Racquet Racket by Su Yanyun
The first time I picked up a badminton racquet was when I was 6 years old. My grandmother’s Filipino domestic helper, Nina, had found an old (and slightly mouldy) racquet in my uncle’s room while packing up one day. Nina was four times older than me then. She was diminutive, but what stood out in my memory was how thick her lips were. Angelina Jolie hadn’t taught me how to appreciate the beauty of full, luscious lips yet. So, Nina’s mouth simply reminded me of the cocktail chicken franks my grandma loved to cook. Once, I put two of these franks together in the shape of a pair of lips and told my mom, “Nina!”. My mom simply rebuked my creativity and dumped more broccoli over them.
Thick lips aside, Nina was always very nice to me. Remembering how bored I always was whenever I came to my grandmother’s house, she decided it would be a good tool to keep my entertained. She knew how much I hated our family’s Sunday visits here – there were no toys, I had no playmates my age, and my mother and my grandmother always yakked away in Hakka for hours on end, ignoring my incessant bugging and pleading to go home.
Whenever I went to her house, the only thing I did apart from falling asleep on the sofa in the debilitating afternoon heat, was to challenge myself with my own staircase version of Fear Factor. My grandmother’s house was a nondescript looking two-storeys high semi-detached house at Bukit Timah. A perfectly trimmed lawn, red brick walls, a porch with a low ceiling – they all came together to form an idyllic façade. It was one of those sleepy-looking houses that didn’t really stand out, especially in a row of other houses that looked far more exciting with their water fountains or porch swings.
Inside, the staircase intrigued me to no end – they were built like the rungs of a ladder, with empty space between each step. When I climbed them, I always had this very thought that I would accidentally fall through one of these holes one day. Still, nothing could stop me from attempting to scale and conquer this mountain week after week. One step at a time, I tried to make my way to the top of the stairs… only to falter mid-way at the seventh step. It was always the seventh step before the fear kicked in and I started screaming “Nina!!!” as loud as I could. Poor woman would have to drop whatever she was doing just to come rescue me and bring me down the stairs. This happened at least 3 times per visit. I can still remember her tone of exasperation:
“Aiyoh, girl, again?”
All that unnecessary exercise probably explained why she was so excited when she ran to me with the badminton racquet the next Sunday I went.
“Girl, for you!!!”
I eyed the mouldy grip suspiciously. “What is this?”
“Racquet. Come, I show you!”
Leading me out onto the porch, she removed a slightly yellowed shuttlecock from a plastic tube and for the next fifteen minutes, proceeded to explain to me how I should drop the shuttlecock at the right moment, and then just as I flick my wrist, the racquet would swing upwards, connecting with the falling shuttlecock, making it fly up. It looked so simple, and I couldn’t wait to try it. After watching her demonstrate for the ninth time, I yanked the racquet from her hand: “My turn!”
However, no matter how hard I tried, my psychomotor skills just refused to allow for any successful hand-eye coordination. Also, my arm was half the length of the racquet. Whatever attempt to swing it ended up in just an awkward upward jerk. Let go – swing – miss. Let go – swing – miss.
“How ah, Nina, how? Why cannot?”
Squatting on the floor about half a metre from me, she said “You drop the shuttlecock slower. Swing faster! Or you change hands?”
I nodded and switched the racquet from one hand to the other. This time, I would definitely hit the shuttlecock. With the racquet in my left hand this time, I let go of the shuttlecock in my right. Immediately, I swung my arm upwards. As my hand moved, my grip on the racquet somehow loosened. The wire mesh connected with the falling shuttlecock (“Finally!”), and together, the shuttlecock and the racquet flew in the direction of Nina, hitting her on the head before cluttering noisily to the floor.
I burst out laughing at her stunned face.
“Aiyoh! Ask you to swing faster, why you let go! No more badminton for you!”
I immediately shut up.
“Nina, no! I want! I can play already!”
“Cannot! Later you hit ah ma then I no job already!”
No matter how much I pleaded and threatened for the rest of the afternoon, she simply refused to bring out the badminton racquet again. Looking back, maybe I shouldn’t have laughed at her. Whatever it was, my moment of joy at having successfully hit the shuttlecock was short-lived. In the end, I went back to annoying her with my stair climbing.
And that began the start of my very rocky and unfulfilling relationship with this sport.
*
I never touched another badminton racquet for the next 8 years of my life. My family members were not the sporty type, so at home, we rarely did any form of physical activities – unless you counted running away from my mom when she chased us with the cane. In primary school, the teachers left it up to us to decide what we wanted to play after the NAPFA tests were over: the boys always ended up playing basketball, while the girls played either captain’s ball or volleyball. Satisfied with these ball games, I never gave badminton a second thought.
So, the next time I came into contact with the sport was when I was 14 years old, during a physical education class in secondary school. That year for physical education, the teacher tried to expose us to different sports by letting us play a new sport every month.
The teacher went through the basics with us:
“Grip the handle this way if you’re a left-hander, and this way if you’re a right-hander.”
“Do not drag the racquet on the floor.”
“Count to three and release the shuttlecock right after you swing the racquet, not before.”
At first, it all looked and sounded relatively simple when he demonstrated it to us. I remembered my experience as a kid, and thought to myself: How difficult can badminton be? That was, of course, before I tried it myself. My every swing felt and probably looked extremely awkward, and I kept hitting the shuttle onto the floor. I had no idea how swinging the racquet seemed to be second nature to my classmates.
