HOMECOMING

Coming home always evoke mixed feeling in me. On the one hand, I looked forward to seeing my parents and the old wooden house but on the other hand, I get frustrated when I see how much run down the house has become. However, this trip, I was glad that my parents have made the effort to do some renovations. At least the floor is tiled. The house was in terrible diarray. Boxes of stuff were all over the place. I did my best to sort out some of the things to be thrown away - as usual was met with reisitance : "Don't throw that, it's still useful. Don't throw that - we can recycle it......" (Sigh). However there were a few antiques that I still value - like this wooden deer from Indonesia - bought by my brother.

Then there's this old finely crafted cupboard. As a child, I used to run my fingers over the leave patterns and the pomegranate design.

Then there is this lovely pair of porcelain figurines. 2 old legendary old men from the chinese folk tales. I used to take them out to admire the fine craftmanship. My parents used to put pens, pencils in those 'baskets'

These are the things I would like to keep. The rest can go.