As mentioned in the previous blog entry, I have a glass display case in my bedroom room in which I keep thing I have collected from places I have been to.
Here’s the most significant stuffs of the lot:
1) A wooden block with my name and two other of my classmates name written on it.
This piece of artifact was something I picked up in secondary school. The year was 1991. It was left on the table after one of the boys was done clearing his table after his woodcraft class. I remember picking up the block of wood and taking it back to my friends, two of my best friends then, and asked them to write their names on it. Although many years have separated us and we have lost contact, I remember with fondness the times we shared.
2) A six inch stainless steel safety pin
This souvenir was given to me on the day I left my job as laundry valet. After my O levels, I worked for six months as a laundry valet at the Westin Hotels (then tallest hotel in the world standing at 72 stories). It was hard work. I had to go to the rooms in the morning to collect guest laundry and in the afternoon, I would deliver them. There were something like five or six other valets around and we worked shifts to cover the entire day. It was hard physical work, a lot of walking, a bit of stair climbing and meeting interesting guests. (Naked ones are always amusing.) This six inch safety pin is used to pin close old laundry bags, but they were no longer in use by the time I was working there. One of the laundry operators gave one to me.
3) Old name tag
This name tag is something I used to wear in the first job I worked in after I left polytechnic. Armed with a diploma, I applied for a job in the local general hospital as a laboratory technician. It was a routein clinical lab. They say you can tell how long a person has been in the job by the color of the tag (which starts out as white). My tag is slightly yellowish. I paid five dollar to keep this tag. I paid five years of my life working in that horrid environment. I'm glad I left it, otherwise I would be very bitter and very dull. Routine jobs without appreciation can do that to you.
4) Mini-chopper
It's a real chopper - but small enough for one to conceal up in the back of one's pants pocket. One of my favorite items.
5) Coin wrapped in cloth handkerchief tied up with a red string.
I don't know if one is suppose to keep this or not, but I don't care. It's an item given to all relatives. It's from my grandmother's funeral. I remember her well. I wasn't very close to her when I was little. But that changed as I grew older. She's a wonderful person. Of course she is. She is my mother's mother. She never says much but she has a sharp eye, and she always know when to say just the right thing. I was the last one to see her alive. She was staying at the hospital where I was working and I had visited her during lunch. Later that day, I got a call from my mum that she had passed away.
There are a couple other stuff with not much story. I have some birds feathers – crows feathers, mynah feathers. They last forever.
I have a Mats Jonasson crystal, which a Finnish friend gave to me as a gift. ( http://www.crystalfoxgallery.com/mats/p33550.htm ) I also bought another one on another trip to Sweden – one with a depiction of a Viking warrior. You need to put these with your check-in luggage because in your carry-in baggage, under the metal detector, they show up suspiciously as a very black block. And airport security will become very concerned…
These are things in plain view to me everyday because they are in a glass case, as opposed to stuff in a forgotten drawer: