Lady in the train...

It was only when I looked up again that I realised she was crying.

Before I sat down diagonally opposite her I nonchalantly gave her a smile, the kind of smile you give to strangers on the train who you happen to be sitting with. I dug into my sandwich, and the magazine I had with me.

A few moments later I looked her, and from the bottom lid of her eye a big bead of teardrop fell and dampened her white blouse. It was then I realised she was crying. I felt 'guilty' for not having noticed it before. But I didn't want to stare, so looked down again, fumbling nervously with my cheese, ham and buns. At first, like the self-conscious and self-critical me I am, I thought that perhaps it was something about me that smelt bad. From her her swollen and reddened eyes, I realised then why it was that the lady had her hand across her nose.

Though for the ten minutes or so until my stop I felt uneasy sitting there, so close to a middle aged lady who was obviously very hurt. Tear drops didn't stp falling, and she stared with dead eyes out of the window as the morning sun shone inward. Cows, fields, forests and canals flashed by, but their beauty did nothing to soothe her pain. I glanced up at her, pretending to be uninterested and blind to her tears, but deep done I was concerned, concerned a fellow human being was suffering in silence.

I wanted to say something to her, to ask her if she was alright. I wanted to tell her that whatever it was that was hurting her, that was making her cry will pass. I wanted to tell her that sadness, like happiness, and all other feelings and things in life, will come and go, come and go.

But I didn't dare, and my shyness got the better of me. I kept my thoughts to myself, my concern for a fellow human being in need hid within me, because I was scared that maybe she'd react with hostility toward me butting into her life. Was I uncaring and less of a person because of that? Or has society reached a stage in which seeing a stranger cry is better dealt with by pretending not to see? The passenger sitting right next to the lady slept. Or perhaps pretended to sleep.

A few moments before the train arrived at the station, she gathered her bags and wiped her tears one last time. She excused herself as she stood up and brushed against me slightly and made her way to the door. I soon got off the train too. Amid the crowd of travellers I found her again, walking out of the station, with a heavy bag of documents in hand. I only saw the back of her head, but I imagined that her eyes were still swollen, that her eyes were still red.

And soon she vanished in the crowd. But my thoughts stayed with her, as I too was lost in the crowd.

Wereldhavendagen 2006

Braving gale force winds I stood on the Erasmusbrug and watched the evening spectacle of this year's Wereldhavendagen (World Harbour Days). Each year, the Port of Rotterdam opens its ports and gates to visitors and numerous festivities and excursions so that ordinary people can explore the Europe's largest and busiest seaport.





The port and the city are alsmost inseperable, and have a history closely tied to the Netherlands' economy and life. The majority of goods that arrive and leave the country go through the harbour, which is connected with an extensive network of railways and roads. Rotterdam itself is a modern city, and the only one in the Netherlands with a skyline of skyscrappers to speak of. 'Thanks' to the Germans who bombarded the city and its strategic harbour till Netherlands capitulated during the Second World War, Rotterdam has had to rebuild itself almost from scratch within the last couple of decades. No wonder this harbour-city with its international connections as well as connections with the rest of the country, is the pride and joy of the city. And the events this weekend celebrate that sense of nostalgia to the past when cruise ships moored on the docks, that sense of achievement you can clearly see when you see the tall skyscrappers compete with giant girafe-like cranes, and the sense of hope as the harbour and the city plans to develop into the future.




Laser lights, skylights, neolights boomboxes and ear-deafening music ushered in the evening's programme at 9pm sharp. The crowd was scarce at the time, perhaps deterred by the overcast skies, and, as soon as I stood still for a couple of minutes to take in the music and light show, the strong, strong winds. At times I couldn't stand still, since the sea winds were so fierce and unrelenting on the bridge. I felt a headache start to creep. I felt myself dread pessimistically the likelihood of me having to wake up in the morning with a sore throat and the beginnings of a cold. Forturnately as I left the house earlier on I decided against wearing just a T-shirt and wore a light-blue turtle neck sweater instead. Couples hid behind each other, embraced one another to keep warm. I embraced the wind that seeped through and triggered goosebumps and slight trembles.

There were different shows, each with very different characteristics. A wonderful 'dance of the cranes', as the gigantic steel storks turned their cumbersome bodies and seemed to gyrate on the spot to the beat of the music. With their massive 'hands' they dug into the river Maas and hoisted tonnes of water into the air. When releashed the water shed like a beautiful shower, sending vapour and moisture plummeting to the river below like a trickling waterfall. Colourful lights shone on the water made it all the more dazzling.

Then there was a choir singing so traditional Dutch hits, most about the life and drudgery of a sailor, about the goodbyes, the longings and the loneliness at sea. To contrast, a live DJ mixed and blasted disco and techno songs into the nightsky, this time with spiralling lights and flashing lasers as the dancers in the air and on the surface of the sea. I stood and could not keep my body from wriggling a bit to the beat of some remixes of songs I liked.

Rounding off the evening, the longest display of fireworks I've ever seen, projecting multi-coloured flashes and deafening explosions into the sky from a barge in the middle of the
river. I was bedazzled by the ever-changing kaleidoscope of shooting stars, giant balls of sparkling fairy dust, eliptical wheels of purple and white, rockets and missiles that soared up into the heavens and exploded with a loud sounding bang, leaving a trail of dense fog and smell of gunpowder. Soon I forget all about the cold, all about the pain of having to stand almost two hours.

Because it was worth it.





Go to my travelog for more pictures!

