#1 On the way to work, I met the lady who sweeps the public area around the blocks and who takes care of several community cats there in the morning. Let's call her CL (cat lady).
CL: Aiya...dunno why, I call Dino but he just walked away...how ah?
Me: Huh? I dunno leh...
CL: Why ah, I'm so sad leh...
Me: (quite speechless, actually)..Eh...well, cats behave like kids sometimes...
I think she is asking me for help (again), but this time, I really don't know what to tell her, since she's the one who spends more time with Dino (ginger cat) than me.
#2 At work, I overhead this Malay employee of the cleaning contractor speaking Mandarin to Uncle Lee (another cleaning uncle) and the tea lady. My jaw kind of dropped bec. his spoken Mandarin is way better than many Chinese Singaporeans. Apparently, he didn't learn Chinese in school, but learnt to speak and read Chinese from his Chinese godmother! Amazing.
Ah Orh, an ex-fosteree, Nov 2004
#3 Went to MIL's for dinner. She's distressed after the TC caught a sterilised cat in her block on Monday. It seems like the cat will be released on Friday (with the help of her friend and a CWS member), but the TC threatened to put it to sleep if it gets caught again. All this even though the cat had done nothing wrong?
MIL was at wits' end about what to do with the big, adult cat and where to release him, and was basically sharing her cat woes with me and seeking help. I tried to assure her that the worst case scenario is unlikely to happen, and that she should not worry too much if there's no reason or evidence that the cat did anything wrong to deserve what the TC/AVA threatened to do next time. Apart from that, there wasn't much I could do, as some of the things she'd told me were related to her by her friend, so there's no way to confirm who actually said what.
Bayan Bulat, Xinjiang, China (2004 trip)
#4 After dinner at MIL's and on the way home, I went to look at the community cats downstairs at MIL's block. Most old folks living in that block were resettled from the kampongs many years ago and most held the prevalent view then of animals as either beasts of burden to work for humans, or as food to fill their tummies. Over the years, poor MIL has had to face lots of objection and disapproving looks from these folks who are harsh and most unsympathetic to cats. The adults consider the cats dirty and useless, and kids learnt the same and would chase away any cats in sight, thereby turning them into a whole bunch of skittish cats fearful of people.
The only bright spark in this whole sad case was that a Siamese-cross male cat whom I call Ah Boy, somehow managed to change the view of one single old woman. Even though the woman has difficulty in walking and at some point, needed to use the wheelchair (pushed by her maid) to move about, she would come downstairs every night to bring cooked fish for Ah Boy, and after that, sat Ah Boy on her lap while she relaxed and chatted with the other old folks. So, the positive vibes generated by Ah Boy thus spreaded from there. Ah Boy is special and probably accumulated lots of good merits for having done such a wonderful deed in his own charming way. Now, I regularly see Ah Boy sitting alongside the old folks during their regular evening gathering, although I don't see the old woman there nowadays.
Due to my regular appearances (mostly with cat biscuits in tow), some of the community cats came to learn that I'm quite harmless, and a couple would come to me when I call them by names which I've given them. As I squatted down, this young adult black cat came to me, climbed into my lap and gave me a couple of cat kisses! How sweet, and it really made my day that such a kind, innocent and pure creature would give me unconditional love in this way, despite not knowing me very well. :)
Dunhuang's Min Sha Shan (2004 trip)
#5 While walking towards home, I walked past the void deck provision shop, and saw a Jack Russell terrier with his owner who happens to be Indian. The dog's leash was lying on the ground, beside the dog. What I saw next really amazed me!
Dog owner said: Come, give the leash to papa, give to papa!
The JRT then picked up the leash with its mouth, calmly walked towards its owner, climbed up onto owner's leg and held the leash (still in his mouth) near to the owner's hands. The owner promptly took the leash and praised the JRT.
As the leash was somewhat caught in between the JRT's legs, the owner said: "Lift up your legs."
The dog then lifted up one front paw (so that his owner could move the leash out of the way), followed by lifting the other front paw.
WOW! What a smart and well trained dog, which was what I told the owner, who was beaming with pride and told me how good a dog the JRT is and other incidences of his good behaviour. :) The curious dog came up to my legs to sniff me (must be all the cat smell), and I gave him a few friendly pats.
It's amazing how intelligent these animals really are, so it's only right that we humans give them the due respect that they deserve, just like the elephants in Thailand which I'd saw on a tv programme. The only reason that humans can train the elephants to do hard, manual work for them, is that the elephants ALLOWED the humans to do so. Just remember that! ;)
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