of Covid-2020, families, and my year end trip to Penang

Happy new year again   One more quiet day with London weather outside, before it turns Monday in the 2021 with the world out there grappling to carry on with the torch of surviving the pandemic in the new year.  So here is a bit of self-reflection and some heartfelt gratitude for my last music outing in 2020 up in Penang.

If I have to sum up my year of music-making (and staying sane) in the year of “Covid-2020” with one word, the word would be ‘Family’. Family of the ‘organic kind’, and family of the chosen kind.

The family that I have found in my music community has given me the healing and sanctuary that was much needed in my melancholic and depressive months of mounting stress from all directions, over-thinking and miserable health. 

 

The family that I was born into, gave me an opportunity to discover the importance of music in everyday family time – I’m finally singing and dancing with my folks.  And to be able to witness the joy that music brings in my family, is a reward beyond description. 

 

In the last few months of 2020, I had the chance to make a handful of duo shows with Tay Cher Siang, my music director and pianist (amongst a few live-band shows with WVC Jazz).  The kind of piano and voice gigs that, to me, were much more than entertaining a small room of audience with great music and singing.  I took to them with my usual borderline nerve-wrecking anxiety (but always end up winning myself an invaluable experience of living), but this time I have walked away with more than I have bargained for.   

 

I don’t think I have the words or the right description of what I have experience yet.  But some of the emotions I had from those outings were humility, gratifying and motivating.  In a way, those outings lend me a closer, deeper look, into myself, to discover what kind of human I am, in various situations.  

 

I told my Penang host and friend, Gareth, that I feel like I have been through the kind of training in past few shows that will prepare me for all the future shows that I will face one day; throw me in any kind of live circumstance or stage – I would have the right attitude to step up to it.

 

Over three nights between December 26 to 28 at Hikayat, a small movie screening room on top of a bookshop called Gerakbudaya in Georgetown, Cher Siang and I played to three unique audiences of both strangers and familiar faces.   All of them different but all attentive and appreciative.  

Over five nights of sleeping at Gareth’s Mango Tree Place, a house built in 1934. I had the chance to roll and laze in gorgeous sheets while I read books; or sit by the window and read in the sun. I engaged in nightly conversations with the writer and hustler himself, before we turn in.  In the mornings we listened to classical music in the living room downstairs.  

 

And then there were the outings with heavenly Char Koay Teow at Fok Kee restaurant.  I went for a hike near Penang Hill with writer Marco, Masako and Cher Siang.  I met with a local act Buddha Beat and jammed at their studio The Sound Maker, thanks to Marco’s introduction.  We managed to slot in a brief and chirpy visit to the spanking new and beautiful Wild Flower’s Music Shop, to listen to Coltrane on speakers and shopped some CDs.  There was a beautiful and serene high tea at Suffolk House with my BFF See Ming and small entourage of friends.  And I got to watch two amazing films, Billie (a documentary on Billie Holiday) and The Invisible Man.  Not forgetting the multiple hangout at the bookshop café with late night drinks. 

 

I came home with bag full of books, memories of good company, music-making, conversations and a happy tummy filled with Penang food.  I will make my new year one that is spirited and hopeful.  Thank you, Families,! 

 

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