Co-existing species

It must be a sign.

If not, what could explain why all these came together this holiday?

I have always enjoyed long holidays, from the time I was young to till now (and because of my vocation, I have been very lucky to continue to enjoy this privilege). Especially the late November-December break each year. Somehow this period has the ability to effect immense changes in one's mindset, attitude or perspective on various things. Perhaps it is simply the fact that this holiday period lies at the cusp of each year-end and the beginning of a new one, and hence more romantic and charming, unlike the late May-June holiday break which serves a more functional purpose in injecting some needed break in the midst of busyness. Each year-end break, I am always grateful to discover something new, or to have had the chance to look at something differently, and such epiphanies could arise from my travelling or just simply staying put. These epiphanies ran the gamut from discovering I could possibly be a closet racist (gasp!) to pulling together threads of family connections and understanding what makes my family, my family.


This holiday, there is the opportunity to venture into the world of animals in a way that I never was interested to do so. It all started with Channel 424 on Starhub Cable.  Animal Planets channel is not new to me (though I watched that usually when there wasn't anything more interesting on other channels) but there never has been that magical draw -- till this holiday.

I am hardly an animal person. I have always viewed them as another species which co-existed with mankind in this world and have always steered clear of them as I always view them with an amount of fear (of the unknown, the unfamiliar). Somehow this December, i find myself immensely fascinated by the many animal species I have never known existed in the world (eg. the transparent octopus), their evolutionary history and the whole predator-prey relationships on land and in water.

Most of all, the relationships between man and animals is like a territory I never thought much about but which now beckons to me. I grew fascinated with hosts Tristan Bayer and Vanessa Garnick (below) in their escapades with wild creatures in "Caught in the Moment" series.  "

It is exciting to see how they get excited about their carefully-crafted plan to catch a glimpse of the ring-tailed lemur leaping from trees to trees (it is an excitement almost of a pure kind, not one of those put up for TV, I'd like to think), and how they devise creative schemes in order to video creatures up, close and personal. Judging from their biodata from Google, I gather their fervent passion must have stemmed from their childhoods and growing up in households where parents are themselves well-versed and comfortable with wildlife. For me, it reinforces too how important one's formative childhood is -- it can be so impactful that what one do with one's young will reap results (or scars) in their subsequent adulthood.

Next came the movie Life of Pi.

I have never been a fan of fiction, and to an extent, even snobbishly view the genre as an inferior brother of non-fiction works, simply from a realism perspective: We already do not know enough of the world as it is and probably will never know enough in one's lifetime. Hence, whenever we can, shouldn't we channel our time and devote our energy to understanding the reality around us instead of conjuring up imaginary worlds? I can never reconcile to reading fiction hence (despite finding great comfort in reading classics during Literature years in my younger days).


There isn''t much of a need to guess what will be written next. That I totally enjoyed Life of Pi the movie and is now reading the book. That someone has the capacity and the ability to create this master story made me realise that I have too early in my life scoffed at what cannot be proven true. It awes, humbles and overwhelms me that one's imagination can be so immense.

Going back to the aim of this post, the movie also deepens my interest in the art and science of co-existing with animals. In the movie, Pi tells himself that he accepted that Richard Parker, the tiger, can never be tamed, ""But by God's will, it can be trained." Reading the book which explains more on how circus trainers train the animals, I thought it also sheds some light for me on my work as a teacher (!!). Afterall, we are all animals, and like what Pi's father likes to say, the most dangerous animals in the planet.