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May 30, 2005
Tired Small Me
What I have been doing lately:
(a) Wondering what all the fuss about the French Referendum on the European Union constitution is all about (though listening to the Beeb helps a little);
(b) Revisiting again the reason why I supported a club whose fans went through pain, disappointment and suffering for the past 21 years;
(c) Trying to redeem a dying friendship after coming across the said friend’s face in the local rags (though it is not really working);
(d) Getting myself all happy when the package from Amazon arrived (after much waiting) only for it to fade off;
(e) Playing Gin Rummy (and not getting thrashed by the other players) by the seaside;
(f) Getting chuffed over how I managed to get round the firewall at the workplace and now, I have a live feed of any radio station on the Beeb (though the workaround for MSN or ICQ still eludes me);
(g) Finding myself at a theatre (and away from all that Star Wars craze) by settling down at an almost empty hall and watching a truly sweet but horribly predictable film “Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi” (not to say that I did enjoy it); and
(h) Rediscovering a hidden gem sitting in my hard disk (which survived the most recent crash) – a documentary on the peaceful Tiananmen 1989 incident which was produced by the same people behind the excellent documentary “Morning Sun”.
***
I might not truly know how she was feeling with lots of prying eyes on her, but I knew how this part of her life would blight the rest of it forever.
It was a hectic Friday evening of sorts. After fulfilling my end of the bargain by buying a sumptuous dinner for my mother from Tiong Bahru, I was on my way to meet some mates at the other end of the island for Gin Rummy. I could have buggered it all by ditching the train journey there and taking a cab, but I did not want to hurt my bank account further (not right after that moment of pure folly involving the few clicks which got me that imported $60 CD). So there I was leaning on the glass panel by the doors and observing the Friday evening commuter-crowd on the train.
Everything was fine until I saw some repetitive and unusual movement from the corner of my eye. I did not really notice them when I first got on the train. Seriously, they passed off well as another father-and-daughter combo taking the train home. The man wore a non-descript polo T-shirt and pants which had the words “typical heartlander bloke” written all over him. Yet, he was not whom it was that drew my attention. It was the girl.
It could have been her hair, but on my first look, she looked more like a boy. I would put her age as something around 5 or 6 years. What gave her gender away was her dress. Granted her complexion was fair but knowing how kids were these days, even boys might be so sheltered by their parents that probably some of them were fair. Yet, it was her complexion that made her stand out from the evening crowd and probably drew way too much attention from others in the train on her.
There were red patches all over her body. They looked like scabs and they were on her legs (she was wearing a dress, remember), hands, arms, neck and (thankfully) on a smaller scale, her face. The redness of the patches contrasted starkly from her fair complexion, so much so that they became very obvious. Every other second, her hands would wander off to scratch a part of her body to ease the itch, and there was a hint of sheepishness about her. It gave the suggestion that she was well-aware that these search-and-scratch movements would provoke the attention of strangers and adults on her and the condition of her skin.
Then, her father, who hitherto was watching her closely, gave the softest of sighs and reached into a plastic bag which he was carrying. Out came a small plastic container, he opened it, scooped bits of its contents and started applying the cream on her skin, or more specifically, at where the rashes were.
I shifted my attention from the two of them to commuters around them who were in full sight of what was going on. Some of them were watching intently and observing. Some of their facial expressions denoted compassion as in how this could happen to a young and sweet girl. Some were curious. Some tried to turn away. Some were possibly shocked.
Somehow the girl knew that attention was on her already, but it seemed as though the cream failed to ease the itches. The small cardigan draped around her was taken off and her father gently wrapped it around her body, so that she could scratch all she wanted without doing it in the full view of strangers.
Maybe she was tired, but maybe these rashes were social constraints placed upon her so that she could not run around in circles like other children around her age on the train. She looked reserved, quiet and she looked like she was well-acquainted with this for a long time now. In other words, she was resigned to her fate.
I wished I was a doctor so that I could understand what she was afflicted with, but I was not one. Yet, being in this position once in my life, I could feel the awkwardness, the social stigma and the resignation in her. Being a little older too gave me the insight on how her father must have felt, the helplessness as to how this was heaven’s "gift" to his little girl and how he would have wished that she was as active as any child at her age, without having to be restrained socially by the unsightly things all around her body.
In my heart, I whispered a prayer for the two of them, in particular, the little girl. Unless things turned around for her, I was certain that she would never forget this little episode of her life. No, not when cutting her hair short like a boy’s (possibly for hygiene purposes or not to aggravate the rashes further), took away bits of her identity as a female at this tender age. I could envision how she would grow up and (hopefully) grow out of this having this at the back of her mind. I could think about how she would feel aggrieved over this and her many “why me” cries.
***
Trichotillomania blighted my childhood. Back then, psychological disorders in children were relatively unheard of and all my parents did was to send me to see skin specialists or sinsehs to find out why and how I pulled out the hairs on my head for (seemingly) pleasure. Due to this, I looked like a freak during the latter years of my primary school days. I could never forget the embarrassing experience, day after day, when I would have to endure the prying eyes on the many bald patches on my head as a kid on the bus. I could never forget how I was singled out from a sea of young faces during assembly by my primary school principal only for her to pull me aside, made me squat so that she could examine the bald patches. I could never forget the relief of wearing a cap to hide them all away. It did not help that my mother decided to put me through a crew cut hairstyle (very cooling, yes, but makes all those bald patches so much more obvious) then, since at 11 and 12 years, I certainly did not have a say on the kind of look I wanted. It did not help that I still find it hard to forget the time when an auntie told me how she saw a couple of tourists discussing about the bald patterns on my head in their own foreign language and unknowingly drew more attention than it should to other commuters on the double-decker bus. And of course, every new bald patch would also mean the obligatory spanking session by my mother in her desperate bid to tear me away from this habit.
It was not until 2004, a full 17 years later, that I found out about this condition. It was not until 2004, when the psychologist who got me to share about this part of my life that I found out how schools were now so much more informed about this and were able to deal with this sensitively.
So while my 12-year-old peers were finding out how their identities would fit into this big world, I was finding out and battling with something more sinister. Possibly complexes were developed at this time for many of us, but for me, I was developing a different kind of complex then.
Therefore, in some very small ways, I could empathise with the little girl on the train. She has strange red patterns on her body, I had strange bald patterns on my head and we would grow up trying to bridge this part of our past while embracing the sometimes unforgiving present.
***
In the film Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi, the young protagonist, Shlomi, was portrayed as a freak at the start. A few scenes later, as more of his life and more of how he came to where he was today were revealed, we gained another perspective of who he really was. At the turning point for him (as well as the film), he was presented with a whole host of opportunities where he could be as free as he wanted to embrace his identity, which was hidden all along. However, in him, and while this was exciting, he had to come to terms with his past and present which he had grown to love more.
Do we live in wait for these opportunities to suddenly appear? Will we wait in vain or will we be given the one and only chance to think about the opportunity and having to build a bridge to our pasts?
Posted by D W at May 30, 2005 05:21 PM