don't know what it's like.

“Where do I begin?
To tell a story of how great a love can be.”
-Shirley Bassey

My fringe is falling, my singlet sticks to my back, there are so many men and women here. I am curious, but I need to cycle faster. From afar, these men and women look like they are huddled together, they belong together. As the fonts on the signboards of hotels’ names grow larger, I see them clearly now. Men who are skinny, dark, with two buttons undone collar down, two buttons undone waist up. Women who are fair, with hair a brown that has turned golden from over washing and roots an unsightly black. In my singlet and shorts that hikes up as I peddle, I feel immodest beside sneering strangers who look at our sweaty, gleaming arms as we passed them. We are intruders in their territory where men make their selection as women offer their most sultry post. Men who wipe their nose excessively, women who are meticulously made up. There is a man who wears a white long sleeved shirt and has tired eyes behind his glasses that slips down the bridge of his nose. There are men who walk in pairs, hides a sniggle, silences the rising pleasure and impending excitement. There are women fanning themselves, one leg strutting outwards. There is a woman in skinny jeans that wraps her too tight, she carries a look, I cannot tell the thoughts behind this expression she holds. There is a man who places his hand under his shirt and flaps it upwards, fanning himself, it is a hot night, as he makes an offer, presumably. The woman looks experienced; she knows the procedure, the smile, the tilt of the head, it has been done many times. They walk together down the lane, I am reaching the end of the street, there is a junction ahead and tau huay awaiting. I leave behind men from failed marriages who are seeking love, women from varied backgrounds who are hanging on survival, men with wives they used to embrace whom they have grown tired of now, and it is such a hot night for intense passions, to relive their youth and the moment that has been kept away for too long, they want to remember how and what that moment is. Women who watch a string of shadows moving in the dark, who would want to latch on a bicycle.

I am in Macau, this is Grand Lisboa Casino. There are so many tables here, bright lights and performances. The place smells of cigarettes and sin. On the laps of some men, there are women staring at nothingness, looking at bottled water, or the brightness of the light, but not at the men beside them or the casino table. They look familiar; it is a look of desire, a longing to be somewhere else.

I am in Singapore, at the Parliament Lane. There is an old couple, the woman is ahead of the man and she turns around to wait for her husband. She reaches out her hand and calls him “dear”, he limps ahead, towards the hand that is all too familiar.

In Macau, there is chattering everywhere, a kind of hurried, furious, loud chatter that never dies. It is Cantonese, and I cannot catch anything they say, but mo man tai, which is used a lot, which means no problem.

What is love, really? I am starting to believe, that love is made of emotions rising at certain moments, it is made of impulsiveness, it is made of sonnets that romanticize the mysterious thing that nobody knows, of songs that sing, “he fills my soul with so much love that anywhere I go I am never lonely”. But how long does it last, that after the years that passed, that you still could be passionately swept away. When I visit older others who are sick or hospitalized, there is an overwhelming sadness and realization of the transience of life that brings tears. There and then, I think, so this is love, isn’t it love, I am sad. But a few days down, I bother less and I am moving on with my life very well, because there is still bidding, there are still movies to watch, outings to go to. Why do men go to prostitutes? Why are there women who turn around to wait for their husbands, are they not tired of their faces, of waiting, of doing household chores, of caring, of the same bed they sleep in every night? Why is there even a need to demarcate the boundaries of what love is and what it is not? When one does not know what love is, how does one know whether he/she is loved or whether he/she is loving? Mo man tai, I guess and hope, one day, there will be some who have stories of how great love can be to share, of the hand that is always there.