The bed was pushed right up to the walls at the far corner of the room. There were two windows. One had louvers that opened out to a spacious air well where Mum would hang clothes that she had washed. The other opened out to the garden and had cast iron grilles and green window panes.

My eyes were still closed. The familiar sounds of birds chirping indicated that it was already mid-morning. In my mind’s eye, the view beyond the iron grilles was as familiar as the lines on my palms. Just outside the window, a fertile bush of betel thrived. Its vines gripped and snaked around the stakes that looked like rotting wood but were sturdy nonetheless. A coconut tree stood behind, spreading out its fronds in all directions and provided ample shade for everything beneath it.

I strained my ears to catch hints of activity in the garden. Mum would usually be pottering away with her adeniums, orchids and bougainvillas. She was especially proud of her green fingers and skills in cultivating beautiful looking adeniums. Many Chinese households have a pot or two of this plant for its auspicious name which meant prosperity in any of the Chinese dialects.

There were no familiar sounds other than the chirpings. I wondered where Mum was. Perhaps she had gone for her breakfast. I was happy nonetheless, knowing that I was in familiar surroundings. A sense of security and contentment enveloped me. Then reality struck. I realised was reliving a time fifteen years ago. Mum was no longer around and I was 400km from home. And I woke up from that dream feeling empty and lonely.

I need to arrange the logistics for me to get back to Penang to vote. The problem is that Wuan will be casting her ballot here in Kuala Lumpur. I am not going to ask her to give up that right to vote just to accompany me back. I need assistance for moving around in Penang. I tire easily nowadays. Maybe it is the weather. Maybe it is my health. It will be difficult for me to go back by myself in this condition.

This election may be the first and last one that I am voting in Penang. I am considering changing my address and voting constituency to where I am residing in Kuala Lumpur now. I have never bothered with exercising my right to vote previously because of the inaccessibility of voting centres. I disliked being carried on my wheelchair up steps. Wheelchairs are not designed to be carried. There is a danger of parts breaking away.

Being an advocate on disability issues now, I realised that disabled people need to go out to exercise their voting rights and where necessary advocate for accessible voting centres and most importantly, accessible public transport to take us there. If I have my way, the ministers responsible for these insufficiencies in infrastructure will not be getting any vote from disabled people. What have they done in the past five years to make the environment accessible to disabled people? Many of us are still stuck at home because there is no concerted effort to ensure that accessible facilities are in place.

Jeff Ooi revealed that the DAP has announced his candidacy for the Jelutong parliamentary seat in Malaysia’s impending 12th General Election. I am throwing my support behind him not because he is a fellow blogger nor the fact that he is from the DAP. Jeff has proven beyond reasonable doubt that he dares to speak out without fear or favour on pertinent issues affecting the nation through his blog way before he joined the DAP. It is that courage that I hope he will bring into the Parliament should he be elected. We need people like him to ensure accountability, transparency and good governance in the administration of our country’s affairs. Go Jeff! Malaysia needs more courageous people like you.

Is the Malaysian education system churning out students who have poor understanding of the English Language and lack critical analysis skills? I would like to believe this is not the case but the three comments by two bloggers in my previous entry titled I Am Not Voting For The Opposition proves otherwise. Since the Parliament was dissolved and the polling date set, I have been gripped by election fever together with the rest of the nation. This is like one grand celebration that happens only once every five years that everyone can participate in. This is also an event that will determine who will run the country and ultimately decides on the direction that our nation will take for the next half decade.

The excitement got me to thinking about the various political parties and the manifestos that they will be presenting to the electorate. In my mind, the Barisan Nasional (BN) had always been the ruling party and the Democratic Action Party (DAP) the opposition. Several bloggers have also written about why they will vote for the opposition. Then it struck me that once the Parliament is dissolved, we no longer have a ruling party and an opposition party. Every political party now starts afresh and are equals in standing, hypothetically, that is. Subsequently, any party, be it the BN, DAP or PAS, that has a majority in the Parliament can become the next ruling party.

