A constellation of tongues
1.
Last weekend I was at Bintan. It's this small island in Indonesia that takes just 45 minutes by ferry from Singapore. My company sent me there for a corporate retreat, so having 250+ people from work in a small resort isn't really the best kind of holiday. Also, it was structured as the term 'corporate retreat' sounds: mandatory teambuilding, followed by department group games. The good thing about it was full board, paid by the company. So I won't complain. I think my company is generous enough.
Two cool things happened. On Saturday morning I woke up earlier to run the beach. The resort I stayed in owns a small stretch of land on the northern tip, but they never demarcated where their property ended on the beach. So I ran from headland to headland, a good 3 kilometres and back, along a deserted beach strewn with debris and bordered by wild (or maybe just untended) rainforest. Monkeys plucked shellfish from the sand and sea eagles swirled overhead. From the far end, the resort and its jetty sizzled in the early morning mist.
Second cool thing: my colleagues and I paid $90 and rented a car to take us to Tanjung Pinang, the capital of the Riau archipelago of islands, which includes Bintan, Batam and Karimun. I don't have pictures because there wasn't much to see. But suffice to say, Tanjung Pinang is a rough place. In my limited travels around Southeast Asia (Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia), I think that Tanjung Pinang is the most chaotic of them all. It's probably like Johor Baru - 40 years ago - a boomtown with one single shopping centre (typical Singaporean observation) and huge mosque on a hill overlooking the bay. The entire city is built on slopes by the shore, so it looks like its slipping into the water. It's the first place I've been to where I didn't see a single tourist. Usually western backpackers or Chinese tour groups are a good guide on the value of touristy-ness, but none of that in Tanjung Pinang. So to any of my American and European friends reading this: if you want to go backpacking around Southeast Asia and want to go to a place 99% of backpackers have never been to before, try Tanjung Pinang - a city of hills, keropok and salted fish.
2.
I've officially relinquished my role in YF, and so now my Saturdays are free. There wasn't any back and forth. When the time came I just smiled and shook some people's hands. And so, I now have nothing to do with Bethesda Serangoon Church - the church I grew up in, where I found my faith - the church I brought Anthony, Su Mei, Terence and Nartz to - where I got baptised. Yep. Perhaps it's better that way.
I've been preparing for the inevitable death of my social life as a result. A lot of my Saturday night movie outings or Friday dinners involved going out with YF people, a core group of older-than-me single Christian (and some couples) young people who I've been able to chill out with. So far I'm coping well, but I do feel that suddenly my social circle has shrunk and it'll get harder to meet new people through these outings. I've learnt not to be too reliant on friends from groups like these, but here's to hoping we'll still keep in touch.
3.
Every first Sunday of the month, my current church has a combined language service. This means we sing our songs and have a sermon in both Mandarin and translated English. It makes more sense to prioritise Mandarin because I attend a small English service in an otherwise Chinese church. Since leaving BSC formally, I've been going to Mandarin services at most public holidays, and now this.
When I tell people about this, they laugh. My grasp of Mandarin is as good as a fox trying to sing a Ylvis song. And yes, I struggle to understand a lot of the complex phrases that are essentially Christian terms in Mandarin. But the strange trade-off is that I'm concentrating harder during sermons, trying to understand what does this or that mean in Chinese. I also think that the visual nature of Chinese script and characters triggers off different ideas or mental images in my head. I mean, we pray clearly according to what we can visualise, and we have to imagine what anf who God is, being an invisible deity. So thinking, praying and listening in Chinese - makes me see things a bit differently. It's like speaking in tongues, but knowing clearly what's being said and the meanings behind them, backed up a dozen metaphors of every kind.