If I start
by saying that there is a ‘soul’ hiding in everyone probably you will not
dispute what I have just said. But if also say that “please don’t lose your
head” you probably don’t understand what I meant. Well, there is a Chinese
idiom that can be literarily translated as “forgetting one’s shape due to
excitement” or 得意忘形. Just to
clarify what I have said, let me tell you one true story about a friend of mine,
Jason from Sabah.
There is
nothing wrong with Jason but perhaps I think that he is a little rush in doing
things; everything for him is just ‘go-go’ if you know what I meant. Jason
likes to travel and enjoys outdoor activities but he has a habit of rushing
into whatever he does. For example he can spend half a day to climb up the
Maxwell Hill in Taiping and then in the evening, he is lying on Langkawi beach
enjoying the sunset! Mind you, 90% of the time spent is travel time.
I am not a
fan of rush travel and prefers to spent a few days surveying a place. But since
Jason is my old schoolmate, then I would just be Jason’s driver when he visits
the peninsula.
This is yet
one time perhaps Jason has learnt his lesson:
During last
June, Jason dropped by my place in Penang and he suggested that we visit
Langkawi Island for a day or two as he wanted to snooker in Langkawi waters
with a few snookering fans. Since this was Jason’s preplanned trip, I didn’t
want to disappoint him so off we went to Langkawi.
As soon as
we arrived at Langkawi, Jason met with his friends and we chartered a boat to
Pulau Payar, which is a well known snookering spot. Everyone went into the sea
for snookering except me. I stayed in the boat and dozed off since I am no fans
of water for being a sailor for some time.
I thought I
heard the familiar voice of Jason shouting and yelling with excitement and
sounds of water splashing now and then as people someone climbing onto the boat
and jumped off into the sea. And there was another familiar voice of Jason
shouting “Wee…” and another splashing sound but then I heard another voice of
Jason shouted in horror: “OMG! I saw my head floating in the sea!!” and there
was a long silence; and someone shouting “don’t let him sink!”
I quickly
rushed to the side of the boat and saw other snookers quickly propping Jason’s
body. We immediately pulled Jason into the boat and luckily a good doctor was
around and he quickly checked on Jason and found everything looked okay physically
except Jason look dumb and unresponsive when people called his name.
After a
while of resuscitate Jason, the good doc turned to me and said: “I can’t find
anything wrong with him, perhaps his condition is what you would call ‘lost
soul’ (失魂). Do you know
what to do?”
I thought
for a while and remembered that we did bring a big watermelon for desert after
snookering activities. So, I suggested everyone to throw the watermelon into
the sea and at the same time, calls Jason’s name.
Having not
many options around, we did throw the watermelon into the water and yelling
Jason’s name loudly while some one shaking Jason’s shoulders intermittently.
Guess what? Half an hour later, to everyone’s relief; Jason was himself again.
As recalled
by Jason later, he said that as soon he was taking a summersault into the
water, he suddenly felt his head flew off from his shoulders and fall into the
sea in front of him. He knew what happened to his body but he could only look
on until a force pulled his head out of the sea…
And was it
a waste to throw a big juicy watermelon away? Don’t worry, we managed to
salvage it from the sea and everyone had a piece of it at the end of the day.
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