The old uncle and the sea

"Hey, what do you call that in Chinese?" a voice from behind interrupted my thoughts.

I looked up and saw one of the elderly fishermen from the nearby factory.
He pointed to the horseshoe crab I was trying to clean.
(Photo courtesy of Mss Pegasus)

"Err... it's um..." a jumble of names floated up in my head. Helmet crab(カブトガニ)... doesn't sound right... couple fish(夫妻鱼)... that's very Kinmen... arggghhh it's on the tip of my tongue..."

"马蹄蟹(horse hoof crab in this context)!" came the triumphant reply.

"Huh?"

"马蹄蟹!"

Ah, that makes sense.

"Are they edible, uncle?" I asked, hoping to find out more about how much impact the local fishermen's activities had on the crabs.

"Yes, but only the roe. They're delicious when cooked, but after eating two or three, I feel dizzy..."

"Dizzy?" I immediately thought of how filthy the waters of the Kranji mudflats were. The ICCS team was there, collecting trash and about 650kg of plastic bags, mineral water bottles, tires, discarded nets, mostly coated with a disgusting grey-ish slime had been gathered into bags.

I can't imagine what hazardous chemicals there might be in the systems of scavengers and bottom-feeders like crabs, horseshoe crabs, clams and mussels, etc. Shipyards and factories are nearby and there is no telling what gets dumped into the water. What's worse, rumor has it that a hospital at the opposite side of the Straits of Johor, might be a little careless about disposing its biological waste.

*shudder*

"The clams caught in this area have to be cooked very thoroughly, but even then, they have this diesel oil smell to them." the elderly uncle elaborated.

What are we doing to the waters off of Kranji?

Yet he didn't seem overly bothered.

"Did you know, I was featured in the Shin Min Daily the other day!" He happily went on.
"They did a feature on unusual homes. There was this couple who lived in a treehouse."
"Well mine is a little house on stilts over the water... here come, I'll show you!"

Intrigued, I dropped the little barnacle-encrusted Limulus into a bucket and followed him into the factory.

He brought me to the edge of the embankment overlooking the mudflat, to a series of wooden planks, carefully perched on long stilts planted firmly into the mud. The whole structure protruded out from the embankment like a jetty. When the tide was in, I supposed it did become a jetty.

At the end, a little hut erected of wooden boards stood. Barely tall enough for a grown man to sit upright, in the fading light I could make out bedding and a mosquito net.

"That's where I sleep! It's very breezy and cool. When the tide comes in, the waves below serenade me to sleep." He was positively glowing with pride at his creation.

I asked if he lived there the whole time.

"Yesss. My children are all grown up and can survive on their own. I grew up in a kampong and am used to being close to the sea. So I asked the factory owner if I can be his security guard and make the premises my home."

His food?
"There's always the hawker centre 10 minutes away."

The Internet? Email? Mobile phone? Nah, I wasn't silly enough to ask about those! But it just struck me that I would be quite annoyed not to have email access for a few days.

"The owner; you won't find a nicer man nowadays. He's like us, a man with humble beginnings, so he understands what we ordinary people go through. He gave us(the uncle and a couple of other odd-job men) the freedom of the place, and even the use of his boat to fish with. You won't find people like him nowadays."

I agree. The owner allows us to use his porch as a base for the horseshoe crab activities, providing taps and restroom facilities for us to clean up after our muddy work.

"Why, the other day, MOE people were here, asking about mosquito breeding sites in our factory."

"I told them, look, the factory owner is a kind man who helps people in need, he gives you guys(the Nature Society of Singapore) a hose to wash up with... why are they harassing him?

And they went away."

Hmm... I wondered if that was how it really went, but it was an interesting take on karma to say the least.

"I tell you, when a man is content, he doesn't need riches and all that."
"When a man is not content, nothing will ever satisfy him and he will never be happy."

The old uncle and the sea.

Kinmen 金門: Day 2

Since the Ming dynasty(1368-1644), Kinmen has been garnering a steady reputation for producing scholars and people of literary achievements. Under the ancient Imperial Examination system, the best and brightest from every province in China studied for rigorous tests to qualify for civil or military positions in government. The fact that a minor district such as Kinmen, then a part of 福建(Fujian) province, produced 44 進士 (jin shi) or PhDs, is a great source of pride to its inhabitants even today.