• Wereldhavendagen Fireworks VI
• Wereldhavendagen Fireworks V
• Wereldhavendagen Fireworks IV
• Wereldhavendagen Fireworks III
• Wereldhavendagen Fireworks I
• Wereldhavendagen II
• Wereldhavendagen I
• Rotterdam Skyline II
• Rotterdam Skyline
• Erasmusbrug

Late summer's rain

Though the leaves are green, they are yellowing. Just a little bit, on the corners.

I stood under a chestnut tree today, trying to escape from the rain. For many days in a row already we've been having sudden freak showers to be followed by sunshine and clear skies. Just as I was cycling home from the station, it started to drizzle. I thought I could just bear the rain, but then within minutes it poured, poured, poured! Water drops splashed on the rain, like peas, disspating in all directions as they bombed the tarmac road and cycle path. I had to find shelter, and I sought it under the arms of a chestnut tree.

For a while the tree was enough to protect me from becoming wet. But only for a while. Soon enough it started to rain even harder, rain to the degree it was reminiscent of horrendous typhoons I experienced last summer. And mixed with the falling rain were pea-sized chuncks of hail. They broke through the leafy shield and struck, bombarding my coat, jeans and cheeks. I was soaked, completely soaked like I had fallen in a pond. Water ran down my eyes till all I could see were blurs. My hair plastered to my forehead, and I could just feel the papers and book I had just bought for my studies in my bag go soggy.

And then it cleared. And the sun came out, surrounded by beautiful pure white clouds. Like it never rained.

Still dripping, I cycled home.

Almost autumn

I breathed out deeply, and pale fog escaped my mouth, disappearing into the surrounding air.
It had suddenly become that cold, but I didn't realise it. I stood there on the beach and watched the sun and sky paint yet another evening canvas with all the colours and shades of blue, orange and crimson they can find and blend together.



Dense clouds clustered on the horizon, reflecting on the calm sea looking like a colossal island with lofty peaks jutting out of the grey mirror. I took a moment to capture this moment, one that will go and never return. The air felt brisk and dry.



Another day ended on this quiet Summer's eve, on the brink of the dawn of Autumn.

A tribute to SOAS

Saturday afternoon and Sunday I went around town a bit more. I had to visit my alma mater, the School of Oriental and African Studies—the place I studied and worked in (not to mention dozzzzed off in) for three years. Here’s something I wrote about SOAS in the final days of uni:


(Graduation 2004)

Behind the grandeur of the British Museum showcasing loots and wonders ‘borrowed’ from a past of glories and conquests, I found her. She herself is a remnant of an empire lost, but today much changed in the face of a different imperial order. A vision in golden lettering, glistening on the side of a lump of concrete that could easily be mistaken for something built out of a fury of socialist construction: ‘SOAS’ spoke to me. She beckoned me to leave the streets of chaos and people, and enter a tree-lined yard behind gates plastered with posters demonising the present world order and its eunuchs. Behind these gates, beyond the reaches of a London to fast and too wild to capture, I found refuge for the next three years.

[…]

(Main entrance)

For strangers to SOAS, the revolving see-through glass-doors at the entrance screams of a pompous hotel reception. People the world over check in, check out. Some come to expose themselves to the worldly knowledge disseminating from lecture halls and seminars; others come to expose themselves to that familiar mix of (not just…) cigarettes and booze. The additional barriers to SOAS’ window-dressing are indeed the latest of high-tech: students and staff, despite countless visits to the building, are sometimes randomly left stranded at the gates…maybe wondering what it was they did or wrote that exposed them to the wrath of modern machinery. Erect a few X-ray machines, metal detectors, photographic and finger-printing machines (with the glum-looking security guards always too happy to help already present), anyone could be mistaken for having stepped into that realm of paranoia of the US of A. Behind squeaky doors, on tea-stained carpets, gum-glued furniture, ‘squatting toilets’ and within crumbling walls is a place of (quote) “intellectual excitement”.


Yes, SOAS’ flaws we all know too well, and her snail-paced bureaucratic machinery
never ceases to amaze, but at face-value SOAS scarcely does justice to the substances she has to offer. I have come to be proud of being part of this tightly-knit community of the world’s peoples and diversities. Too often I find myself (and I am apparently not alone) having to spring to defend and explain what SOAS really is all about to those (shockingly!) unaware of the fact that she even exists.


It is the place where once colonial servants trained in the arts and languages of
Africa and the Orient. It is where vocal activists, socialists and crowd-followers often start their marches against war, injustices and poverty of this problem-ridden world. This is where the hijab meets the kippa, where dreadlocks meet almond eyes, where people are blind to the colour of your skin, where the robed monk meets with the shaman, where children of [quote] “diplomats, spies or gypsies” congregate. This is where, in a world where constraining structures and hierarchies threaten to stifle the voice of the voiceless, subversion is the norm rather than the extreme. Marginalised at SOAS are no longer the vast majority of the globe. In a world where ‘western-centric’ influences dwarf all else, the lecture halls, seminars, societies and pub at SOAS are filled with alternatives to the current political, economic, social and environmental structure. I imagine more gets done and said by Soasians than at social gatherings of ‘UNrepresentatives’. And yet amid this daily activism and idealism that the world could be seized, understood and revolutionised, Soasians linger the earth with such an meditative air of calm and peace. It is a school of contrasts, a school of differences and a school with a life of its own, warm with the blend of the aromas, cultures, diversities and peoples of a much greater world.

(Thornhaugh Street, where SOAS buildings are mainly located... really a tiny college of the University of London with just 3000 people altogehter, but we make up for our specialisation and uniqueness.)


Yes, SOAS meant a lot to me, and will always do. Though to be honest, the square and streets around my old uni felt so ‘empty’ this time I was there. Perhaps it was because it was summer, and a Saturday.

At least, that’s what I’d like to think.