Parklane Pai-kia

The older we get, the more our memories fade. First we forget little details, then moments, and eventually even huge chunks of time. When I was around 21, I started some sort of journal, something I call my “I Remember… Book” in which I listed little bits of memories from as far back as I could remember. Every now and then if I remembered something, I’d add it to the list. Most of them were memories of the antics of my brothers and I as kids, like how we’d fling my Mom’s rotan (a thin but wicked strip of bamboo that she caned us with if we misbehaved) up onto the roof of our house. Quite often you’d hear my Mom yelling, “Si gin-na! Where did you hide the cane this time?!!”

Anyway, this post isn’t about my childhood memories, as I already have most of them jotted down in that journal somewhere in Singapore. Instead, here’s something from Ben’s ‘archives’. I may not get all the facts right since this is a second-hand account, so if anyone finds something wrong or really offensive, please do let me know.

Sometimes Ben recalls something from his past, not so much from early childhood but mainly memories from his ‘strayed’ adolescence, and happily goes on a long rant about it. Give him a couple more years and I’m quite sure he’ll forget more and more of these snippets of the past that he already vaguely remembers now.

Recently he told me about how he and his friends would go to Parklane every Saturday when they were teenagers… to just lepak or act cool or make a nuisance of themselves, I suppose. A whole group of about 20 of them would ride the double-deckered number 14 SBS bus from the East side of Singapore to the city and back. They would usually take up the entire top deck and… lepak, act cool, or make a nuisance of themselves lah. Back then, most of the buses weren’t air-conditioned yet, and this served these boys well since they could have the windows open, act cool, and make a nuisance of themselves some more.

The bus route would also take them past a particular house in Katong which always seemed to be having a ‘party’ on weekends. So they’d shout, “Oi, party bo chio!” (loosely translated to “got party, never invite”) It was only much later (in life) that they discovered this was a Sai Baba house of worship.

While waiting at bus stops, they also had this “sabo-routine” where all of them would stand in a line in front of the bus stop. As a bus came by, if one of them was standing where the bus door opened, he would be forced to dance in front of the bus. As fate would have it, the bus door would open in front of Cyril almost every time.

Around this same stage in their clueless teenage years, Ben and friends also picked up a Hokkien phrase from Desmond’s Mom. Apparently, she would sometimes be heard saying “Kam kio!”, which literally translates as “suck brinjal” in Hokkien. I guess we’ll have to check with Desmond if it was to be taken literally, or if it was just a figure of speech, like “holy shit” or like how my Mom and aunts always use the meaningless term, “ua-ko” (bowl-cake). But trust Ben, Desmond and guys to make use of this ‘colourful’ new-found term to their delight.

Sometimes, they’d hail taxis for no reason at all. The taxi would stop and then they’d say they didn’t want to take it. Or they’d mention absurd locations like “Uncle, Johor?” But the favourite joke on taxi drivers would be, “Uncle, ai kam kio?” (“uncle, wanna suck brinjal?”) The taxi driver would then say, “Ang Mo Kio?” and they’d say no and ask again, “Ai kam kio?”

So for our next trip back to Singapore, we have a short list of things to do:

1. visit ‘that’ house in Katong

2. ask Desmond’s Mom the real meaning of ‘kam kio’

3. get Cyril to grace us with a dance

A bitter pill

I caught the flu bug two weeks back and did not visit a clinic or see a doctor for medication. I usually self-medicate, and only see the doctor when I need an MC, need to stock up on painkillers, or am really sick and have no idea what I’m suffering from.

Another reason why I especially don’t like to visit a doctor when I’m suffering from the flu/fever is cos I don’t take antibiotics. I have a phobia of swallowing pills, and till now, still crush my pills to a powdered pulp to mix with a bit of water and then swallow in liquid form… no matter how bitter or gross it is.

So if I tell a doctor this, he gives me the same look that my Dad does, like it’s really such a crime to have a phobia. I really think it’s kinda unfair to be judged and treated like a kid just cos I take my meds like a two-year old. Some people are afraid of heights, needles, blood, rats, the supernatural, or whatever.

So I think I’m pretty gungho if compared to quite a lot of people, since nothing much scares me… except big cockroaches, pills..... and dirty old men.

Quite often the doctor just prescribes me pills anyway, even when I say I can’t swallow them. Like my Dad again, the doctor will say, “You shouldn’t have any problem swallowing it, it’s not that big… or it’s just a capsule”. In fact I can’t remember the last time a doctor has agreed to give me meds in liquid form like the gross pink or yellow goo that they force on kids.

So sometimes I don’t even bother telling the doctor that I can’t swallow pills. I just see him to get an MC and then throw away whatever meds he gives me. That’s why I never take antibiotics, cos I would definitely never finish a course.

We recently had dinner with Ben’s supplier Rohit and his wife Geetha. They’ve been living in Dubai for 16 years and told us that doctors and clinics here suck big time. So it turns out the lack of knowledge and efficiency isn’t just restricted to banks and governmental institutions. It really applies to everything in Dubai. Big and small companies, local and multinational, across all the various fields/industries.

Geetha had the flu two months back which developed into pneumonia and she just recovered about a week ago! It seems the doctors here are really, really useless. They never give you the proper medication that’s meant to cure you immediately. Instead, they’ll give you “Cocktail A” which you take for 7 – 10 days, then prescribe you with “Cocktail B” when you find that you’re not getting any better, and after almost a month of all sorts of drugs, they decide happy hour’s finally over and present you with “Cocktail C”.