The following week when we started playing matches, it became even more obvious that I was not meant to play the sport. For one, my starting serves never once landed on the opposite end of the court diagonal to where I was standing. No matter how much my friends tried to explain to me the technique of flicking my wrist when I served, I just could not get my wrist to arch as they (very exasperatedly) directed me to. In a singles match, the rallies were laughably and frustratingly short-lived. The second or third time that I attempted to hit the shuttle over, it would either fly into the net or out of the court. In a doubles match, the games lasted longer – only because of my poor partner who would run everywhere to receive the shuttle while I stood motionless, unable to judge where it was landing.
Thankfully, the painful month soon came an end and we moved on to baseball. From then on, I always made sure to avoid badminton whenever my friends organized sports outings.
For the next 7 years, I didn’t play badminton at all… until earlier on this year. My friend, who had a particularly infuriating passion for matchmaking, decided it would be a good idea to set me up on a date with a guy I didn’t know. Together with her and her boyfriend, we would go on a double date. Of course, I vehemently disagreed to that ridiculous notion. A blind date in this day and age? No way!
But for the next few weeks, she bugged me incessantly about it. Eventually, I gave in – if only to shut her up. Half an hour later, she had already arranged everything. All I needed to do was to turn up at the Tampines Sports Hall in my sports attire the next day at 8pm. I wasn’t particularly interested in what we were going to do, so I agreed without asking further. I just wanted to get it over and done with.
The next night, I appeared at the venue as per her instructions. When I met them at the entrance, I wanted to just pretend I didn’t know them and walk away. They were all holding brightly coloured Yonex badminton racquets. My friend even had a new tube of shuttlecocks in hand. We were going to play badminton?! I was distraught to say the least. Smiling sweetly at the trio, I asked if my friend could accompany me to the toilet, where I subsequently unleashed my fury:
“Why badminton?! You know I hate the sport! I’m going to leave such a bad first impression!”
“Don’t worry! He’s great at badminton! He’ll teach you!”
She didn’t give me a chance to say anything else, but dragged me out of the toilet and into the sports hall, where the guys were already warming up by hitting the shuttle back and forth. She pushed me over and gestured to the opposite end of the court. Grudgingly and cursing my naivety (“Oh why did I choose to go along with her idea?”), I made my way over to the other court slowly.
“Hey, name’s Brian! You’re Elyn right?”
“Hey, yeah… OK, please know that I’m really bad at badminton. Like, really bad. The last time I played was at least 8 years ago.”
Before he could reply, my friend shouted from the opposite end of the court: “Girls serve first!”
She threw a shuttlecock in my direction. I gaped at the offending white feather-covered cone lying innocently on the floor, trying to remember everything my teacher had taught me during the lesson. Do I release the shuttlecock before or after I swing my racquet upwards? How do I even hold my racquet? Should I use the backhand or forehand swing?
For 5 painful seconds, I held onto the shuttlecock, hesitating to make the first move. Then, Brian said, “You can do it!” So I did. I let swing the racquet, and as the phrase goes, “It all went downhill from there.”
The next half an hour became an embarrassing replay of my painful badminton matches back in secondary school. We spent half the time just watching me miss the shuttlecock each time I tried to serve. And every time I decided to step forward and receive the shuttlecock, I ended up hitting it into the net, onto the floor, or way out of the court. Brian’s initially overenthusiastic waned from light-bulb luminance to dim blinking fluorescence. I don’t think I apologized more in my life than in that half an hour of badminton playing.
At one point, it was my turn to serve the shuttlecock over again. With a grimace, I picked up the shuttlecock and walked to the front of the service area. My friend’s boyfriend shouted out: “Remember to flick your wrist!” I nodded and smiled as politely as I could. I was all ready to flick my racquet at the next person who thought they could help me play better by merely shouting advice. If I could have, I would have!
Shifting my body so that I stood slanted, I placed the shuttlecock about 10cm above the Yonex logo printed on the wires of the racquet. I counted to three, and released the shuttlecock while swinging my right arm upwards. My wrist gave an odd sort of twitch, and the next instant, the shuttlecock and the racquet connected! I watched in amazement as the shuttlecock flew over the net smoothly and beautifully, right into the diagonally opposite section of the court. I had actually managed to pull it off!
I was so stunned at that miraculous feat that when the shuttlecock returned in my direction, I rushed forward to try to continue my streak of smooth moves. I pulled the racquet behind my head, then swung it back outwards in a downward motion to try to execute what they called a “smack”. However, I didn’t grip the racquet tightly enough. So as I swung with all my might, the racquet flew out of my hand towards my left. Almost in slow motion, I saw the lightweight racquet fly in Brian’s direction – it smacked him right on the face before falling to the floor with a clatter.
For a moment, we all stood where we were, stunned into silence. I noted his mouth fallen slightly agape, and his raised eyebrows. That look of shock was priceless. I immediately thought of Nina, and the next second, I burst into laughter. I tried to bite my tongue, but I simply couldn’t stop the laughing fit that overcame me. I managed to gasp out, “Your… face…” Then I started laughing again. My loud, raucous laughter seemed to jumpstart something in him. He took his badminton racquet, and walked over to his bag at the end of the hall. Without saying another word, he picked it up and exited the hall.
My friend hissed at me: “ What is wrong with you?!”
I replied, still trying to stop laughing: “I told you! I’m terrible at this!”
My friend never initiated another blind date for me again after that – not that I’m complaining. And of course, I object even more vehemently now whenever people ask me to play badminton. Goodness knows what other rackets I may cause with a racquet.