by You Jin
“Father: construction foreman; mother: housewife.” Mr. Goh continued to explain, “Song Li Long is a single child. His father is a construction foreman. It’s a profession with quite a good income. We have no reason to give him any money.”
I told Mr. Goh about Li Long’s family background, but he wanted proof.
“What kind of proof can he produce when his father refuses to come home?” I asked.
“I can’t take the student’s word for it, I need proof,” he said.
“Make a family visit then.” I was getting agitated.
“Even if everything checks out, we’ll still need a guarantor,” he said.
“Guarantor? What for?” I was more than surprised.
“If it turns out to be a scam, then the guarantor will have to pay back all the money.”
“I’ll be his guarantor. Will that work?” I said, without thinking.
“You don’t need to—” He gave me a questioning look, but I cut him off.
“Please give me the required forms.”
Even after a prolonged discussion, however, Li Long still refused to accept the financial aid I had applied for on his behalf. Out of frustration, I gave him a piece of my mind. “Listen, Li Long. Your grandma told me that your father likes to gamble and visit brothels. He hasn’t been home for a long time, leaving your grandma to raise you. Now she’s injured and is worried sick about paying for your tuition. How can you let someone who loves you so much suffer like that?”
“My grandma, she told you everything?” He looked at me. His lips were quivering as a profound sadness slowly seeped into his eyes, which were blurring with tears.
“Madam Tham, I don’t want aid because I don’t want to end up a parasite like my father. Do you know that he often comes back to ask my grandma for money? She’s old but he hits her when she has no money for him. Once he even rammed her head against the wall.” His face twisted in pain as he spoke. “Later, when he came, I stood at the door and shouted, ‘Don’t come in. If you do, I’ll call the police.’ One time we even got into a fight at the door. The neighbours came and helped me to drive him away. He’s absolutely shameless.” At that point, tears poured down his face as though a dam had broken. I could almost hear something heavy collapse inside his heart. The pale moonlight turned into a blurry glow in my eyes.
I waited for him to calm down before continuing, “Li Long, your father’s shameless demand for money from your grandma is not the same as taking financial aid from the school. We’re simply loaning you the money.”
“A loan?” He looked up at me with puffy eyes.
“Yes, it’s a loan. When you graduate and find a job, you’ll repay the school as your financial situation allows.” I patted the back of his hand and said with a smile, “At that time, if you can, you can even set up a Song Li Long Scholarship Fund.”
It was a starry night. At that moment, a light brighter than the stars shone in his eyes. And I knew that the young man who had backed himself into a corner had finally struggled away from his dark path.
PART THREE
Stumbling Stones on the Path of Study
Eggs Would Smile If They Had Feelings
1
“YOU HAVE A transfer student this year.” The administration manager handed me a small stack of documents on the first day of the school year.
The student was a girl named Ong Shan Shan, who was transferring from a nearby secondary school. She had an exceedingly pale face that was so square, it looked like a sheet of neatly cut paper. Her eyes were large and dark but lustreless. They reminded one more of salted fish drying on a riverbank. She was not talkative, and when she did speak, she lowered her eyes as if her words were sparkling gold nuggets, which she was ever-ready to bend down and scoop up. Years of teaching experience told me that something was not quite right about her, but I couldn’t pinpoint the problem.
The first day of school is always the busiest, and I was so preoccupied that time passed quickly. After class the school cleaner came to see me, and told me that someone was waiting for me in the reception room.
That someone was a middle-aged man whose wrinkled face looked like a freshly ploughed field, coarse and plain. His short hair was speckled with white, resembling an early frost. Smiling guilelessly, he held a large, rustic-looking paper bag. The moment he saw me, he walked up, displaying profound respect and humility. “How, how are you, Madam Tham?” he stammered.
“You are?”
“Ah—I, I,” He swallowed hard and shifted the bag to his left hand, before continuing anxiously, “I’m Ong Shan Shan’s father.”
“Oh, Shan Shan.” I smiled. “She reported to school today.”
“Please, Madam Tham. Please watch over her.” He looked down and said with a bit of a stutter, “The poor girl. Her mother died shortly after she was born and I raised her all by myself. It hasn’t been easy.” He paused. “Her health is poor and sometimes she may have to miss classes if she’s not feeling well. I hope that won’t be a problem.” Then he handed me the paper bag. “Just a token of my gratitude. Please, please take it.”
I waved my hands and shook my head vigorously, but he showed no sign of backing down. Thrusting the bag at me, he said loudly, “Please, Madam Tham, please take it. These are just eggs, nothing valuable.”
Oh, eggs! That stopped me from pushing the bag towards him, for fear that a careless move would crack the eggs and hurt his feelings. I would feel terrible if that happened.
After I’d reluctantly accepted the bag, a happy smile blossomed on his face. Rubbing his thickly callused hands, he nodded and said, “So I’ll be off now. Bye, Madam Tham, goodbye.”
Inside the bag were ten paper cartons layered on top of one another, each holding ten neatly placed eggs. My God, he had given me a hundred eggs! Was he hoping that his daughter would score a hundred marks in each subject?