My 堂哥(tang ge: paternal cousin who's a child of an uncle/aunt older than one's father) who's hosting us is an accomplished writer and poet of some fame in Taiwan. His wife, my 堂嫂(tang sao), owns an art gallery and was a media personality of some sort in Taipei before she semi-retired. I shall Google them when I get back. He gave us a copy of one of his books, an anthology of poems composed from interviews with old Kuomintang soldiers.

The second day in Kinmen began shortly after midnight when the whining of mosquitoes woke me up. Gone were my hopes for a good night's sleep. Bite and suck all the blood you want but for goodness' sake don't make that infernal sound...

I had only dozed off minutes before; after convincing myself that the room I was sleeping alone in was just an ordinary bedroom and not a 100-year-old enclosure next to someone else's ancestral hall. Luckily the room had recently been given a makeover. New coat of paint, new roof made of thick wooden beams in the traditional style. The wood scent was pleasant and permeated every fabric in the room. The mattress was brand new and the bedding smelled of hot sun and the summer breeze.

In the end, after many battles with the blerdy bloodsuckers, like the Kuomintang, I strategically retreated to the courtyard and eventually went outside the premises for a stroll. That was when I happily discovered free WiFi outside the next-door 民宿 (min su: bed-and-breakfast) :) No one else was up and about at that unearthly hour. There was a nice breeze which soothed my fatigue a little. The village we are in, 瓊林(Qionglin), belongs to the 蔡(Cai) clan and the owner of the house we are staying at is related to my clan the 黃(Huang)s by marriage. 瓊林 seems prosperous enough but I haven't seen a lot of people between the ages of 5 and 50. Probably most of the young and able had moved to bigger towns and cities.

At around eight in the morning, my 堂哥 arrived with a hearty breakfast: 燒餅(shao bing: crispy oven-baked pancakes with sweet or savory filling); 豆漿(dou jiang: soy milk); 蛋餅(dan bing: soft folded pastry shells fried on a hot plate with egg); 包(bao: buns stuffed with red bean or lotus root paste) and 油條(you tiao: deep-fried dough strips). Yum.

After breakfast, we began making our rounds to every relative's house. First there was Ah Sung, the widow of another cousin. All her children had gone to Taiwan to work and she lives alone in Kinmen. There seemed to be some bad blood between her and my elderly uncle(堂哥's father) but thanks to 堂嫂's eloquence, awkwardness slowly turned into grudging acceptance of differences.

Uncle Shuiying's house in Houshuitou Village(後水頭村) was next. This was where my paternal grandfather was born and our "true" ancestral village. Nestled at the base of a hilly ridge, Uncle Shuiying and his extended family had been living there since my great-great-grandfather's time. When the Japanese invaded Kinmen, my grandfather fled to Southeast Asia, eventually returning to Kinmen for a few years after the war before leaving for Singapore again in the 1950s.

What does all these mean? Not sure... it's like having a ton of history books dumped on my head all at once. Villages that I'm supposed to call home but which I never knew existed, people whom I bear some sort of resemblance to, relatives popping out from all directions speaking a language that my grandparents spoke... after a while, I guess I need to get used to it.

"Hey, 3rd uncle twice removed, nice to meet you, I'm your nephew on our great-grandfather's 4th son's side of the family... how are the kids?" etc.

Uncle Shuiying is a businessman who seem rather fastidious about matters relating to ancestral traditions. He and his 3 sons and their families have been going around poring over ancestral records and uncovering ancestral graves all over Kinmen. Apparently this process has been hastened by an announcement from the Taiwanese government that they will claim any land in Kinmen that has not been officially registered by its residents.

Part of my father's reasons for this trip was to discuss the ownership and division of land left behind by my grandfather. As family feuds often form over matters of inheritance in Chinese clans, I wasn't very keen on mucking around in those shark-infested waters and focused more on learning about our ancestors.

