Weekend Tales #5 My ambition is to have an unextraordinary life

No fancy corporate titles, giant mansions or flashy paychecks for me.

After I returned from my Penang vacation in April, I quickly checked my balconies. (I have two balconies, one which overlooks the apartment complex, and another which has a view of the hills and has a stunning skyline of the city I live in. I know, I’m terribly lucky!)

The one with the less stunning view had the most thriving garden as it gets most of the sun. As I was sure that most of it would die during my two weeks away, I harvested most of them to cook in Penang. There were some left, but by some miracle, the water spinach was still clinging to life, and the Brazilian spinach cuttings I had left in water bottles on the balcony table were sprouting roots, ready to be replanted.

But that’s not the only thing I found. I noticed that there were dried leaves and debris on the wooden floor. Puzzled, I looked up at the money plant hanging on the wall.

There was a bird nest hanging from the branches!

Actually, the bird’s nest has been there for over a year. The chicks have long flown away, and the nest eventually became a few wisps of twigs, dried leaves, feathers, and raffia strings. But the one I’m seeing now has ballooned in size. The sunbirds are back, and they have rebuilt the nest!

Of course, I’m not sure if these are the same sunbird couple. I wistfully wonder if these are the chicks that had flown off. However, I am absolutely delighted that they are back.

I was just watching a Chinese drama just now, and halfway, mama sunbird returned to the nest and I could hear the chicks squeaking. I’m a literal Disney princess or something. I attract birds that nest outside my hall!

At that moment, I thought to myself: I am happy and content. I am blessed to have this life.

It wasn’t always so. For many years I thought I could never be happy again. I had to transition out of my dream job as a journalist because I saw the writing on the wall for the industry, but the transition wasn’t smooth.

After years of being an atypical worker, I was now a typical corporate worker, who had to battle traffic, attend meetings, meet impossible KPIs and endure office politics so lethal some of my colleagues ended up in hospitals. It was many years of this; I was losing hope that I’d ever have a life where I wouldn’t tear up on the train to work.

It took the pandemic to shake me out of this deer-in-the-headlights approach to life.

Let’s just say that, unlike many people who were retrenched during this period, I chose to pull the plug. I chose my health over a paycheck.

I did this right before lockdowns hit, so I didn’t know how bad it was going to be. But when it did, I realised my fallback plan of getting copywriting freelance work was about to hit a big snag.

Yet, yet ... the months of joblessness and aimlessness turned out to be one of the happiest times of my life.

I was fortunate that I had enough emergency savings to not starve, but I still had to be frugal due to the lack of income. I found a lot of joy in the simplest things - a cheap muffin from Family Mart was tastier than a fancy one from a cafe. A walk in the park, having breakfast with my parents when lockdowns were lifted...

Oddly, the pandemic was the time I learned to be hugely grateful for my life. Although my career seemed to be going downhill, my parents were alive and well, I had food in my belly, and I learned to grow my food! I took up gardening, helping my dad tend the family’s community garden plot.

A magical thing happened at that plot. For some reason, a giant spinach grew in the plot and only in our plot. It was so huge that the spinach grew up to my waist! Its leaves were bigger than my hands. At that time, vegetables were very difficult to come by and terribly expensive as the supply chain was disrupted, but that giant spinach fed my family. I felt that God was saying to me: “See, I can take care of you!”

I think until then, I’ve always felt that if I paused, stopped or even stumbled in life, that would be the end of it. So I never allowed myself to ever rest because, who would take care of me if I did? I had no husband to fall back on. No limitless coffers of wealth.

I think the pandemic not only taught me to be grateful, but it also taught me that my terror of being jobless was not the terrible specter that I thought it was. I could be very happy when things go to shit.

And did I mention that besides the pandemic, Malaysia had a coup as well? Yeah, man! After going through 2020-2021, seriously, everything else seemed like a piace of cake. (And I tell you, I would’ve laughed if you told me that we will eventually have Malaysia’s “freedom fighter” Anwar Ibrahim as our Prime Minister despite that coup. Life is very strange.)

Eventually, life went back to normal. I got a job. But most of all, I finally built the life I wanted to live. Because after years and years of being afraid of putting down my briefcase, I finally decided not to climb or chase any corporate ladder. I wanted a job that could fuel my life, not a life that revolved around work.

I got an apartment on a hill with a view of the hills, with birds that build nests in a balcony with vegetables I grow with my own hands. I got a job where I could laugh and smile, and I no longer had to cry on the way to work.

My life is very simple. I don’t have a fancy title, and compared to some of my peers who are managing directors, doctors, rich, with gorgeous husbands, my life seemed small.

But it’s the life I wanted to live, and that’s what matters most.

To me, I’m already successful.

I hope this little letter will remind you that, wherever and whatever you’re struggling with right now, and now matter how hopeless things are, please do not give up.

I was on the ferry when I took this video. Felt very lucky and grateful. My life is not perfect, but it’s the life I want to live.

What I wrote

I journalled about the first pair of sunbirds building a nest to raising two chicks right at my balcony: When Sunbirds built a nest in my balcony.

I also recorded that momentous day when lockdown was declared. We thought it’ll last for a few weeks. It turns out that it stretched over a year or more.

Quick tales

I’m super behind my Substack reads. I have periods of my life where my brain just nopes out of social media due to overwhelm; it’s a natural handbrake my brain pulls whether I like it or not. So, apologies dear friends, for not being up to date. I’m about to come out of hibernation soon!

However, I’d like to recommend the following articles fished out from my Pocket saves:

1. Critics, Haters and Cynics: The Ugly Side of Language Learning - I love Luca Lampariello’s videos on how to learn languages because it has helped me so much, so I don’t understand the sneering and negativity that he sometimes gets.

2. Why I Started a Language Learning Newsletter on Substack & Why You Should Too - I’m still in awe that

   Victoria
   does this! PS: She has inspired me to catalogue my learning journey. A “Mandarin” category is coming to Tai Tales soon!

3. You CAN Live an Incredible Life on a Relatively Small Amount of Money by

   Charlie Brown
   - Am I privileged for saying this? But I learned that myself during the pandemic. You don’t have to spend a lot to be happy.

4. When Westerners See More and Understand Less: Comments on Netflix’s 3-Body Problem - More perspectives on Netflix’s 3-Body Problem. I recently wrote a two-part series about it.

5. Why Are My Boomer Parents on Their Phones Literally All the Time? - This is my life now 😭

I’m reading

I just finished Thousand Autumns Vol.3, after completing the donghua, which was very awesome, and wanting to know what happened next.

The story is great but the writing isn't as great. Or maybe the translation isn't great? Lots of telling rather than showing, lots of repetitive paragraphs about plot developments, as if the author thought the reader has the inability to remember plot points by the next chapter. Probably has something to do with its webnovel structure. The editor in me wants to pick up my red pen and hack away!

Still, I enjoyed it.

I’m watching

The Legend of Zhuohuoa. Damn I love my stoic men.

Thank you for reading! Look out for my first issue about learning Mandarin next week!

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