It was quite early when I first approached Victoria Theatre at around 1830hrs. No one was really there except for a group of the Publicity crew who were taking a break. They told me that the ticketing booth would not be manned so soon, so I took a roundabout the area which took me back to the spot where the flower girl in blazer from that crew approached.
“你要买花吗？可以在演出后送给你的家人或朋友。”
“我… 不知道要送给谁。”
“没关系，不知道的话可以送给我啊。哈哈！”
“Er… 给我考虑考虑，你等一下问到我再说。”
After a little while hanging around in the area I was approached again.
“你可以帮我买花吗？”
“Er… Er…”
She looked into my eyes with a powerful allure.
“我可以要你的电话号码吗？”
She was quite taken aback, but quickly regained her composure.
“可以吗？你给我你的电话号码我就跟你买。”
“Er… 我电话号码是999。”
I immediately regretted what I have said. Feeling guilty…
“Er… 好吧。”
So she happily took the three dollars from me and returned the fifty-cent change with a smile.
“Thank you!”
And so that rose accompanied me throughout the performance.
***
After the performance, I waited at the entrance for a while, swayed here and there a little and bumped into a few friends once in a while. And after half an hour, the group of them came out from the backstage after packing their stuff.
I could feel my heart jumped out of my mouth at that instant.
I approached her after she was done on the phone.
“其实我真的不知道要把花送给谁。我就送给你吧。有缘再见。”
Maybe she would just throw away the rose at the end of the day, but perhaps I shall see her again next year.
~
For the sake of remembering this little incident that happened last night before and after watching Huang Cheng Ye Yun.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
That Look in Her Eyes
She was young and didn't know any better. At least that was what people said in her defense whenever her story was recounted.
But really, at 16 years of age, was that a defensible excuse? Is there ever an acceptable age when people are automatically accounted to "know better"?
The story started in an accident & emergency ward of a Vietnamese hospital. She was at the hospital waiting for news of a relative who was involved in an accident. As she turned to search for a seat, she saw someone being wheeled by; he was lying down in a hospital bed.
"O, what a handsome mien this chap has!" she thought to herself. "I have rarely seen anyone so good-looking. What a pity he is in such a state."
She shared those thoughts with her closest friend and confidante later on recounting her hospital trip.
A few days passed uneventfully. On one fateful day, she was supposed to meet some potential suitors her parents had chosen for her. But she took ill suddenly and the meeting never happened.
Overnight, her temper also took a turn for the worse. Where she used to very biddable and gentle, she flew into a rage easily now at the smallest slight, imagined or otherwise.
Her parents didn't understand the change. Being wealthy, educated Vietnamese, they initially dismissed suggestions from relatives to seek guidance from a medium. There must be a medical reason for her metamorphosis, they insisted.
But there was a look in her eyes that defied any cure by western medicine. A blankness in those dark orbs where vitality and humour once flashed. Finally, they caved in and sought a medium's advice without her knowledge. At the medium's advice, they bound her forcefully, and took her kicking and screaming to a medium. The medium's conclusion baffled the parents greatly: how could their daughter be possessed? She has been sheltered all her life and has never been known to frequent any places where she could come into contact with spirits! In disbelief they took her home.
News spread quickly of her "possession". Her best friend got wind of it and thought that the "encounter" at the hospital might have something to do with it. She told the parents who sought the medium's help to expel the spirit.
The spirit refused. "Blame her for being the one who invited me in with her pity first."
Years passed. Recently her best friend went back to Vietnam for a visit.
The look in her childhood playmate's eyes remains the same. Deep, dark and blank.
**********************
Equal parts truth and fiction. The skeleton of this story is as recounted by a Vietnamese friend of mine, with a heavy dose of fictional spicing on my end. I don't think I quite attained the feel of her story, which sent a slight chill down my spine when I first heard it.
But really, at 16 years of age, was that a defensible excuse? Is there ever an acceptable age when people are automatically accounted to "know better"?
The story started in an accident & emergency ward of a Vietnamese hospital. She was at the hospital waiting for news of a relative who was involved in an accident. As she turned to search for a seat, she saw someone being wheeled by; he was lying down in a hospital bed.
"O, what a handsome mien this chap has!" she thought to herself. "I have rarely seen anyone so good-looking. What a pity he is in such a state."
She shared those thoughts with her closest friend and confidante later on recounting her hospital trip.
A few days passed uneventfully. On one fateful day, she was supposed to meet some potential suitors her parents had chosen for her. But she took ill suddenly and the meeting never happened.
Overnight, her temper also took a turn for the worse. Where she used to very biddable and gentle, she flew into a rage easily now at the smallest slight, imagined or otherwise.
Her parents didn't understand the change. Being wealthy, educated Vietnamese, they initially dismissed suggestions from relatives to seek guidance from a medium. There must be a medical reason for her metamorphosis, they insisted.
But there was a look in her eyes that defied any cure by western medicine. A blankness in those dark orbs where vitality and humour once flashed. Finally, they caved in and sought a medium's advice without her knowledge. At the medium's advice, they bound her forcefully, and took her kicking and screaming to a medium. The medium's conclusion baffled the parents greatly: how could their daughter be possessed? She has been sheltered all her life and has never been known to frequent any places where she could come into contact with spirits! In disbelief they took her home.
News spread quickly of her "possession". Her best friend got wind of it and thought that the "encounter" at the hospital might have something to do with it. She told the parents who sought the medium's help to expel the spirit.
The spirit refused. "Blame her for being the one who invited me in with her pity first."
Years passed. Recently her best friend went back to Vietnam for a visit.
The look in her childhood playmate's eyes remains the same. Deep, dark and blank.
**********************
Equal parts truth and fiction. The skeleton of this story is as recounted by a Vietnamese friend of mine, with a heavy dose of fictional spicing on my end. I don't think I quite attained the feel of her story, which sent a slight chill down my spine when I first heard it.
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