is still always possible.

However, I think that most of us understand that we aren’t always strong enough exert that sort of control over our feelings. Sometimes life throws more than what most of us mortals can handle, and we lose it. After all, always possible hardly means always (or even largely) achievable.

The following are stories of some of those times. These are times that are not easy to look back and reflect upon, much less write about. Therefore, I hope that revealing these low points of my life will provide some good to you, dear reader; may they not sadden you, but instead help you see hope where there seems to be none.

Transcendence, Part 1

From the very start, this was a daunting post to write. How exactly do you sum up four years worth of memories, feelings, hardships, trials, reflections and discoveries? Would it really be possible for me to do justice to this one period of time and this one fascinating - and occassionally rather strange - place that has altered my life so drastically?

Some say that Singapore is one of the most mundane places in the world. And you’ll find that I won’t entirely disagree with that; it’s not exactly a very exciting city most of the time. However, I suppose that makes it even stranger that this supposedly boring country has had such a profound impact on not just my life, but (I believe) also the lives of many others.

I don’t know if this series of articles will do justice to the experiences that I’ve been blessed to have, and the people who have shared or created them with me. But I’m going to give it my very damned best. Transcendence is my attempt to catalogue the most important experiences and lessons of the past four years with a focus on the latter two, since Gliding Over All already covered the first half.

And, as with many good reads, this one starts with a story.

Gliding Over All: Singapore, A Two Year Journey

Words by Terence Wang
Picture editing by Lh Isurgranddad

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; 
It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; 
It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; 
It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; 
It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

On 21 November, 2013, I departed Singapore for home, closing the first half of the four-year-long chapter that began from the moment I received the fateful email informing me of my successful entry into the ASEAN scholarship. That journey has been fruitful, surprising, heartbreaking, mind-blowing, and life-changing.

This article is a final summary chronicling this two-year journey, and the people that have been part of it.

Excuse Me: The Curious Case of Singaporean Apathy

Next to kiasu-ness, one of the most well-known and self-admitted faults of the Singaporean society is, supposedly, its apathetic, ungracious attitude. Specifically, the attitude that's being attributed to for little social issues such as not giving up seats, cutting queues, impoliteness... stuff along those lines.

Why, ever since that article claiming that Singapore was the "least emotional" society in the world, it's been excessively quoted in numerous thousands of student discursive essays nationwide - including my own, yes, but I insist that was done under duress. Regardless, I think that exhibits that the reasons behind this attitude, on a nationwide basis, have been more than sufficiently discussed. I, instead, want to draw attention to something that surprisingly few people have mentioned or observed: the gaping differences across age groups when examined for this phenomenon.

Seven Billion

“Chen.”

“Chen.”

“No, you’ve to pronounce it like this: ‘Chi-un, but in one go. Chen.”

“But that’s what I said!”

“No, the tone isn’t right.”

I sighed and leaned further against the escalator, wondering why Vietnamese names had to sound so differently from the way they were spelled. Tran, Chen. Tran, Chen.

I have spent nearly five months living in the midst of people coming from places I have only seen on printed paper, or big digital screens. And the journey will probably carry on long after this first semester, with more experiences and discoveries to snapshot and file away in the recesses of my mind. This article takes a look at one very important aspect of that journey so far, the people, with two conclusions.

Rock, Paper, Suicide

I’m usually very free with hyperboles, but this is probably going to be the most honest post that I’ve ever written.


I think it’s reached that stage where I need to be truthful with myself, about who I am, and what I am not. After reading this post, it’s possible that some of you will have a much worse impression of me. I’m fine with that. You deserve to know who this guy in your life is. I will not mince words; in fact I’ll skip beating around the bush and just burn it down.

Progress Report, Term 1

Around me are grey walls. Smooth, grey walls with a slightly darker streak here and there. Nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, my laptop's right where it's supposed to be, which is to say a distance away from my already-stressed eyes. God, this is becoming unhealthy. But write I will, for write a long time I haven't done. Too long, in fact.

So what's different then? The walls are still grey, but they're mine. The laptop is on a desk as always, but it's my desk. Me? I'm sitting in my chair. That's right, folks, I'm home.

So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish (Christmas Special II)

If you don't understand the title, shame on you. Go look it up.

So much has been happening this month.

My blog has just celebrated it's 2nd birthday yesterday - although once again, I failed to do anything about it, Christmas is coming - yay! - and the year, this very interesting year, is ending.

Oh, yeah, and I'm leaving.

Random Talk

The following is a conversation between me and a fellow friend and blogger, Amanda NYC on ASEAN, Malaysia and traditional costumes. Find her on her blog at Her Effervescence.

I recently(very!) had a considerably long chat with Amanda, also an ASEAN scholar (Junior College) heading to Singapore next year. It started out normal, but as the issues we turned to are rather relevant to many of you Malaysians out there(doesn't matter if you're not), I decided to compose it into a something...readable for both our blogs.

Life, Love and Loss

Dear reader,

Do you believe in miracles?

Life itself, is a miracle. It's a chance, an opportunity to prove yourself, to change the world, and, more simply, to just live it out and enjoy every turn.

Yesterday, life once again presented a miracle.

Dreams, Ambitions and Generally Serious Stuff

I will now make a huge announcement.

I'm back to blogging!

*cricket sounds*

Oh come on. I've been away busy for so long on my book, resulting in no time for me to do my 'normal' blog post. Yes, I'm aware that's mostly my fault, but I'm back now, right? And all you readers can now enjoy my wonderful-world-beating-hilarious-unstoppable-insane-crazy-but-lovable writing again, yes?

*more cricket sounds*

Someone needs to call the pest controller.