Articles – Page 4 – Peter Tan – The Digital Awakening

Toilet tales – Breaking Barriers – The Borneo Post – 25 October, 2015

Toilet tales
October 25, 2015, Sunday Peter Tan, mail@petertan.com

THE first time I attended an international conference on disability, I was awed by the sheer number of disabled people gathered in a single place. Altogether, there were 3,500 participants from around the globe. It was the Disabled Peoples’ International World Assembly in Incheon, South Korea. I was invited to present a paper on Independent Living in Malaysia.

The moment I arrived at the venue, the Korea International Exhibition & Convention Center (Kintex), I spotted two rows of accessible parking spaces. There were at least 30 lots located near the main entrance of the building. This was a disabled driver’s paradise. I had started driving then and looking for a parking space back home was always a hassle. It was either misused by non-disabled people or none were provided.

The sprawling complex had several accessible toilets but it was obviously insufficient for this large number of people. I was most impressed that the organisers were mindful to ensure the comfort of participants by setting up 10 accessible portable toilets outside the building. That was the one time I never had to worry about not finding a toilet. They were clean, spacious and well-maintained.

Incidentally, I was invited to speak on Independent Living in Malaysia again at the Asean Disability Forum Conference held at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur earlier this week.

The participants were from member countries of the regional grouping. The floor where the ballroom and function rooms were located had only one accessible toilet. I had to wait for 30 minutes for my turn to use it.

I have no bladder control. When it is filled up, it will leak, which was exactly what happened that day. I had drank a little too much while making the presentation because my mouth was dry. This is caused by the medicine I take to treat my overactive bladder. The medicine is a two-edged sword. While it is supposed to reduce the frequency I need to urinate, it also makes me drink more to overcome the dryness in my mouth.

Fortunately, I was wearing adult diapers. I usually put one on when I am out and for moments like that when I am unable to get to a toilet in time. Ideally, my bladder should be totally drained every three hours with a catheter to prevent urine from flowing back to my already diseased kidneys and causing further damage. That is the reason I make sure I know where the toilets are in places that I go to.

I spend about 20 minutes emptying my bladder each time. With the amount of time I need, which is also the average duration required by my disabled friends, one toilet can only accommodate three users per hour. Using a public toilet for this length of time is not an issue normally but when there is a large concentration of people who need to use the same facility, it could turn into a messy situation.

Many accessible toilets in Malaysia are poorly designed, even those in luxury hotels and upmarket shopping malls. The most common mistakes are doors that open inwards, fixtures that cannot be operated by less functional hands, toilet bowls that are too low and mirrors that are too high. Other times, they are used as storerooms for cleaning utensils and chemicals.

I once asked a cleaner at a shopping mall why she kept mops, pails and detergents in the accessible toilet. She said that there was no other place for her to keep those items and promptly pushed them aside to let me in. Even then, I had difficulty using the sink. Bottles of detergents under it prevented me from getting close to wash my hands.

The most ridiculous installation in a toilet I ever came across was at a hypermarket in Penang. The flip up grab bar is useful for transferring from wheelchair to toilet and vice versa. It is installed on the wall parallel to the toilet bowl. In the case of the hypermarket, the bar was secured to the floor.

The sight was as frustrating as it was flabbergasting. Who in his right mind would do something like that? It has no function and is an eyesore to boot. The grab bar on the left should also be attached with the vertical bar placed at the front instead of at the back. Its purpose is for users to pull themselves up with it. I found out later that complaints to the management were disregarded and nothing was done to rectify the mistakes.

Toilet facilities are integral in a modern civilised society for privacy, hygiene and health purposes. It is even more crucial for disabled people with health issues. Designing and constructing one that is accessible is not difficult. All it takes is the understanding of why specific fixtures are needed and how they are used.

I hope that one day in the near future, the standard of accessible public toilets in Malaysia can be on par with those in Japan and Korea in terms of practicality in design, maintenance and cleanliness. Disabled people should not have to worry if the toilets at places we go to are usable. It would certainly make our time out more enjoyable.

Lessons from heartbreaks – Breaking Barriers – The Borneo Post – 18 October, 2015

Lessons from heartbreaks
October 18, 2015, Sunday Peter Tan, mail@petertan.com

DISABILITY is hard on relationships. No matter how much optimism there was in the beginning, sooner or later it would wear thin. Promises to love each other till the end of time become meaningless. When one side loses hope of a bright future together, a breakup is only a matter of time.

