In the past recent weeks, several events around me were somehow in a way, related to the title above. 一期一会 (ichi go ichi e) is a Japanese famous 四字寂語 yojijyaku (4-Characters simple words) believed to be originated from China. It literally means a once-in-a-lifetime chance and had been widely interpreted into many Japanese disciplines including the spirit of Samurai, tea ceremony, preparation of dishes and relationship.
The presidential election of the US had seen Sen. Barrack Obama, the first African-American being chosen as a president-elect. This triumph of Obama has been described by critics around the world as an encounter of a lifetime, not long before Martin Luther King delivered his ' I have a dream' speech. This however has brought an airy phenomenal for multi-racial countries like Malaysia and Singapore, where minorities claimed for their right to be able to take the lead in the nation's leadership. Before the cries go out loud, those people should just read my statement, sit back and relax. Mr. Obama is an African-American but he speaks incredibly fluent American-English at home with his family, even to his mother and his grandmother. His daughters did not go to any African-language school. He did not wear any Kenyan attire and eat at the same diner where any ordinary Americans eat. There are no possible reasons in this world to deny the right of a true American to be a president in his own country. If somebody could extremely excel in the meritocracy system practiced in Singapore, surely Lee Hsien Long would be glad to allow him/her into his cabinet where most of its ministers holds at least a distinguished master's degree and could possibly succeeded him later on. Same with Malaysia, Malaysian will definitely agree if the candidate apart from being greatly qualified to be a Prime Minister; could also speak a fluent Bahasa Malaysia, comfortably be able to wear the Pakaian Kebangsaan at official ceremonies, studied in a Sekolah Kebangsaan before and comes from a non-racial-based party.
This 一期一会 phrase had also reminded me back to an incidence happened back in the year 1999. At that time, I just had a home internet access (Jaring.my) via my desktop and being among the first internet users, I was extraordinarily excited. When my 3 years-older cousin came from Ipoh to visit me, I introduced him to the MiRC, the pioneer program of the chatting world before YM and MSN took over. In 2 days time, he (at that time, 18 years old) had managed to secure a blind-date (Of course, without any parental consent). Being naive, I am the one who have to follow him to KLCC, the meeting place. We went there by Putra LRT and as we were early from the designated time, I went to buy Auntie Anne's Pretzels (I loved this pretzels but I don't know whether it is still available now) alone. When I went back to the designated meeting place at the KFC near Swatch (all this were according to the floor plan of KLCC back in 1999), I saw my cousin going out from the KFC in a rush and behind him, a poor chubby girl followed with a sad face, trying to match his fast steps. When my cousin saw me, he pulled my arms and led me towards the direction of the LRT station. I was puzzled with his act but somehow could read between the lines. The girl had cheated on my cousin by sending a different cute-looking girl pic to represent her in the net and when meeting my cousin in reality during the blind date, the cute gal in the pic is not at all similar to her. My cousin felt cheated and decided to walk-off without giving a room for apology to her. I still could remember the poor girl's voice calling for my cousin's name while we ran out of her sight towards Ampang Park. I had the chance to break loose, urged my cousin to go and see her to explain in a good way but I am just too naive to think of such a bold act back then. But that is the only chance in a lifetime that we have, and we turned it down. When I grew up, I just noticed that people made mistakes, but that doesn't mean we will keep on repeating it. So there's always room for apology, room to repent.
Out of nowhere, chances will somehow come to you either for you to correct your past mistakes or to amend your unwanted acts. My advice is just take the chance, try your best to endure all the circumstances no matter how but if u ain't change anything, maybe that is just not your thing. So drift away and move on with your life. After all, you have tried all your best to utilize the available chance. Life is hard, but that should just make you tougher. Do your best in whatever you do, respect and reward all the people around you with the true celebration of friendship or love, for it could be the only chance you have in your lifetime to prolong or extent that wonderful moments. And later when it never recurs again, you can smile thinking of it (without any regret), knowing in your heart that you've been there, did that, said it...the way you want it to be...wholeheartedly with full of sincerity.(Pics were taken from the Tokyo Tower Observatory, circa early November 2008)