Eventually my brother and I grabbed hold of Uncle Shuiying's eldest son and learned some very interesting things.

In short, during the 14th century(Ming dynasty), a member of the Ming Imperial Family liked Kinmen so much that he moved his family over from Quanzhou(泉州). I am this dude's 24th-generation descendant.

Waaaaitaminute, but my last name is not 朱(Zhu: last name of the Ming emperors)--my first reaction. So some ancestor of mine must have been raised to royal blood through marriage or merit. But I must have looked skeptical, so he showed us relevant entries in the family tree records and even some architectural features in my grandfather's old home.

In olden days, people used special roof decorations called
筒瓦(tong wa) to display official rank, much like the epaulets that soldiers wear on their shoulders. The more 筒瓦 one has on one's roof, the higher-ranking one is.

I went outside to take a look. Apparently most families have no 筒瓦, or at most three or five. On top of my grandfather's old residence, the WHOLE ROOF was lined with 筒瓦.

24 generations... even if each generation lasts about 30 years, that still takes me at least 720 years back in time. What lives, what fates, what joys and what miseries have all my forebears experienced? The 泉州 side of our clan's story is yet obscure and Uncle Shuiying's family are planning a trip there to discover more.

Imperial Family eh? How far your descendants have fallen, my ancestor...

Kinmen 金門: Day 1

The first half of the day was spent in the air and on the sea enroute to Kinmen. Xiamen 廈門 International Airport looked just like any other airport in a big city, except that residential apartments were pretty close to the runways. China changes every time I go. This time, shops were newer, service personnel were more polite and rude people were generally older in age. But I need to clarify that beneath the grumpy facades and aggressive behavior, most of the people we met were kind at heart.

The ferry from Xiamen International Ferry Terminal to Kinmen Shuitou (水头) Ferry Terminal was relatively pleasant, except for passengers vomiting all around. At first I didn't know why service personnel were walking up and down the aisles distributing plastic bags. Then the sea turned a little choppy, people started moving towards the more stable rear of the ferry, and all around, lunches were emptied noisily into barf bags. Poor souls. My brother and I weren't affected, perhaps thanks to our seafaring ancestors.

Gray skies immediately turned to blue when we arrived at Kinmen. Temperatures also dropped to a very pleasant 26C, with low humidity. At the terminal, after managing to fill out the wrong immigration forms, we made it across thanks to the patient customs staff. Clearly people here are more relaxed and share the typical Taiwanese hospitality.

My long-lost (read: never-before-met) cousin, his lovely, gregarious wife and 92-year-old-yet-fit-as-a-fiddle father had been waiting for us for more than an hour.

I was relieved to find that they spoke fluent Mandarin as well as Taiwanese. My limited Taiwanese would have been severely tested otherwise. Despite not having met them before, conversation was smooth and while it can't be said that we really hit it off immediately, there was definitely some kind of affinity.

The best was yet to come. They had mentioned that they would arrange some sort of lodging for us. Imagine our delight when we pulled up to a 100-year-old refurnished Qing dynasty home, complete with courtyard and preserved traditional Chinese architecture!

A great front gate made of reinforced timber opened to reveal an ornate courtyard. Crossing the courtyard, one can see aged foundation stones flanked by low walls. How easy for assassins and ninjas to infiltrate, I thought, for the architecture immediately reminded me of Chinese period dramas and movies.

An equally ornate inner courtyard door opened into a narrow passageway and a third door, this time to the main hall which contains the family altar. Rooms lie to the left and right, at both ends of the passageway.

How can I describe this feeling of entering a setting which I had previously seen/read in movies and in books? It seemed unreal that had I been born in my grandfather's era, I might have grown up playing in that courtyard. As it is, I am already imagining myself drinking tea in the courtyard under a full moon.

Off to explore more of the village of Qiong Lin, and military tunnels and fortifications built when the Kuomintang fought the Communists. I hadn't known the full extent of what it was like to live in Kinmen in the years immediately following the Kuomintang's withdrawal from mainland China. My older relatives grew up as citizen soldiers, learning to fire rifles as teenagers, ducking into air-raid shelters at the first sign of artillery bombardment. The shelters are still here, some overgrowth with weeds, others preserved as tourist attractions. more impressive were the tunnels, dug by young soldiers for miles and miles underground. If you were a young conscript in Taiwan in those days and had the luck to be assigned to Kinmen, hard construction work awaited you, plus the risk of perishing under enemy fire became all too real.