Tribulations like this are no stranger to me. While spinal cord injury broke me physically, the women I gave my heart to broke me emotionally. Between the two, emotional pain was more difficult to bear. It gnawed at the very core of my being and left me drained of the will to do anything, even to live.

I had just gone steady with a girl for a couple of months when I became severely paralysed. After I was discharged from the hospital, we spent most of our time together at home. Those were our dates. My immobility made going out difficult, if not impossible at that time. We carried on like that for three years despite her parents’ objections.

She was a young woman. Her life was just beginning. It must have been tough on her to have a boyfriend who could not take her out for a movie or a stroll at the beach. I was neither in a position to offer financial nor emotional security to her. The future with me looked bleak.

Cracks in the relationship began to appear when it became apparent I would never recover. The signs were obvious. We quarrelled often. Unpleasant words were exchanged. Conversations over the telephone always ended up with the handset being slammed down. I clung on tightly even then.

“If she left,” I reasoned, “no other woman would want me any more.”

The spats culminated to the day she told me straight to the face, “You’re a toad dreaming of eating swan meat.” This is a Chinese euphemism for an ugly man wishing to marry a pretty girl.

“I don’t want to regret in the future,” she added, and walked out.

There was nothing I could do to save the relationship. She was resolute. The breakup hit me hard. It is true that the first cut is the deepest. I fell into depression and became withdrawn. The insides of my chest hurt each time I breathed. I felt empty and despondent. Hopelessness overwhelmed me.

I ate little and barely slept. My complexion turned sallow. I became thinner and thinner by the day. My parents did everything they could to cheer me up but I was determined to wallow in self-pity. They were so worried for me to the extent they got our family doctor to come check on me.

“If you continue starving yourself, I’ll have to admit you into the ward and put you on drip,” Dr Shanti warned. I gave her a dry smile and nodded when she made me agree to start eating again. I may not have had the appetite to eat but the thought of having to stay in the hospital was even more unpalatable.

Jenny, my physiotherapist, also dropped by to find out why I had missed several sessions with her. The look on my face and the monosyllabic responses told her as much.

“Nobody is worth dying for,” she told me.

Those words resonated in my mind. It made sense. No one is so important for me to give up my life for. She went on to make me realise I was not only hurting myself but the people around me as well. It was only then I saw how immature I was when it came to matters of the heart. As I recovered from that episode, I was mentally prepared for a life of singlehood believing that no other woman would find my condition desirable.

Hope springs eternal nonetheless. I told myself that if ever I got involved again, it would be because of love and not because I was desperate for a companion, and that she must be able to accept me – impairments, warts and all.

As fate would have it, I went into a relationship again shortly after that. We were good friends and had dated on and off before my accident. She came into it with full realisation of my limitations and what she was getting herself into.

Like other couples, we had our ups and downs too. Half of the 12 years we were together were spent apart because she was working overseas. I gave it my all anyway. Ultimately, the distance, lengthy periods of separation and temptations of the foreign land tore us apart.

Naturally, I was sad, having invested so much time and heart into it but I knew better than to allow depression to take over like the last time. In a way, I was also glad we finally got it over with. The feelings had long been gone. I know she tried to make it work but being with a disabled person, especially one with severe impairments, takes more than love and courage. It requires perseverance and great physical effort to support me in performing my daily activities. These are traits not many people can keep at in the long run.

Heartbreaks may be painful but they are not the end of the world. I survived twice. What didn’t kill me made me stronger. I never fully recovered from them but with each occurrence I learnt to love better and deeper. I also learnt there are people out there who are able to look beyond physical attributes and love the person for who he is inside regardless.

To be in love is a beautiful experience irrespective of the outcome. Lord Alfred Tennyson said it succinctly when he wrote, “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” I am glad I didn’t let the painful experiences dissuade me because my true love and I found each other in the end.

More than a baby’s full moon celebration – Breaking Barriers – The Borneo Post – 11 October, 2015

More than a baby’s full moon celebration
October 11, 2015, Sunday Peter Tan, mail@petertan.com

MY wife came home with a full moon gift pack. Her colleague’s baby girl had just passed the milestone. Everyone in the office contributed some money for a present and the gift pack was given in return as a token of appreciation.

