The Good Life.

Asian

2011-05-26T21:16:00.016+08:00

The sum of the many parts of Asia, while it means certain common things, comprises so much diversity. Newcomers to the region ask me - how are these different, what are the people like?

I can only tell of the places I have been, and of these, what I love the most, so I say:

Vietnamese: their sense of self, and general absence of bullshit in getting things done

Japanese: their quiet resolve to be themselves, and keep their ways

Indonesians: these guys are just cool

Filipinos: their patience, and ability to laugh almost always

Koreans: their soft little centers, beneath that tough, but really just rather honest exterior

Cambodians: a gentleness, despite the obvious toil needed for survival

Singaporeans: Malaysian roots are a redeeming factor. Only joking - discipline I guess, essential for progress

Hong Kongers: a keen quick-wittedness and ability to land on their feet

Thais: politeness, and the innate eye for things beautiful

Malaysians: You tell me, but I guess I love most about us our simplicity and tolerance of people as people

I don't say these traits are perfect, or without challenge, but to me they carry the strength of the people. Go Asia! The world is ours for the taking.

Friday Prayer

2011-04-22T10:52:00.004+08:00

Guide my hands
Guide my heart
Guide my mind
And guide my guard.

Keep me clear
To always see
The things I hold
Dear to me.

Trial and temptation*
Are the human condition
And the result of that
Is so much crap

Monkeys, sharks, wolves and monsters
Cloaks and daggers, all real terrors
Please guide my way
In dealing with that.

I don’t know how You do it all
Everyone’s wants
Clash and overlap, afterall.
But I’ve been told I overthink

So I’m going to stop that right now.

Fill my life,
With things that matter
Help me catch on,
To these things faster.

Help me find
My very own bliss
And contribute to that of
Those I love and cherish

Help me be wise
Faithful and strong
To be the person I knew
I was all along.

* Good Omens - Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

Cheers (I’ll Drink to That)*

2011-03-19T01:13:00.007+08:00

When there is noise, and it is time to watch your back, it is not easy to judge those around you. Support can be a fleeting and changeable thing. But I am grateful for the simple and un-obligatory gestures– a suitcase dragged across apartment blocks, a head’s up over a bowl of noodles. The time spent to lend an ear, share experience, and give sincere advice. I am typically detached, and did not think of these things as important, but I have learnt that they are. Thank goodness, there are things to be thankful for in rubbish situations. *almost Rihanna

Big Pictures

2011-03-17T01:34:00.011+08:00

You know – the earthquake in Japan, which caused the lives of over 10,000 people, destroyed homes, belongings and whole families, also resulted in the Earth spinning faster- by a grand total of 0.0000018 seconds. Imagine – in the big picture of the planet, something that massive only caused that minute an effect.

But imagine also, the impact of such devastation on each individual who is (no pun intended) on eye-level with the storm – this is probably the worst thing that could happen to you.

It is maybe the same for every person who dies in a war and their families, or anyone who at some point realised we are all cogs in a very, very, big machine.

Well guess what, what a special cog we each are, even if only to ourselves and the lives we touch. Perhaps the idea is to aspire towards the biggest picture we can have of ourselves, and keep in mind that despite all, it is still part of a bigger picture out there. It will be okay, and if it isn’t, there is room to make it better.

Maya Angelou also said

2011-03-11T19:19:00.004+08:00

''I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands, you need to be able to throw something back".

I like the Man Mo Temple in Hong Kong. There, you worship both the God of Culture and the Martial God. Which makes sense because sometimes, even the most civil must fight. So if fight we must, may we have guidance that it be in the highest order of ways.

Perhaps I'm a little serious but...

2011-03-09T22:44:00.013+08:00

These days, I discovered that people do a lot to get to know one another. And it seems that there are no rules, except those in your head. A boy on vacation hooks up with a stewardess on a flight in from somewhere, and tries to convince her to fly out to see him at home the next week. A girl calls a married colleague in the middle of the night to complain about a date he recommended which didn’t work out.

Increasingly, boundaries are set only by the two people in a connection with each other. And because boundaries are set independent of any norms, so is the definition of overstepping them. Forget then right and wrong, these become even grayer.

Perhaps, the only constant is that every connection between two people is a balance of power. And the idea is to keep the upper hand to protect, or win the things that personally matter. Even in relationships where there is love, faith, and trust? Maybe, I don’t know.

As for things getting out of hand, I also don’t know. Perhaps “Laissez faire et laissez passer” (let do, and let pass)* is already the inevitable. I’d like to think "Laissez faire et laissez passer, le monde va de lui même!" (let do, and let pass, the world goes on by itself!)* is more reassuring, there is a feeling that there will always be some correction or adjustment to balance, down the road. Still, this is scary stuff.

*Wikipedia

How we are strong

2011-01-05T02:01:00.006+08:00

I resolved to pen more thoughts this year, even fleeting ones, so here.

In scattered entries throughout this blog, we have established that time and energy in each day is finite, and it is how one spends that resource which determines the outcome of next day, and the days to come. Simple.

In our education, there is a lot of time and energy spent on following a program of learning new information, and getting appraised at the end of the process. This is school, and typically, that is what schools are meant for. That is fine.

Probably, what is not fine is the lack of realization that 1. equal time and energy should be invested in clearly identifying one’s strengths and weaknesses, and 2. those said strengths and weaknesses are sometimes, but hardly effectively reflected by the results of the said school appraisal.