As for me, I said I will neither vote for the ruling party nor the opposition party because those two no longer exist. There are only political parties that are vying to become the next ruling party and form the next government. The one with the lesser seats will have to be contented with becoming the opposition party. I will vote for any political party or candidate that respects the rights and dignity of the people that they will be governing for another term. I will vote for a candidate that will walk his talk. That was what I wrote in my election manifesto. Therefore, how the two bloggers came to the conclusion that I will not be voting in this general election is perplexing indeed.

I cannot but have to admit that I am getting on in age. Every now and then my will body ache. I am currently experiencing a deep numb pain in the back of my left shoulder. It cannot be pinpointed to a specific spot and is causing me much discomfort for the past hour. Old people call it hong sip or fung sup, meaning wind and dampness.

This malady is attributed to wind and dampness getting into the body from constant contact with water, especially the from the habit of bathing after sunset. The other causes are believed to be contributed by injuries such as sprains that are left untreated and not adhering to taboos during confinement for women.

I am not aware if there is a cure for this as I have been living with it for as long as I can remember. My bad right knee also acts up like this once in a while. The only temporary relief that I can get is by massaging the aching spots with with hong eu that my paternal grandmother used to make and sell. She was a midwife back in the middle of the last century. Grandma passed away in the early 1980s when she was in her eighties. Sixth uncle took over the production after she passed away. Now that uncle has also passed away. I do not know where else I can get it.

Hong eu means wind oil. It is believed to dispel wind and dampness from the body. This is accomplished by massaging it onto the aching spots. The body part is then kept warm with bandages. Grandma used to have this huge kuali outside her house for making the hong eu. She would buy fresh and dried herbs and simmered it in coconut oil for several days until the concoction became thick and dark like soya sauce. It was then bottled and sold in sundry shops and Chinese medical halls all over Penang. The label pasted on the bottle had a pink background with the logo of a one-humped camel. The blue-coloured Chinese characters indicated what it could be used for.

Grandma’s hong eu worked. I can vouch for it. It had eased the aches on my bad knee many times. However, its coconut oil base made it greasy. Anything that came into contact with it became greasy too. That included bedsheets and clothes as it was advisable to apply it before bedtime for its its magic to work even more. The pungence of the herbs was another turn off. One cannot bathe after applying it as after massaging, the pores in the skin are opened and may absorb even more wind and dampness. This will aggravate the condition. That was the reason why I used it very sparingly and only when I absolutely had to.

Mum once recounted how she had used the hong eu to stop bleeding. An Indian coconut plucker had accidentally cut a deep gash on his hand and was bleeding profusely. Mum quickly poured the hong eu on a piece of gauze and wrapped it around his wound. The bleeding stopped a short while later. The wound healed in no time and he was soon back to plucking coconuts again.

The hong eu was also effective in dispelling wind in the tummy of babies. Babies with flatulance will cry incessantly. I have heard Mum advising new parents to gently massage the hong eu on the tummy for relief. Another method is to apply the hong eu onto a piece of betel leaf and heat it over charcoal embers. The warm leaf is then placed on the baby’s tummy, ensuring that the navel is covered as well. And the baby would stop crying and get well soon after. Such was the efficacy of my grandma’s hong eu.

How can I not feel old when, in addition to my bodily aches, I can dispense such traditional old wives treatments that only people of my grandma’s and Mum’s generations knew of? Nevertheless, there are benefits to my aches. They are good for forecasting the weather. I can predict with 98% accuracy that it will rain within 48 hours when the aches attack. This is a skill only people with hong sip possess. You can be sure that I will not be caught unprepared on rainy days. As I am typing this now, the ache on my shoulder has disappeared only to be replaced by an ache on the bad knee. There is no doubt it will rain soon. Anybody want to place a wager against that?

Note:
This entry makes it my one thousandth post in this blog that just celebrated its fifth anniversary two weeks ago.