And the few doctors who are supposed to be good are booked so far ahead that if you were sick today, he’d be able to see you two weeks later. So I can’t imagine why people would say he/she was a good doctor if they only visited them after making an appointment weeks before, meaning patients are either well by the time they see these “good” doctors, or close to dying, or plain psychic.

Since I’m not working now, I treated my flu with lots of rest, liquids, vitamin C, honey, lemon, Panadol Cold & Flu, and Lemsip Max. I guess doing it this way takes longer than if I ‘nuked’ it with real drugs from a doctor. The flu took about 10 days to pass from different stages of fever, body ache, headache, blocked nose, plus lots and lots of green stuff…

I stopped taking cough syrup after ten days cos apparently that’s the maximum amount of days you can take cough mixture continually, and if it’s not cured by then, it means the cough has already developed into an infection or whatever.

However, the cough that develops during the course of the flu for me always lingers on for much longer, sometimes up to two months, and I usually just wait for it to pass without any medication. This post-flu cough of mine usually ‘sounds’ really bad, like a whooping cough, where I’d have a really deep cough that sounds like an old car with a loud and rusty engine followed by wheezing and shortness of breath. This time around though, it doesn’t sound so bad but it ‘feels’ quite bad.

Since yesterday, my chest has been hurting a lot. First it hurt when I coughed, then by the end of the day, it just hurt, like I had a huge internal blue-black. It's never hurt this way before and Ben's kinda worried and wants me to see a doctor about it, but I'm still hoping it'll heal itself in due course.

Anyway, I just learned that they’ve just gone and banned 4 different flu meds and a few other cough meds, including Panadol Cold & Flu. Like how Decolgen was banned a few years back, apparently these recent additions to the list of banned drugs cause some pretty serious side effects, like heart failure or some scary shit like that.

This kinda stuff gets you thinking…. These are approved drugs - tried, tested, approved, and sold over the counter for years. Every year, hundreds of different drugs are taken off the shelf cos some ‘genius’ discovers that it has potentially dangerous side effects.

So how the hell do drugs get approved only to be later “discovered” unsafe? Well, most drugs are already known to be potentially harmful, and its side effects are usually stated in the fine print on that small piece of paper that come with meds that we don’t bother to read.

And you know how we have some friends or relatives who always bombard us with forwarded emails about the dangers of this and that? Like, oh, don’t microwave such and such a thing cos it will release some sorta toxin that will cause cancer, or don’t consume such and such a thing cos it contains such and such an ingredient that’s the same stuff that’s used to clean industrial machinery. Half the time these emails warn of cancer-causing materials/ingredients. Then there are the emails that highlight the qualities of certain products/ingredients and how it combats cancer or any disease/ailment known to man.

Well, I guess now I know that perhaps there’s some truth to some of these emails and as much as I’m sometimes annoyed by the bombardment of forwarded emails, I also have to remember that it’s usually sent by thoughtful relatives and friends who may seem like hypochondriacs at times but I guess the bottomline is that, they worry, and they care.

I’m not gonna turn into a hypochondriac, but I recently read an online article from The Ecologist about Lemsip Max Cold & Flu Capsules that really got my attention since I’m an over-the-counter-drug-junkie when it comes to the flu. The Ecologist has a regular “Behind The Label” article that features the potentially harmful contents found in all sorts of products. This recent article highlighted over-the-counter flu meds, especially since it’s Winter and the flu bug is going around.

According to this article, most over-the-counter remedies “have been found – through objective, scientific studies – to be useless”.

“Crucially, people who regularly purchase cold and flu remedies are usually ill when they make their purchases, and this phenomenon, known as the ‘distress factor’, is a real boon to manufacturers. Sick people don’t think, they simply want relief – immediately.”

“So, in spite of the fact that nothing you can buy will cure your cold, a huge number of us have succumbed to the hit-it-hard-and-hit-it fast remedies such as the Lemsip ‘Max’ range, which predominate on the pharmacist’s shelves and promise that you can happily continue to work long hours and enjoy a full social life, even if your body is telling you to slow down.”

The article takes Lemsip Max as an example, and lists its ingredients with descriptions and side effects. You can find the full article here.

Medical and scientific studies have shown that the best cure for the flu is rest, warmth and lots of liquids. But with our busy lifestyles, we seldom have the luxury of taking more than a day or two off work to cure a cold. So we rely on over-the-counter remedies that only offer temporary relief.

The scary thing here is not that these drugs don’t actually cure you, but that in the long run, it may be harmful to your health. Perhaps that’s why my cough is so bad. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) believes that if a cough is suppressed or not treated correctly, it will remain in your body and may eventually develop into something worse.

"According to TCM understanding, many conditions can have their origin in an untreated cough: asthma, diabetes, and even cancer." [Ref: article about Cough and TCM]

So now, I’m desperately waiting for an alternative cough remedy to arrive from Malaysia. My Mom has mailed me a packet of tong sum (Codonopsis root) to be cooked based on a recipe of tong sum, ginger and lean beef, stewed for half a day as a herbal broth to cure bronchitis. Let’s hope this works, cos I’d really rather not see a doctor (especially since they don’t have that “power” black cough syrup here cos most drugs here are alcohol-free).