In olden days, when the infant mortality rate was high, parents held back the proclamation of births until the babies turned one month old. The belief was that if the little ones crossed that threshold, they were likely to live on. The situation has changed with the advent of modern medicine but the tradition is still being practised as a formality.

The contents of the gift pack reflect how the cultures and traditions of the different ethnic communities here are intricately intertwined. There were two red eggs, a portion of nasi kunyit, a packet of chicken curry, two pieces of ang koo kuih and a small packet of pickled ginger. Red eggs are synonymous with birthday celebrations in Chinese culture.

Likewise, the ang koo kuih signifies longevity and is also integral on such occasions. It also plays a vital role in indicating the gender of the baby. Tortoise-shaped kuih with intricate motifs mean she is a girl while round and plain ones denote a boy.

Nasi kunyit and chicken curry are very much a Malay recipe adopted by the Chinese and Peranakan communities. Glutinous rice is steamed with turmeric, coconut milk and pepper corns. Its bright yellow colour symbolises royalty and greatness. Chicken curry proves to be a perfect complement to the special rice, which is served only during events of great significance.

During the one-month confinement period, the recuperating mother will be put on a strict diet. Ginger is the one ingredient used generously in almost all the food together with sesame seed oil. Both are believed to expel wind, keep the body warm and hasten the postpartum recovery process.

Excited fathers have been known to buy ginger rhizomes by the kilo for this purpose. Most times, there would be plenty leftover, which are then sliced thinly and pickled with vinegar and sugar. It is included in the gift pack to symbolically share the main ingredient from the mother’s confinement diet.

I always look forward to a full moon treat like this not because I am a glutton but to revel in the joy of such an occasion. A new addition to the family of people we know is always a cause for celebration. After all, the new parents were generous in announcing a momentous event by giving out such delicious food and it is only proper for us, the recipients, to enjoy it.

This is a feast for me as it is not often I eat nasi kunyit with chicken curry although many Peranakan restaurants have them in their menu. In my mind, these two dishes are for observing important events like a baby’s full moon or Malay weddings, and having it outside those times just doesn’t feel right.

I recall a time when full moon gifts did not come in fancy boxes with each portion of the food nicely partitioned. On the contrary, the baby’s paternal grandmother would prepare everything from scratch. In the wee hours of the morning, she would cook the curry, steam the rice, boil the eggs and colour them, and later collect the kuih she had pre-ordered from the hawker in the market.

Many years ago, my cousin dropped by at our house one day to deliver his baby girl’s full moon gift. His car back seat was laden with pots and trays of full moon food to be given away. The food was apportioned on the spot and then placed into a black and red lacquer basket, which was used only to deliver gifts on auspicious occasions.

While waiting for my mother to transfer the food to our own crockery, my cousin sheepishly told us how he had carelessly driven over a pothole in his haste and spilt a good amount of the curry onto his car seat. This was a tribulation of new fathers of that era.

Nowadays, professional caterers have made it easier by pre-packing the food in attractive boxes and thus reducing the chances of spillage. Grandmothers also no longer need to wake up early to cook everything by themselves. How the times have changed.

As much as I love the nasi kunyit and eggs as a kid, my parents forbade me to even have morsels of it. Anything from the full moon gift was considered taboo. Partaking of them, they said, would make us less intelligent. Later on, I was only allowed to eat it if the entire platter was passed under the chair to drive away the supposedly bad vibes of the gift. Further questioning on the logic by the young inquisitive me would result in them shushing me up.

The most probable reason for this prohibition, I later discovered, was that giving birth and the confinement period was seen as unclean. Therefore, any gift from the family during this time was considered to bring bad luck. The same prohibition applied to food from funerals. Nevertheless, the rebel in me secretly enjoyed them when no one was looking. The hard-boiled eggs tasted best when eaten with soya sauce.

I like how we have assimilated elements from different cultures into significant events like this. Whether we realise it or not, it is a celebration of our diversity and proof that we can embrace and adopt practices of other communities without diluting our own identity. As we continue to weave our unique fibres into the tapestry we call Malaysia, we are collectively making this nation of ours richer in every way in the process.