Going underground, we saw strategically placed slots for firing into alleys just above the passageways. Long straight tunnels extend around half the village, occasionally branching out into exits or more tunnels. A underground command post was equipped with maps of the coast, records of ammunition supplies, photos of soldiers, men and women included. It's evident that war was a way of life back in the not-so-distant past. I wonder where those people are now. Motivational slogans also dot the wall.

One of the tunnel exits brought us to an imposing statue of a lion standing upright and wearing a red cape. Called a 'Wind Lion Elder' (風獅爺), it's a local deity responsible for calming strong winds. It is only found in locations with strong winds, apparently. Incense and joss sticks laid before it in homage.

I wonder if this was the inspiration for the Merlion?

Dinner was an eagerly-anticipated affair, with the famous Kinmen oyster omelet, yams with stewed pork, and local produce. I have to say, the oyster omelet was the best ever. Crispy with just the right degree of chewiness and the sweet, sweet local oysters..... I can probably never eat another kind again.

Kinmen rocks.

Mobile Blogging from here.

The rainforest beckons

The tropical rainforest is a relaxing place to be. Even in areas where the trees are just a few decades old, they tower high up into the sky, forming the signature rainforest canopy. In a frenetic competition for sunlight, they extend their branches and leaves laterally as far as possible, providing shade for the creatures below.

In the early dawn, faint rays of sunlight trickle through the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve canopy. All is still quiet; wisps of mist mingle tentatively with the sunbeams. Neither the early birds nor the worms have awoken. Nocturnal creatures like bats return to their holes, burrows and nests, relinquishing the forest to the creatures of the day.

Hikers like us are just intruders, stomping through the trails like elephants, to be punished by the bloodthirsty mosquitoes. Unlike their urban cousins, the forest mozzies seem to be attracted to insect repellent. Their rapier-like mouthpieces penetrate clothing with ease and something in their saliva leave angry, itching welts. Barely five minutes onto the trails, I am already cursing all members of the mosquito family.

Spider silk occasionally hang suspended across the path, softly yielding to the hiker who barges through. Sometimes caterpillars also suspend themselves vertically on delicate silken threads from the trees. Alerted suddenly by a fellow hiker, I turned my head only to find my nose centimeters away from a tiny spider hanging down from a barely discernible thread. Caught by surprise, I screamed, the spider screamed and in my haste to get away I tripped over a root and fell down in an embarrassing heap.

As the sun rises further the forest reveals more of her secrets. Temperatures also creep up steadily, but thankfully the thick canopy above deflects most of the heat, keeping the forest floor a few degrees cooler. Vines, ferns and shoots emerge from the shadows of larger tree trunks and branches, proving that there are ways to thrive in the rainforest without much sunlight. Some, like the vines, adopt parasitic ways, sucking life from any host they attach themselves to. Nearer to the ground, low-lying plants and the occasional mushroom/toadstool seem to stretch and extend as the morning dew vaporizes from their leaves/caps. I see red forest ants already hard at work scavenging a dead caterpillar. Ladybirds come out shopping in gleaming red coats. Birds start to chirps and monkeys scamper across branches furtively, wearing innocently guilty expressions. They are relatives of the thieving ones who live near the visitors' centre. Those guys will snatch food right from your hands if you aren't careful. But who am I to call them thieves when I am the trespasser?

The forest denizens must hear us coming from far away, crashing clumsily through the undergrowth. Occasionally I pause and let the others walk on, with the intention of practising some macro shots. As footsteps draw further away, the forest seems to exhale a bit and resume normal activity. I stay still, eyes fixed on a random plant with funny geometrical leave veins. Within minutes, a couple of ants poke their heads out from under a leaf and start to climb to the topmost point where fresh flower buds await. A spider leaps onto a neighboring leaf, eight gleaming eyes seemingly staring at something to the right. I follow her gaze, eventually spotting a curious red-eyed fly resting on the edge of a leaf. Glorious fodder for the camera, if only I can get the focus right. Thank goodness for digital cameras.

