Repeating the Past

The year is 1999, or maybe 2000, or perhaps even 2001. It's an afternoon of a school day (or not, it could be a school holiday, but it's definitely in the mid or late afternoon), and I am with Mama in her room at the old family house in Jalan Setangkai. After sitting with me for probably an hour (but it definitely felt more), and dragging me reluctantly through either reading the Chinese textbook or doing assessment books, Mama is now forcing me to skip rope at least 500 times before I am free to do whatever (not that I remember 'whatever' is anymore).

I can still picture the scene as she sits on the bed, the old CRT TV in front of me, and the massage chair behind me, as I skip rope and try to avoid hitting things. I don't know if it's the same exact skipping rope I am using in this(ese) memor(ies), but I had a pink one and a purple one where the rope portion was filled with water and glitter. The late afternoon sun is a nice solid yellow, and you can see the dust motes float in the air. 

Today I am at least 2x heavier and 3x older than the girl I was in that memory, but today for the first time in decades I took a skipping rope and did 100 skips. And boy did those 100 skips seem bloody hard. I was inspired by one of those little clips (a FB reel? a YouTube short?) of a black lady who was skipping rope to lose weight, which is also something I sorely need to do. I feel all doughy and soft all over, and I don't like it one bit. Unfortunately it's been very hard to exercise consistently since having two kids, and I'm not sure if I want to commit to buying a treadmill even though jogging has been my most consistent form of exercise for ages. So, I got a skipping rope and a pair of walking shoes from Decathlon today, and after I got back from my physiotherapy session (and buying dinner for everyone from Domino's Pizza and My Cozy Corner), I skipped 100 times in the kitchen.

The similarity doesn't just end there however, because I've also started trying to read Chinese again. Even though I am working with a kid's book I picked up from Popular Bras Bersah when I went there at the beginning of the month with Tiffany and M, it is definitely harder than anything I remember actually reading and paying attention to. Ironically I only picked it up because I thought the cover was cute - of an orange cat dressed as a Chinese Emperor. I started this because I felt that I needed to practice my own Chinese skills if I was going to non-hypocritcally encourage my own two children to learn Chinese. 

And so there you have it, I am reapeating the past in a way that is unexpected and surprising even to myself. I suppose I should tell Mama about this, she would be quite pleased to know that the things and values she tried to inculcate in me still endure (and have suddenly popped up!) till today.