Just after my PSLE exam, I didn't have much to do so I decided to spend my time fishing and Alan was my fishing partner. Our favourite place to fish was the East Coast Jetty. Both of us would go to the jetty with our fishing rods, bait, snacks and plenty of coffee. We would start in the evening and depending on the weather we would stay overnight if it didn't rain. We would talk about everything under the Sun, our school teachers, family, hopes, dreams, aspirations. Every night we would walk along the jetty to see what others had caught, When it got dark, we would lie on our backs to watch the stars...talk about the future. One night we were discussing what we wanted to be when we grew up - Alan said he wanted to be a fireman because he wanted to save people, I told him I wanted to go to university to be a well educated person...didn't matter if I could get a job or make lots of money, what I wanted was education not wealth.
We were both poor but Alan had is far worse than myself. His mom died when he was just 8 months old of cancer. He was an only child but his mechanic father fell in to a destructive spiral of drinking and gambling ...didn't care for him. When his was 5, his father lost his home due to gambling debts and both of them had to move to his grandma's home. It wasn't long before the loan sharks appeared and quarrels between his grandma and dad would flare up. His dad eventually just walked out on him and his grandma. His grandma was 65 years old and operated a hawker stall selling wanton noodles. His ah ma took care of him.
Shortly after our PSLE we drifted apart and did not meet each other until almost 20 years later. When I saw Alan again, he still had his boyish looks and unmistakable optimistic smile on his face. He said I looked almost the same as I did 20 years ago. It was as if we had never been apart. So there at the East Coast Jetty, the 2 boys, now adults talked their own life journeys after their primary schools (a short account my own story posted below). While my own story is unspectacular bad typical of the 70% of non-graduates Singaporeans in a cohort who have to struggle with low paying jobs, rising costs and foreign influx, Alan's life has been a drama that even exceeded what movie script writers can imagine.
After his PSLE, he was posted to a really bad secondary school where students were completely not interested in their studies. There was gang activity in the school and if you were not in one, the bullies would come after you. In secondary one, instead of learning geography, history, maths, literature...he learnt how to gamble, how to play truant, how to sniff glue. In secondary school, something spiralled his life down to the doldrums - heroin. He was expelled in Secondary 3 for beating up another student and extorting money. Out of school, with a heroin habit to feed, he was easily recruited by syndicates and gangs. He had tattooed his whole body due to gang activities. He would commit petty crimes, even steal from his own ah ma to feed his habit. In the next decade, his half life was spent either in drug rehab or Changi Prison. His beloved "ah ma" now in her seventies had to run the hawker stall herself would visit him in prison. She would tell him, "I cannot even die in peace, knowing you're in this state".
Each time Alan was sent to jail, he would feel the regret for his actions and promised himself to reform. But everytime, he was released from jail, trouble would come and find him. Sadness, disappointment and unhappiness would lure him back to heroin. When he use it, he could at least feel some temporary "happiness" and kind of release but when the "high" ends, he would be back in his real depressing world. He once took a job as a helper at a restaurant. The boss sack him the next day after he fould out that he had been to jail. He wanted to kill himself but he had one person in the world that still loved him, his ah ma, He cuoldn't bear the thought breaking heart and destroying her by killing himself.
In 2003, he was caught for stealing. The judge looking at his past criminal record as a repeat offended said that he was "hardcore" criminal and sentenced him to 3 strokes of cane and 3 years in jail, In Singapore, we still believe we can "punish people to goodness". In a strange twisted way, Alan turned around after his caning.
During his caning, Alan was stripped naked to exposed his buttocks and had to bend over. The rattan cane is dipped overnight in a liquid to make flexible so getting caned is like getting hit by whip. The skin would split open with each stroke. After his caning Alan was put in a room to recuperate. He was in physical pain but a hardened criminal like him pain was not a new experience - he was one slashed across the chest by a parang. You can still see the stitches running across his chest like a railway track. Feeling bored in the recuperation room, he knocked on the door asking the warden for a book to read. The warden replied, "All the comics are taken, only got one Chinese story book left".
