“Why do you keep smiling?” she asked, looking at me with a frown on her face. Suddenly, I was aware of the upward pulling motion on my face and lips. My heart ached and my excitement towards their arrival lessened a little as I heard those words. “Uh, um” was all I could say before I closed my mouth and jumped into my father’s car after her.
It was the last day of 2015, my parents and I were hosting a few Hong Kong friends of mine who I met during my study at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. They were actually not here to visit us, but to attend a friend’s wedding, which coincidently was held in my hometown Penang, Malaysia. We had arranged for a day to meet up and to take them around the city, as it was their first time in Penang.
As my father chattered away energetically about the history and some fun facts of some of the old buildings we passed by, I was at the back of the car, trying to make a little sense of what had happened earlier. I felt a little embarrassed, like a helpless turtle turned upside down, exposing its underside. As the day ended after we sent our guests back to their hotel, a question continued to revolve around my head through the night ahead. “Why would anyone find a smile as something odd?”
Growing up, I had a joyful family. My father was the jokester and storyteller in our home. Although he can be very strict in times of discipline, we can always be sure to have a good time whenever we are with him. He puts smiles on people’s faces. His fun and joyous personality did not come from nothing but, I observed, it was inherited from his mother. We lived close to our grandparents, and would often visit them throughout the week. My grandmother was no doubt a joyful and positive person too. At moments during the festive seasons when cooking was heavily involved, my grandmother would sometimes get stressed out. She would always do a loud sigh, “hah”, like a singer would make during warm ups, and then continue with her tasks with a gentle smile. Outside the house, I would habitually exchange smiles with the Indian uncle living across the street, the Chinese aunty selling homemade fried vermicelli, and the Malay aunty selling traditional Malaysian cakes. Never once did they fail to give a warm smile back. Spending years in such an environment, I grew into being a smiley person. Therefore, smiling was such a natural and habitual thing to me. It was given often and easily, as well as received.
I remembered it was a sunny afternoon in class during the second year of my secondary school. The heat was making us sleepy and we were struggling to concentrate on the content being taught in class. As one class ended, we had a gap of around 5 to 7 minutes before the next teacher entered the classroom. During the tiny break, a boy came over to my “desk neighbour”, asking to copy her homework. She was one of the smartest students in our class. In a usual day, she would have agreed to his request. Nevertheless, she refused him this time. The boy was quite unhappy with her answer and began “begging” in a proud way, saying things like “well, you don’t want to lend me your homework because you think you’re the best in class and …”. Like a natural instinct, my neighbour smiled at him as he was saying those words.
I was looking at them when, still with her smile, my neighbour turned around and our eyes met. That moment, I did not know why, but I did not want to return her a smile. Instead, I looked blankly at her with my sleepy eyes that came from the heat of midday. During the 3 seconds of us looking at each other, I felt my body shrugged a beat, as if a smile wanted to break through my blank stare. Nevertheless, I resisted the urge. Her smile faded away as she turned away from my eyes to the boy’s. It was the first time I had ever heard her scold anybody. “Is this how you like to bully people all the time?!” my neighbour said to the boy in her angry yet still soft voice, while tears flowed from her eyes. I was very shocked at her reaction, and a sense of guilt flowed through my body. Deep down, I knew that I had an influence on her reaction. I made myself a promise that day that I would never refrain my smile to anybody whenever possible, and I would also not take anybody’s smile for granted.
As I initially experienced social life throughout my first one and a half years in Hong Kong, there were many occasions where people made me feel like a “smile beggar”. I was so used to giving people a smile whenever our eyes meet, but my smiles were usually not returned, and I would feel a bit hurt. A few times, I even told myself that I would not smile at those people again. Nonetheless, I would sime at them again and again despite them ignoring me, as my smiles came naturally and were given without any hesitations.
As I lied in my bed thinking of that question, I felt a sense of sadness and sympathy towards the people who find smiling unfamiliar. I then reminded myself again, “every smile I give, I will give with my heart. Every smile I receive, I will receive with my heart.”