At midday, we bid farewell to the forest and headed for the summit. Then, after the customary group photo, it's time for some good food at Beauty World.

Mutton soup, Chinese-style.
Chendol at the nearby Peranakan restaurant.
Nap on the bus home.

What sights and sounds will the rainforest show us again next week?

清明時節雨紛紛

On a rainy, windswept morning, I visited my grandmother.
Plot 4892, Chinese Cemetery Road 12, Lim Chu Kang; she lies alongside rows and rows of well-tended graves on gentle undulating slopes in the Northwest.

It has been several years since I managed to be in the country during Qing Ming, where it is customary to pay respects to forebears by visiting and tidying up their final resting places.

Mdm Tow, or Ah Fo, as I remember Grandmother by, was a remarkable woman.
Born in Hainan Province in China, in a village whose name has sadly been lost to us, she came to Malaya, as Singapore and Malaysia were collectively known then, in search of a better life.

Together with Grandfather, she set up a foodstall selling Hainanese delicacies and Hainanese versions of porkchops, peas and mashed potatoes. Her very first success was a Hainanese dessert called Buah Kia, a dark cane-sugar-flavored syrup filled with little flour strips and flavored with ginger and pandan leaves.

Combine flour and water and knead little fat strips of dough. Boil a pot of water before dropping the Buah Kia in, taking care not to over-boil the mixture. Then smash a piece of ginger before tossing that in with pandan leaves and dark cane sugar.

With her dazzling culinary skills, Ah Fo soon became a household name along Waterloo Street near what's known today as Bugis. When WWII came to Singapore, she fled to Malaysia with Grandfather, my mum and my uncle for a few years before coming back after the war was over.

Grandfather passed away shortly after and Ah Fo, in her indomitable way, single-handedly brought up mum and her brother, managing to pay for both her kids' education. In an era where education for women was still discouraged, Ah Fo, with no formal schooling, recognized the importance of education and in her foresight, insisted that mum went to school as well.

Life was to get better for Ah Fo as Singapore's economy improved, although she always lived a very simple life devoid of things such as televisions and hot-water showers. My elder brother and me were lucky to have her looking after us when we were toddlers. Sadly, she left us for a better place when I was thirteen.

Since then, our time with Ah Fo has been limited to either in dreams or during Qing Ming. The procedure is pretty standard--the day before, mum would buy a chicken and other ingredients to make Hainanese Chicken Rice (Ah Fo's favorite), followed by Buah Kia. At dawn the next day, we'd set off with the food and with various traditional items used to pay homage to ancesters such as incense, red candles, paper money and some gardening tools to trim the grass on Ah Fo's grave.

Her grave is a round-ish egg-shaped mound, encased on the sides and front by stone. From the front, stone lotuses flank her headstone, which is further raised from the ground to knee-level. On the right at ground-level, a stone tablet dedicated to the Earth God sits, protecting Ah Fo's grave.
Ah Fo's kindly face smiles from her headstone.
Etched in neat Chinese characters are her name, year of birth and passing, the names of her descendants and her home village. As nobody remembers which village Ah Fo came from, Grandfather's village, 風頭村 in 文昌縣, 海南島 is used instead.

First we clear the area of stray grass and ashes. Then a set of incense and candles are lit for the Earth God, whom we thank for looking after Ah Fo's resting place. Tea leaves and little snacks are also offered to this image of a kindly old man dressed in classical Chinese robes.

Mum starts laying out Ah Fo's favorite dishes on the raised section before the headstone. Again, incense and candles are lit. My brother and sister-in-law spreads pieces of paper money and colored paper on the grass mound behind the headstone, and pull out little weeds. Little Chloe wanders around, looking curiously at the rows and rows of graves that stretch as far as the eye could see.
Each one of us takes turns to pay our respects.

"Ah Fo, how are you? It's me, your littlest grandchild."
Sorry for not coming for so many years.
Please continue to bless us with your love.
We miss you and hope that you're well."