The warden threw the book through opening at the door. Alan caught the book before it fell to the ground and flipped opened to this passage:
13 Do not withhold discipline from a child;
if you punish them with the rod, they will not die.
14 Punish them with the rod
and save them from death. (Proverbs 23)
The warden had unknowingly given the Chinese Bible and by sheer coincidence, the Bible had opened to this particular passage which spoke about saving a person's life by caning. Those strokes of cane was still fresh and painful on his buttocks so it seemed like the passage was talking to him directly. Alone in his room, he suddenly saw his entire life with a clarity he never did in the past. The last decade was a waste - he was the waste. wasted his life, disappointed his "ah ma" who laboured at an old age to raise him. There and then he decided to change.
5 days after his caning, his "ah ma" came to visit him. Every visit she had to the bus all the way from Jurong to Changi and then walk from the bus stop all the way to visitors center. When he saw her granny he said "I'm going to CHANGE". His granny replied wryly, "Yeah, change what huh? I'm already 75 years old. One more time you go to jail, I'll be dead before you get out". His ah ma then said, "You go and get your O levels certificate and prove to me! Don't just talk about change...". Alan was thinking to himself, people at his age in Singapore already get PhD or masters degree or MBA. For him to study to get O levels is like a joke right - in Singapore society, what is an O level cert these days - qualifications inflation means take a rock anyhow throw also hit a graduate. Somehow his old ah ma thought his getting a O level is a big deal....if it was a big deal for her, he might as well spend his time in prison reading O level textbooks...what else is there to do in prison anyway.He applied to join a programme to resume his studies in prison. He was quite enthusiastic about it. When ever he could, he would read the books.He became known as "super-on" by his fellow inmates. The programme in prison was quite good with volunteers coming in to teach those who wanted to reform.
One year before his 3 year term was up, he managed to clear his O levels exam. He show his "ah ma" his O level result slip as a birthday present for her. It was the happiest day of his unhappy life. Alan said that getting his O Level his was prouder and happier than other people getting degrees.
A few months before he was released, he spoke to a volunteer at the prison school about his worries getting a job given his criminal record. The volunteer, a kind soul, looked around and found him a part time job at a church near Paya Lebar. Although it was far from his home, he was more than happy to take it up. His job was to prepare the AV (Audio Visual) equipment for church service and maintain the equipment - basically make sure everything was working. Alan said he felt somewhat uneasy walking around in the church. Imagine you go to church and see someone with tattoos all over his body waking around - it was a bit awkward among the clean cut church going crowd. But the pastors knew his background when they hired him. They were the nicest, warmest and most considerate bunch of people, he had ever met in his life. Going out of the way to make sure he was "okay", when he made mistakes, they were more worried about what it would do to this confidence than anything else. Over the next few months at the church, he started to bond quite well with the pastors and church elders.
One day after work, one of the pastors invited him for coffee at a nearby McCafe. The pastor asked him how he was coping with work and family. Alan said he was doing okay at work and liked the environment. He hoped to make enough to support his granny who was still working at the hawker center. The pastor promised to look at how to increase his responsibility so that he could work full time instead of part time at the church. After that they chatted and joked about various things. Then the pastor jokingly asked, "So how, do you have a girlfriend?".
Alan replied that only girls that tried to contact him were from his gang days, those bad girls would get him into trouble faster than anything. Alan then lamented that with his poor education background, tattoos all over his body, criminal records...in addition to that, he was poor as a church mouse all he had was a few hundred in the bank - no car, no house, no credit card. "Where got any good girl what a girl like that...if I were a girl I also don't want someone like myself!!!", he laughed. The pastor put his hand on Alan shoulder, looking serious he said, "Alan, if you follow Jesus, girls will follow you". They looked each other in the eyes for a while and then both burst out in spontaneous laughter - pastor also can have a sense of humour.
