after a week's long of training, our much anticipated weekend finally arrived. 11 of us (singaporeans, australian, koreans, japanese) made our way to macau! always heard of it but never really knew what to expect. hmm after being there, and being someone who does not gamble nor enjoy the smell of second-hand smoke, i felt the trip was not really worth the SGD80 ferry fare. the company was nice though.
i'm actually starting to enjoy the company of the rest..what kinda bothers me now is how i'm beginning to reveal my playful (and sometimes childish) side to them, and they react to it like how most of my friends in school do. it makes me feel comfortable all over again cos it seems like such an informal atmosphere, and yet worries me cos of it. i sometimes get too carried away playing, and forget that these are actually my future colleagues! i guess i still need to put forward some sort of professionalism to them? i think i've not fully convinced myself of the fact that i'm a working adult now, no longer a kiddy student, nor do i really know how i should behave in front of colleagues...
anyway, what struck me the most today in macau was this 3-day old (my guess) baby bird i picked up just right in front of the ruins of st. paul's..3 hk guys were crowding around a corner and when i looked closer, i saw a little mass on the floor which they were trying to pick up with a tissue. i realised it was a tiny baby bird, unfeathered & who was still blind. it had fell from its nest due to the sudden rain and winds. my heart broke immediately. i moved forward and picked up its fragile, small body with my bare fingers; it was still alive. i couldn't help it, i just started crying. ever since booboo, i told myself the next time i chanced upon a baby bird, i WILL save it no matter what. but this time, it was simply impossible..i was in a foreign land, away from the already foreign hk- how was i able to spend days watching the baby bird from afar & wait for its mummy to appear?
i contemplated the possibilities. my first instinct was to keep it warm in my hands (it was pouring and the winds were strong) around macau, then bring it back to hk, nurse it for 5 days, and perhaps smuggle it back to singapore where i would have to rear it..cos there is no way i can release it back to the wild without a mummy bird to have trained it to fend for itself. but i knew it was just wishful thinking..1. it's a wild bird, it should grow up in the wild 2. was i really expecting to succeed in smuggling it back to singapore? 3. would i be able to have the time to care for 3 birds at home? 4. would i even have the time to take care of it and feed it every 4 hours here in hk in the midst of my training? 5. it would have to be a huge emotional investment again, and would i be able to deal with the pain again should the baby bird die while being taken care of in my hands?
my internal struggle over what to do caused me to spend a long time just holding the bird in between my hands, and the rest to wait for me which i felt bad about. a few of them were really sweet, and tried their best to make me feel better and give suggestions on what i should do. the 3 hk guys were really sweet and genuinely concerned about the baby bird too..i thought they had left after i brought the baby bird away..but they approached me at least 3 times thereafter, appearing out of nowhere..they had actually followed me around for half hour, cos they were worried about the baby bird! they came up to me each time, communicated in broken chinese, and tried to give suggestions too..i was touched that they actually hung around just to see how the baby bird was doing..(one of them was quite shuai summore! haha..good looking + caring = ups)
i went into the pharmacy to ask for a syringe (thinking i could feed the bird) but failed, excitedly approached this man holding 4 cages with birds to ask if he had bird food, and hoping he would take pity on the baby bird in my hand and take it back..but he simply shook his head after realising i was not interested in buying his birds and walked off..sigh..
i felt relieved each time i felt its breathing in my hands, yet worried over whether it might be its last breath. it probably fell from quite a height and i had no way of telling if it was injured internally. many of them were urging me to leave the bird somewhere safe, and i agreed eventually cos i knew it is always best for a baby animal to be taken care of by its mummy. i placed it on some tissue at a dry spot behind a pillar near where i had found it. i prayed hard that it would survive, and that it's mummy would find it soon. what worried me most this time was not so much predators, but the harsh weather. it was raining, it was cold, and this poor baby was not feathered. it's extremely important for baby birds this age to be kept warm constantly.
as i walked away, i couldn't stop trying to find a reason behind my encounter with a baby bird yet again. what also affected me was how coincidental it was. just 5 min before finding it, i had seen a sparrow fly past, and i started thinking of booboo (cos booboo actually looked like a small sparrow). i had actually stopped thinking of booboo as often nowadays, and just when i felt sad over her again, an even more vulnerable baby bird appeared right in front of me. was i meant to take better care of it this time? what was the role or responsibility expected out of me?
i couldn't really tell its species as it was so small..but from its yellow beak, i would suspect its a mynah..i just wished this happened in singapore instead..haiz..at least i would be able to do so, so, so much more for it...
i hope you make it, little birdie :)
speaking of animals, i've been watching the national geographic channel each night in my hotel room..2 nights ago they screened a documentary called 'caught in the act', which featured videos shot by civilians of predators in hunting action. i was overwhelmed by what i saw. in singapore, or in the planet earth series, successful hunts were always implied in the commentary, but never explicitly shown. here, actual killings were shown, and it was just a heart-wrenching sight to see an animal being killed, being alive in one moment and dead in the next. i started crying when they showed this brutaly savage scene- a group of female lions attacking a hyena (both are known to be arch enemies); they took turns to bite at the hyena's neck, strangling it, then its body, breaking its bones. the worst thing was that they attacked it not as a meal, but simply out of pure hatred and evil. with the hyena left lying there & heaving heavily, the lions walked away with a snarl, leaving it to die. they simply wanted to torture the hyena and let it die a painful death! i never knew animals could possess such a conscious level of schemingness in them; i hated the lions for being like this. i couldn't imagine what the hyena must have felt. it must have been in excruciating pain from all the broken bones; would it have been scared, knowing that it was breathing it last moments and simply waiting to die? why must nature be like that?
this is such a sad post, i'm sorry..i shall go catch some sleep..its 5.00am now..they wanna go for dim sum lunch tmr, and i realy hope i can wake up in time! update more tmr, and will post my photos on fb instead! it's tedious to do it on blogspot!
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