... so speak the living in remembrance of the dearly departed.

---

The paper money is then burnt, whole stacks of currency with vivid drawings of deities and the trappings of Paradise. Some of which have been folded into ingots to resemble taels of gold and silver used in olden days.

At that point, it started drizzling, but we didn't budge. Neither did the other families out that day. Somehow, the rain seemed fitting.

A beautiful poem I was forced to learn in school goes:

清明時節雨紛紛，
路上行人欲斷魂。
借問酒家何處有？
牧童遙指杏花村。

The Jekylls and the Hydes

They come stealthily in the night, slithering over the fence. Under the cover of darkness, their insidious fingers silently snake across the water pipes and reach for the faucet that doesn't belong to them. When they think no one is looking, the tap is skilfully turned and the water, plundered.

In the early dawn, spurred on by some unknown primeval instinct, they rise before any other creature does and stalk the newspaper delivery man. Not quite comprehending that every copy delivered is identical, they follow him and again when no one is looking, extend grasping limbs into gated driveways to pilfer any newspaper that doesn't land beyond reach. The occupants of those houses will still be blissfully asleep.

Large items of trash would magically appear beside other houses' trashcans, left perhaps as gifts for the unsuspecting occupants.

By day, the Hydes revert to Jekylls, behaving impeccably, going about their lives as any self-respecting citizen will--leaving for work, sending their kids to school, doing laundry and exchanging friendly greetings with everyone else. "Hey, good morning, how are you," "Let me show you this great recipe..."

When night falls, the cycle repeats in a dark comedic fashion... with zero traces of irony. What they lack for in their own home, no one knows. Whether or not it is the leftover trauma of some past misfortune, no one knows. I'd like to ask some day, if I feel like starting a fight.

This is the Strange Case of the Neighbors Next Door.

Rendezvous with a living fossil

At the end of a nameless track in Kranji Industrial Estate near the Causeway bridge between Singapore and Malaysia lies a roughly 1-km stretch of mudflats. The sea meets small coastal tributaries at several points, creating a greyish sticky mixture of mostly silt and sand. All types of trash and flotsam can be found amidst the scum..

In these mudflats which look completely dull and devoid of life, a species that has existed and barely changed for 400 million years thrive.

The humble Mangrove Horseshoe crab, Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda; Not a crab but more closely-related to spiders and scorpions, it is recognizable via its distinctive armored carapace. Mostly armored head followed by a spiny tail, it seems.

Its blood contains a substance valuable to medical science as a reliable test for bacterial toxins.

There are only four species left in the world, and two of them reside in on this tiny island. I still can't quite wrap my mind around this statistical anomaly.

On a blazing Saturday afternoon, eleven volunteers gathered near the stinky mud to hear Dr Lesley Cartwright-Taylor from the Nature Society explain the afternoon's activity.

"Alright everyone, thank you for coming. What we're going to do is quite simple really. We're going to catch the crabs, bring them to this table to be measured, and release them afterwards."

"Now they are incredibly docile creatures so don't be afraid to handle them. Never pick them up by their tails 'cos they might come off. And a horseshoe crab without a tail will die quickly as it wouldn't have an apparatus to swim or to flip itself over. Just gently pick them up by their sides."

Off we went trudging into the mud, wearing wellies, booties and whatever water footwear we had. Mine were low-heeled sneakers made of a single piece of pure rubber, affectionately dubbed, "the kampung adidas." Apparently rubber tappers in Malaysia wear them for work. They worked well on the mudflats, allowing me to squelch noisily out into areas where the crabs might lie.

I was soon mired in ankle-deep mud though, of the viscous variety that seeps into one's shoes, making extrication of each step from the sticky ooze harder by the minute. Taking any step soon became a strange pantomime--first you put your weight on one foot and strain to free the other from the mud. When your trailing foot finally comes free in a loud sucking release, your momentum suddenly shifts towards your planted foot so you pivot desperately to retain your balance and try not to fall face-first into the muck. And of course your 'stable' foot sinks yet further into the quagmire.

Iqbal, my trainer, had an exceptional eye for the crabs. They generally buried themselves, leaving only trails or little raised sections on the mudflats' surface. He taught me to bend low and look for slightly-rounded sections in the surrounding mud; to detect the slightest of movements that the younger ones will make to swim away from us; to poke a finger into a suspicious mound to feel for the distinctive armored carapace and little spikes.

I was elated at finding my first adult crab. My finger dipped into the mud and encountered something spiky. *poke*poke*, I tapped, hoping for a response. Tracing the line of spikes, a long tail sticking out from a flat, rounded shell was quickly discovered. I hooked my thumb and pinky round the sides and happily extricated it from the mud.

In my hand, a creature that walked the Earth long before the dinosaurs did, and which survived mass extinctions and planetary catastrophes that killed the terrible lizards. The horseshoe crab bent over in some sort of defensive manueveur, waving its five pairs of legs in protest. I was awed. They will probably survive humans as well, if we let them.

It was the mating season, for we captured many coupling pairs - the male on top, clasping the female with his bulbous front appendages and generally hanging on until the act is consumated. One volunteer even discovered a threesome. Young horseshoe crabs nowadays... *tsk tsk*.

As the afternoon wore by, the tide began to creep in and our backs ached from the constant crouching. I wanted to take pictures of the process but was quickly thwarted by the challenge of keeping my hands clean in order to use the camera. Darn.

Eventually, after several catch-and-release cycles, Lesley called a halt to the proceedings and declared that we were done for the day.

The tally: 234 crabs, with the largest(invariably female) measured at around 14cm across, and lots of juveniles. Apparently the total was similar to that of the previous attempt, so that was good.

When they were put back onto the mud, the crabs didn't really showed any urgency to get away from the strange bipedal creatures who had rudely disrupted their afternoon naps, dumped them into a bucket, and unceremoniously laid tape measures on them. Some were even separated from their other halves. Still, they seemed to glide away nonchalantly, not bothered in the least.

Lesley posed the next question. "if only there's a good way of tagging them to record their movements."
"People have done that in North America, so we've been in touch with those guys to find out how they did it. Hopefully we can use similar equipment." 

"So little is known about the crabs' habits in this part of the world."

How would you put a transmitter on a crab? Away from the sensory organs at the front probably, so as not to disrupt its normal activities. The tag has to be light and disposable because as soon as the crab moults, it's lost forever. So it can't record and save data either. The folks who did it successfully used radio tags and manually oriented receiving antennas over the bay, in trial-and-error fashion. That worked well it seemed.

Hopefully answers will emerge in due time. We have until the next full moon to find out. I returned with newfound respect for the horsecrab crab.

Scientists say that it is precisely the ability to survive in this kind of brackish boundary between the land and the sea that contributes to their longevity. Charles Darwin wrote of differing rates of evolution--speciation, morphological changes. Apparently organisms who have no/little need to change(to escape predation, to acclimatize to new conditions) shouldn't change that much. The humble horseshoe crab certainly seems to illustrate this point.

Raindrops keep falling on my head

After a scorching February I was already longing for the cool end-of-year rainy season, a kind of winter for those of us in the tropics.

I would be drenched in perspiration by the time I get to the train station. All around, the grass dried up and turned a combustible shade of brown. People started wearing resigned, heat-withered expressions and an unmistakable air of anticipation slowly built up.

Kazumi-sensei recalls March last year as a rather wet month; with almost daily rain showers. "Strange," she remarked.

Worse, the notorious haze created by slash-and-burn agriulture in (probably) Indonesia resurfaced, clogging the air with tiny ash particles and imparting a burnt smell one immediately detects upon going outdoors. No more jogging then, until it abated.

Finally, and the sense of relief was evident on people's faces, blogs and Facebook updates, the heavens opened.

*Patter*patter*patter* A welcoming crescendo of raindrops swept against the window panes. The walk to the train station immediately seemed much more enjoyable.

Walking in the rain with only a small foldable umbrella, I hugged my backpack closer. Steam rose from the hot asphalt in sighing contentment. The fragrance of wet grass and leaves wafted in the air. People hurriedly retreated into houses and nearby cafes for shelter, taking a welcome respite from the hustle and bustle of daily life.

