I have died or nearly died once. It happened when I was about 5 years old and on the first day of the Chinese New Year. I could not remember the details but was told to me by my eldest sister about this incident. However, the memory of drowning stayed with me all these years.
On that day according to my sister, I was playing with a neighbor's kid, a little girl by the name of Leng-Leng. The family was having lunch and somehow I fell into the big earthen jar which we use to contain water for all purposes like cooking, washing or bathing. All I remembered was suffocation and I felt cold. Then out of desperation I got to breathe and I remembered taking in water into my lungs. Then I felt that I was floating and then drowsiness and finally black-out.
During that time I got the sensation of floating and it was not scary, not painful but just cold and dream-like before I totally lost all conciousness. The rest was related to me by my sister and to cut the story short, leng-leng who was only 2 plus or 3 raised the alarm and my dad rescued me from the jar, and leng-leng's mom hang me upside down and gave me hard whacks to get the water out of my lungs and eventually I woke up. According to my sister, I was not breathing, water was flowing out of my nostrils and mouth plus I already turned blue.
The second time when I nearly died happened in the early 80's when I took Durian with Brandy! Something dangerous and please do not even try. I did it unknowingly and I ended up having very high temperatures and became very sick for 2 weeks. The doctors could not find out what was the cause except telling me of some virus infection. I was given ice-bath at 5am in the morning and they took my temperature every few hours and many blood tests. When I got admitted into the hospital, I was having something like Rigor Mortis! My whole body was stiff and I could not bend my limbs and that's when my mom-in-law and rock took me to hospital. After a week in the hospital.
I slowly recovered and after that I shed my body skin like a snake! My new skin was fantastic, supple, smooth and tender just like baby skin. Rock was envious of my new skin! Later, others told me that a few people died after taking the potent mixture of Brandy with Durians! The initial feeling that night after taking that was I felt very hot inside. The next day, my body broke out into rashes like having measles!
I am referring to women for they are the embodiment of beauty. The most interesting subject be it to men or to women themselves. My friend done a post on this titled Unlocked The Mystery of Women and she highlighted one important aspect of it is the key or keyword “Love”.
If your woman is giving you the cold treatment or throwing crying tantrums, she said you can bank on it that it is the issue of unmet needs associated with love! She also mentioned about women who are control freaks and you men are in more serious trouble. Interesting to hear the views from a woman!
Digressing on this issue, there was this piece of juicy news yesterday where a wife with her daughter and grand -daughter stormed the house of her 72 year old hubby’s 20 year old girlfriend and beat her up. Ended in the police station and being charged for assault. Strangely I noticed that women are their own worst enemies! Even when you hear two women quarreling over a man, they usually call each other vulgar names connected to their private parts which then lead to pulling each other’s hair, clothing and slapping! Strangely the wife seldom attack the man! Perhaps to save face, for it is easier on her ego to blame the other woman stealing her man than to believe her man was lusting after the other woman. In addition to what I gather from most women is that it is the most difficult thing to accept i.e. the infidelity of her spouse as compared to other vices like gambling, drinking etc. I guess women associate sex with love and for men, most think that sex and love exists independent of each other, more like the sub-set in a union in mathematics!
Another remarkable thing many men do not realize is that when a woman dresses herself up it is more for other women to see, appreciate, stir up envy rather than for the men! Just listened to the chattering of a group of women over high-tea and you’ll understand what I mean. I guess it spurs each other on to dress better! Competition?
Many times when your spouse snuggles up to you in bed, she may be just asking for a love hug more than anything else. For the man, when he does that you know 90% of the time what he really wanted! Well I guess as long as we live, this vast, complex and yet exciting differences between the sexes will provide endless hours of studies and volumes of books to be written till eternity. :)
Get to know about Sunshine only a few days ago and it stirred up memories of Iraq which I visited back in 1982! During that time, there was a war going on between Iraq and Iran. The day I arrived in Baghdad and just as I was alighting from the taxi, there was an explosion a few hundred yards away from the Hilton Hotel where I was staying. What a memorable welcome that was. Life went on as usual as though explosions were a daily affair and in a few hours everyone was on the streets except that area of the blast was cordoned off.
After the official business there I took two days to visit the Ancient City of Babylon, somewhere between the Rivers Euphrates and Tigris which I call the Rivers of Babylon. I was impressed and I heard that they were already trying to re-built the Tower of Babel Took some photos there with the ancient walls as back-drop and mind you they were huge tall walls! Not surprisingly the Mueseum was named after King Nebuchednezzar. I could sense the rich history of that place! Visiting the Middle East is very enriching for these were the land of Bibilical times and read so much about them. Personally saw salt on the dessert sand which reminded me of the phrase 'Salt of the earth'. The only thing which upsets me was to see old donkeys with their leg joint broken intentionally to prevent them from running around! Another awful thing was that they did not have sewerage system in desert towns or villages! they just made a pipe and everything just went into the sand! Through years of doing that certain villages were somewhat flooded with sewerage water and oh! the stench!
Going home was a bit scary because we had to take off in the early hours of the morning around 2am to 3am and you were required to check-in around 8pm! Moreover all flights took off in the dark for fear of being shot down! No cabin lights and no runway lights! I never prayed so hard Welcome to Iraq!
Model of Tower of Babel.