I could only smile wryly as I looked down at the one hundred snow-white eggs.
When I got home that day, I decided to make tea eggs. After boiling the eggs, I cracked their shells, poured water into a pot and added the proper amount of soy sauce, sugar, salt, sesame oil, anise seeds, cassia bark and cloves, before placing the eggs in the pot. After an hour, I turned the heat off so the eggs could soak in the mixture of condiments.
The next day I reheated the liquid. The aroma was so strong and enticing that I found myself nearly drooling. When I peeled the eggs, I saw that the dark brown mixture had etched patterns resembling wrinkles onto their snow-white surfaces. They were so beautiful. I brought the eggs to school and shared them with my colleagues, setting aside twenty that I gave Shan Shan to bring home to her father.
Imagine my surprise a few days later when I saw Shan Shan waiting outside my office with another large paper bag. She held it out to me and said shyly, “My father told me to give these eggs to you.”
“I can’t, Shan Shan,” I said gravely. “I can’t accept them again. Please take them home.”
With an awkward look, she replied, “Pa said you made tea eggs for us and we have to return the favour. Please take them.”
Ai, when would it ever end, with eggs coming and going like this? I mulled over the matter and replied, “Wait for me at the gate after school.”
She smiled with relief, as she assumed that I’d accepted the eggs. But she lingered after I took the bag and looked at me as if she had more to say.
“Do you have any other questions, Shan Shan?” I asked.
“Madam Tham, the tea eggs were delicious.” Her face turned bright red as she struggled to continue. “Could you teach me how to make them?”
“Sure.” I laughed. “I’ll give you the recipe after school.”
A charming light shone in her dull eyes, almost like a miracle, and I suddenly realised that, in fact, Shan Shan was a pretty girl.
She was waiting for me at the gate when school was over.
“Get in, Shan Shan. I’ll drive you home.”
She showed no expression as she got
in. Her family lived in a three-room HDB flat in Clementi and her father ran a small egg stall in Clementi Market.
“How are you adjusting to the school?” I asked as I drove.
She was quiet for a while before finally managing to respond, “I don’t know.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“I don’t know.”
We chatted like that along the way, but I got little out of her. When we reached the car park in front of her building, I gave her back the eggs and said gently but firmly, “Please tell your father not to give me any more eggs. I appreciate his intentions, but I can’t accept them.”
With the bag in hand, she watched me drive away with disappointment written all over her face.
I hadn’t expected to see her father waiting at the school gate early the next morning. As soon as he saw me, he bowed and apologised profusely. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I should’ve brought the eggs myself yesterday,” he said. “But I’ve been so busy recently, I can hardly get away from my stall. Shan Shan must not have said the right thing, which was why you refused the eggs. So I came in person today. I picked every one of these myself. They’re fresh.”
I tried everything but could not turn him down. Looking at the hundred eggs in the paper bag, I began to feel dizzy. The man before me was as stubborn as a hundred-year-old banyan tree, utterly immovable. But I would soon learn just how stubborn and troublesome he could be when the issue was Shan Shan.
A few days later, when I saw Shan Shan enter the staff room with another paper bag, I felt my scalp tingle. I had developed egg-phobia. She headed straight to my desk and, handing me the bag, said in a mosquito-like voice, “Here are the tea eggs I made, Madam Tham. Try one.”
Tea eggs? How quickly she applied what she had learned! I took the eggs and tried one. I was impressed. In addition to the usual taste, there was a unique, lingering flavour. I asked her what it was.
“I added angelica and Western ginseng to the spice mixture,” she said shyly.
This student had truly outshone her teacher. I gave Shan Shan a thumbs-up, which brought a smile to her face.
2
Shan Shan’s father told me that she had transferred to our school because poor schoolwork had kept her back a year. Not wanting her to feel bad at the same school, he had decided to move her to a new learning environment.
She was quiet and attentive in class and her homework was always neat and on time. But she was of average intelligence. Although she performed acceptably when dealing with straightforward issues, she was lost when we moved on to more complex topics. All her teachers doubled and tripled their efforts to help her, but she failed the exams in many of her subjects.
The only person who could not stop praising her was Ms. Tang Mei Xian, her home economics teacher.
“Shan Shan’s creativity and intuition are impressive. For instance, for years I’ve been using orange-flavoured powder when teaching the class to make orange cakes, but she recommended using fresh orange juice. I tried it and the results were amazing! Also, when I teach students how to make jelly, I’ve always used canned longan juice. She suggested substituting the juice with dried chrysanthemums cooked in sugar water. I followed her advice and it was delicious. This girl could have a bright future if she chooses cooking as a career.”
In March, the school’s home economics department held a sandwich-making competition. Naturally Shan Shan represented Secondary 3D. As this was the first contest of its kind, the students were excited about the event.
When I turned up to show my support, I was surprised to see how different the glum, unhappy student in my class was as she prepared food at her table. Bright-eyed and smiling, she carried herself with confidence. For the contest she made a “rainbow sandwich”, mixing finely chopped cherries, mangoes and apples with tuna and mayonnaise to create a layered sandwich. Then she added tender greens and bright red tomatoes. She held an edge over the others in presentation alone. After tasting all the entries, the three teacher-judges unanimously voted Shan Shan’s creation as the best. She was all smiles, lending her such a charming glow that even I was taken by her indescribable beauty.