The world descended into a kind of quiet serenity. Few other passers-by remained on the streets, leaving me alone to appreciate the sudden emptiness.

*Patter*patter*patter* Nothing else seemed to exist except for the sound of rain on my umbrella. Sometimes the wind playfully sent rain onto me from various directions. Changing the angle of the umbrella to defend myself from the teasing raindrops became a game, the umbrella a magical shield, the wind and rain a onslaught of elemental energy.

Upon reaching the beach, the rain stopped, leaving only cumulo-nimbus clouds high up in the sky. The grass quickly dried, leaving perfect campsites. The air was fresh again, not in the crisp way it was in the mountains, but still refreshing with a saltish tang from the sea.

Because of the rain, the skies cleared up and the constellations revealed themselves overhead. Orion, Canis Major, Taurus and even the Red Planet, if our iPhone app was to be believed.

Reclining on the ground, gazing at the stars with coconut trees outlined against the night sky, I listened to the unceasing song of the waves. The unrelenting heat before the rains became just a memory for the time being.

The Moon By Whale Light - Diane Ackerman

http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Whale-Light-Adventures-Crocodilians/dp/0679742263

Amazing writing by a naturalist-poet-author:
"After all, mind is such an odd predicament for matter to get into. I often marvel at how something like hydrogen, the simplest atom, forged in some early chaos of the universe, could lead to us and the gorgeous fever we call consciousness. If a mind is just a few pounds of blood, dream, and electric, how does it manage to contemplate itself, worry about its soul, do time-and-motion studies, admire the shy hooves of a goat, know that it will die, enjoy all the grand and lesser mayhems of the heart? What is mind, that one can be out of one's? How can a neuron feel compassion? What is a self? Why did automatic, hand-me-down mammals like our ancestors somehow evolve brains with the ability to consider, imagine, project, compare, abstract, think of the future? If our experience of mind is really just the simmering of an easily alterable, chemical stew, then what does it mean to know something, to want something, to be? How do you begin with hydrogen and end up with prom dresses, jealousy, chamber music? What is music that it can satisfy such a mind, and even perhaps function as language?"

Sometimes comprehending too much impedes understanding

I've had the good fortune of meeting a couple of good friends through a series of language exchanges. Starting from high-school-level ability in the language each of us is learning, over time we've helped one another improve in written, verbal and cultural communication.

Because my vocabulary is limited, complex emotions are expressed in simpler "good" vs "bad" terms, and intricacies are often reduced to toddler-speak. Somehow, this simpler way of communication helped us break the ice and trust the other person more. Over time, our friendship became purer an more innocent, like a throwback to the days when friendships were readily forged at the playground.

The Tissue Paper Lady

(Reposted from my Facebook Notes)

On the way to the train station one day, I crossed a notoriously-busy intersection with loads of human traffic everyday.

It was there that I saw her; standing near the traffic light, sun-baked arms extended outwards, half-crooked, offering packets of Kleenex.

In Singapore, Kleenex peddlers come in all shapes and guises. Some brazenly thrust their wares in one's face; others bring elderly/handicapped companions in tow, hoping that sympathy would translate into purchase or two. Most are used to being turned down, and for various reasons empathy is in short order.

It is with a sense of shame that I recall feeling annoyed as I approached the crossing. 'She knows very well that lots of people would walk past her, hence the stakeout.'

Our eyes met, and I felt as if someone ha doused a pail of ice-cold water on me. Even for that fleeting half-second, I was shocked by what I saw.

How should I describe it... Her wizened and care-worn face, seemingly locked in a seller's relentless mask to keep pressing for a sale. Yet her expression also seemed convey a kind of dignity in desperation, as if she's saying, 'Look, I don't like doing this any more than you do, but I have to and I will survive.'

At that moment, the overwhelming thought in my mind was that this old lady had probably been standing around in the sun the whole day; that she wasn't just a tissue-paper peddler--she's also a real person, a little girl, a teenager, a young woman, possibly a mother and even a grandmother.

I didn't buy, and I was troubled.