He had been working at the church for about 6 months when Christmas came around. There was much to do around the church and he was tasked to help a particular cell group in the church with the children's Christmas party. There were so many things to do decorations, preparing the games, prizes and who will be Santa? The cell group leader was a demure young secondary school teacher called Cindy who was quite active in church. Because of the children's Christmas party he had to meed Cindy often work out the details and to buy all the stuff for the Christmas party. One day they met up to buy a few of the prizes for the games for the childrens' party. After they were done it was lunch time so Alan and Cindy went to a nearby food court to have lunch. After eating, Cindy said to Alan, "There is something I really want to ask you". Alan said, "Go ahead". .....
"Why is it, outside the church when you meet me, you always wear long sleeve shirts?", asked Cindy.
Alan told Cindy that he wore long sleeve shirts to cover up his tattoos because he thought Cindy would be uncomfortable to be seen with someone with tattoos given she worked as a teacher. What would students think if they saw their teacher with someone with tattoos all over? Cindy said to him that she didn't care about people who would judge people by their exterior and as a teacher she taught her students not to be prejudiced. "Next time you go out with me, just wear what you like...", Cindy said.
The phrase "next time you go out with me" circulated in Alan's mind in the next few days. He had been involved in gang fights but for him to ask a school teacher out actually took more courage. If she had said no it would be disappointing but if she said 'yes', he couldn't be sure she didn't feel too sorry for him to say 'no'. There was this mental gridlock he couldn't resolved. But there was much to do during Christmas around the church so he was able to keep his mind of these issues of the heart.
The children's Christmas party was a great success. Alan had a great time with the kids. He performed quite a few magic tricks he learnt while in jail from other inmates for the children. The children loved it ...they called him "Uncle Alan" and he felt really good. The problem was after the children's party he had no more practical reasons to meet Cindy outside church and couldn't build up enough courage and confidence to ask her out.
One day after the Sunday church service, he saw Cindy and went up to chat with her. Cindy asked him how to setup a home theatre set. Her dad bought one of these systems recently at an electronic show took it home and couldn't figure out how set it up. Alan volunteered to go down her place later that day to help setup it up. When he got to her place, a 5-room flat owned by her parents, he rang the door bell. Cindy's mom opened the door and had this look on her face as it scanned this young man with tattoos all over claiming to be her daughter's friend. She didn't open the door until Cindy came out of her room to let him in. He setup the theatre system quickly and wanted to leave but Cindy asked him to stay for dinner.
While eating dinner, the two old folks (Cindy's parents) kept looking at him and started asking question like he was in some kind of interviews. What work he does, where he lived, whether he drove to work, did he know Cindy in university. Every question he answered his "chance" of getting some kind of "approval" kept dropping. Luckily they didn't ask him if he had been to jail. Then Cindy's father asked Alan what dialect group he belonged to. Alan answered "Hokkien". The old man asked him if he could speak Hokkien, Alan said, "No problem" and started conversing with the old man in Hokkien. Hokkien jokes, Hokkien stories, Hokkien songs. Never in his life was Hokkien so useful and it did really help him to connect with Cindy's father. By the time dinner was over he probably won the heart of one parent, the other one was still looking at his tattoos.,...wondering...
As Alan related his life story to me, the sky darkened as the sun set and the stars began to appear. We looked up at the stars, the memories of our childhood adventures came rolling back. It was about 20 years ago when looked up at the same sky asking ourselves what our lives would be like in the future. Nobody can ever anticipate all the joy and disappointments. I asked Alan, "So how did it go between you and Cindy?".
Alan took out a card from his pocket and said, "I would really like you to come". It was an invitation to his church wedding to be held in a few weeks. The reason he wanted to meet me was to invite me to his wedding.
Alan spent the last 5 years putting together his broken life. A life ravaged by drug addiction and gang activities spiralling quickly down towards a tragic end. It was religion that kept him out of trouble - faith that as long as his heart is filled with goodness, good will come to him.
Alan having told me his story, asked me, "So how, what about you, any girl friend yet?".
I told him half in jest that I was still jobless, which girl in Singapore would want a jobless man with no house, no credit card, no savings and no degree. Alan put his arm on my shoulder and said, "Follow Jesus and girls will follow you". We both broke into laughter.....like the 2 little primary school kids we were 20 years ago.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly equipped to perform every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
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