I called up Shan Shan’s father to schedule an appointment. I told him that I wanted to share some good news. What I really wanted to talk about, however, was Shan Shan’s worrisome performance in class.
He came early the next day. I shook his hand.
“Congratulations! Shan Shan won first prize in a contest.”
“What? Really?” He beamed and turned to give his daughter a tender glance. “She didn’t say anything when she got home yesterday. What kind of contest?”
“A sandwich-making contest—”
His face darkened before I could finish and he said with a frown, “What’s the point of winning that kind of contest?”
Shan Shan kept quiet with her head bowed low, as if she had done something wrong.
He went off like a machine gun before I had a chance to say anything.
“I’m uneducated, illiterate, and that’s why I spend my life working hard at the market, but not Shan Shan. She has to study because that’s the only way for her to have a future. Do you know I’ve already saved up for her university fees? What kind of future can she have cooking and frying?”
The words rolled out of his mouth like steel pellets, harsh and decisive, with no room for negotiation.
I tried to tell him in a roundabout way that Shan Shan really hadn’t done well in her tests, and that her studies would require more attention from him.
“Please find me a tuition teacher, Madam Tham,” he replied without hesitation. “I don’t care how much it costs, as long as she has help in all her subjects.”
Shan Shan, who had been quiet all this time, spoke up in a sad, bleak voice, “Please, Pa, I don’t want a tuition teacher.”
He turned to look at her and said tenderly, “All right, that’s fine. We won’t hire a tuition teacher. You just make sure you study hard.”
After he left, I told the girl, “Shan Shan, I want to set up an after-class study group. Would you like to join us?”
She hung her head wordlessly for a long time. Her face was tear-streaked when she looked up. “I don’t want to study, Madam Tham.” She was choking up. “I really don’t. No, it’s not that I don’t want to, I’m just not cut out for it. My father doesn’t understand so he keeps pushing me.”
“Shan Shan, you’re only sixteen. What would you do if you didn’t stay in school?”
“I love cooking. I’d like to enrol in a culinary school.”
Every trade has its star. She loved cooking and could have a dazzling career if she was willing to work hard at it. The problem was her father, who believed she had to study, and that anything else was beneath her. It would not be easy to persuade him to change his mind.
She came to see me a few times after our conversation, each time with the same request: that I convince her father to let her drop out of school and transfer to a three-year culinary training programme sponsored by the Singapore Hotel Association.
I checked with her other teachers, who shared my view. Shan Shan’s academic ability was limited and she didn’t enjoy studying, so she would suffer the fate of being held back another year if she stayed on. Everyone agreed that she ought to face reality and make other plans.
After I told him what the other teachers had said, and what Shan Shan herself had in mind, her father replied with steadfast determination, “No way. She has to go to university, she must. She’s my only child and I want her to have an easy, comfortable life.”
Shan Shan, who was sitting quietly to the side, was biting hard on her lower lip as a film of tears began to mist over her large eyes.
3
May arrived, along with the exams.
All sorts of negative rumours about Shan Shan began to spread on campus. The other students described her in graphic detail, how they had seen her mumbling to herself as she roamed the campus alone, or how she would burs
t out laughing for no reason. The most vivid description came from the class monitor: “It was after six late one afternoon when I left campus and heard someone sobbing on the stair landing. I went to look, and it was Shan Shan. She was sobbing and rubbing her head with a notebook. It was scary.”
I had not witnessed any unusual behaviour from her, but it was obvious to me that she had undergone a drastic change. Her face, which had always been sickly pale, now looked completely drained of blood. She spoke in a monotone, sounding mechanical and lifeless. Whenever her gaze landed on me, I got a creepy feeling as if she were a drifting ghost or an illusory spectre. It broke my heart to see her like that, and I felt myself tearing up inside. She couldn’t do well at school, but didn’t have the willpower or the heart to go up against her father’s good intentions. The giant shadow of the exams looming over her was so oppressive that she was nearing her breaking point.
But what bothered me most was that no matter how much concern and willingness to help I showed, she simply shook her head coldly and indifferently, over and over.
I called her father again to tell him about her situation, but he dismissed it as a sign of her lack of sleep from studying too much and said there was no need for me to be concerned. I tried everything I could to help, but both father and daughter ignored me. As the exams drew closer and work began to pile up, Shan Shan’s situation was pushed to the back of my mind.
The exams finally started.
The first exam was in mathematics. When I saw Shan Shan’s empty seat, I made an urgent telephone call to her house, but the phone rang endlessly as if it were located in a deserted valley. Just when I was about to explode with anxiety, her father returned my call.
“I’m so sorry, Madam Tham. Shan Shan is in the hospital. While I was taking her to school just now, she fell off the back seat of my motorcycle. It was an accident. Luckily it’s not serious. Could you please arrange a make-up exam for her?”