It’s amazing what you can pick up in the local wet market. No, I am not talking about the local produce (although it is always a good thing to know where one can still get good kopi for 60 cents). I am talking about the titbits you acquire through conversation. In this instance today, I learnt about “The Mystical Fish.”
Low Trust Transactions
Before that, let me sidetrack a bit into the differences between high trust and low trust transactions. Low trust transactions rely on the rule of law. For example, I sign a contract to make a trade, buy a car, or make a loan. In spite of the sales pitch one may receive about how valued or preferred one is (only as a customer by the way), it is still a low trust relationship.
Hence, in places where low trust transactions occur, you are obligated to dress like you have experienced success. Fail to dress well and you are perceived to have failed in life. But dress like a million bucks and you qualify for formal commodification as a fat wallet. That, after all, is what it means to be a preferred customer.
I don’t think I want to ever work in low trust environments or for low trust transactions. Life is too short to stay objectified.
High Trust Transactions
A high trust transaction, on the other hand, relies on relationships. With a good relationship, one’s word is one’s bond and one’s bond is one’s reputation. Businesses are done based on a handshake, on a common understanding. Here also, you are who you are, not what you wear. You can be in your grottiest rags and still be greeted with acceptance.
A wet market can be a place of either low trust or high trust transactions. It all depends on how you want to approach it. If you allow it to be the former, then you buy, move on, and can potentially get all the marketing done before the parking coupon is up.
In this instance, it is my mother-in-law who enjoys the privileges of high trust transactions. She indicates what she wants with each stall owner, makes payment (or not if the hawker has not summed up the purchase yet), and then moves on. All I need to do is to remember where to pick things up. And while the stall owner prepares the purchase, I have all the time in the world to drink my said 60-cents kopi.
Which is where I have the chance to marvel at the things one can pick up in conversation at the local wet market.
The Mystical Fish
Today, I learnt about the “Mystical Fish.” I was eating my kuay chap and drinking my coffee, thinking about high versus low trust transactions and dreaming about books I will never write.
A group of uncles and aunties at the table next to me were having a loud conversation (I think they were all speaking at their ‘normal’ volume given their age). One particularly dramatic uncle regaled them with the tale of a mystical fish that he had only just learnt about and wanted very much to share with his lifelong friends.
According to him, there is this fish which roams the world all its life, always in search for something new. Finally, towards the end of its days, it realises the folly of its ways. Then, unwaveringly, it swims to its birthplace thousands of miles away, fighting against predators, swimming upstream and even up waterfalls. (At this point, the uncle gesticulated with his left hand in an upward motion while his already loud voice went to an even higher crescendo.)
Then in an almost reverent tone, he said (and I translate into English),”Then you know what it does? It lays its eggs and dies. So sad. I have never seen such a fish in all my life.”
Actually, at that point, I wanted to tell him that my mother-in-law just bought a slice of salmon that I am due to pick up after my coffee. But I held my tongue, as I supposed it would be cruel to break the reverie he was in. After all, the other uncles and aunties were craning their necks towards him, focusing their rapt attention on their storyteller.
The Mystical Fish Explained
I think I am like the salmon. All my life, I’ve roamed, always in search of something. I am restless, directionless, filled with the deep ache of “mottainai” (a Japanese phrase — apt maybe because the Japanese love their salmon? – “mottainai” conveys the wistful regret of an unfulfilled potential).
Today is Day 40 of a special awakening in me. Today, I realise that unless a seed (sorry for the temporary switch of metaphor) falls to the ground and dies, it cannot produce a harvest. Hence, like the prodigal, I now awaken to my folly. Today, I start the swim back home. To die.
The Fish in Each of Us
So depressing. Suddenly the kopi tastes a bit more bitter than usual. And suddenly, I realise that the table next to me has also become quiet. I looked up to see the group of uncles and aunties silently sipping their drinks. Then, in unison, they all got up and left without another word.
Perhaps they too, like me, heard more than they let on. Or perhaps the fish reminds them of their own prodigal whom they may be waiting for. Maybe they are the prodigals themselves, realising the need to return home.
Suddenly, I felt sad for the uncle who claimed to have never encountered a salmon in his life. It was almost as if he was saying he had never experienced a returning prodigal before, whether in himself or in others. Perhaps what he was really trying to convey to his lifelong friends was this – that the mystical fish represented a personal epiphany of a return to purpose.
Who knows? Anyway, it is time for me to pick up my salmon.