This is not a new concept, yet there are many who consider their 20s as a time of self-discovery, I not excluded – and I just wished mine could have begun earlier.

Because in the real world where summits shift, and not much is linear, it is the intimate knowledge of one’s strengths and weaknesses, passions and dislikes, which will guide personal strategy, sanity, and ultimate survival.

Yes, it is an evolving process, much of which is earned from experience and years, but I believe the sooner one is able to begin to describe oneself, if only to themselves, the more powerful that person will be.

The New Year

2011-01-03T00:11:00.004+08:00

What a confused entry below. Well, it is fitting considering it got somewhat confusing towards the end of last year. And you know, it still is.

Anyhow, it is nice to feature something I am not confused about. Adibah Amin's As I Was Passing is an outstanding offering of Malaysiana. Beyond that, she and I do have some thoughts in common, and when weary to write, it is encouraging and comforting to find someone who has been there, and said it before.

Good 2011 to you all!

Places

2010-09-23T22:55:00.008+08:00

Nothing like a Swatch to remind you about the passing of time – it ticks so loud.

As a child I did not spend more than 3 years living in the same city or town. And although some say adolescence is the most formative time of one’s life, I never quite lost the wanderlust from my childhood years of exploring the vibe of a brand new place, and inhaling the scent of possibilities only fresh paint in an empty house can offer.

I “incubated” in Petaling Jaya during my teenage years and cannot say I enjoyed it too much. One year in Sydney introducing me to myself, then it was back to base camp. I call it such because the next 8 years (man, that is a big number) was and is one big old fschiwizz of travels – 37 places and 16 countries, each experience alternately wonderful, lonesome, insightful, intimidating and peaceful in itself.

These opportunities come from work. I’ve been fortunate to get the corporate version of a Globe Trekker job. And to digress, I love how equalizing work can be. Hairdressing in Hong Kong is no different from hairdressing in Manila or anywhere else – a good cut is a good cut. Not much gives me more satisfaction than seeing a Malaysian working alongside and holding their own with people from different, more developed countries, I’ll be honest. For me, that is through playing in a field with rules and people from different places, and making it, on the books, and in my way.

Jalan-Jalan (I’m just travelling around)

I love traveling. Despite immigration and suitcases, I do. This I realized when standing in Amsterdam's airport at 5.30 am after a 13 hour flight, teeth un-brushed and slightly bleary eyed looking for the next connection, and I am inexplicably happy. I think it had something to do with spotting Ronald McDonald with that congenial arm draped around an airport bench, familiarity mixed up with adventure, like making a friend of an acquaintance you clicked well with before.

Some places will always feel a little bit like home – Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Antwerp. Some feel like I never knew them in past lives but have the maiden chance to start now – Busan, Bangkok, Tokyo. And some, I’ll just be passing through.

Being loyal to a place for me is similar to being loyal to someone. If it is the right person, it is not highs all the time but there are wonderful moments that keep you nourished, and despite the work and rough times there is a kind of peace from feeling that you are in the right place. And if it’s the wrong guy, it is suffocating and draining despite all the getting by.

Yet, at some point we all need to get past the second date, the second year, yes? I guess what you earn for accepting the ugliness alongside with the light is your own furniture, and your own someone to come home to. We reap what we sow. Good thing is, we can make our own rules and do it on our own terms, but we reap what we sow.

Getting acquainted with Antwerp

2010-08-04T04:01:00.007+08:00

Apparently this city lies at the crossroads of five international motorways, linking the Netherlands, Germany and France. Bergen op Zoom where I work is a speedy 30 minutes away, and Maxis sends me texts every morning when I cross the border, to tell me to enjoy my time in the Netherlands, and not to worry as I can call the Malaysian embassy at +31703506506 if I need to .

I love how urban it is here. It is classic and beautiful like so many European towns, but there is size, scope and enough trash on the street to make a city a city.

It feels a little like Sydney. It reminds me of how much I relish walking a city, disappear in it, discover it at my pace and make it my own.

I will make you a Bo Bunh

2010-07-25T08:40:00.011+08:00

One sunny day in Lausanne, I decide I would visit Dalat for dinner.

Tripadvisor highly recommends it so I take a cab, 10 minutes up slopes and into apartment suburbia.

I sit outdoors in a corner between the wall and the other side of the door, and a nice man hands me a menu in French, as most things are here. I don’t recognize the words but I smell something wonderful coming from the kitchen.

I suspect he is the owner, a French man who married a Vietnamese lady, and we gesture to each other that I don’t read but what is that cooking? Do I speak Vietnamese? No. Chinois, anyone? No. He decides to take me to the kitchen where I am introduced to a petite Asian lady with kind eyes.

For some reason, I am so happy to see her and I have a huge grin on my face when I tell her I am from Malaisie and could I please order what is cooking? Apparently there are several things cooking. After some back and forth, she tells me, she will make me a bo bunh. Her eyes tell me, with the confidence of a mother who knows what is good for you, this is what you want.

That settled, the one who I think is the husband takes me to choose my drink. He shows me the interior of the dark cooler and all its possibilities. I take a sugared green tea, which he makes a show of swirling in a wine glass and letting me try. I love this couple already.

The bo bunh comes – a bowl of vermicelli topped with beef sautéed in onions, spring rolls, carrots, beansprouts, peanuts and coriander. It is a hearty serving, yet I realize as I look at it that I am going to finish every last scrap. And I do. I take my time, for it is so good and so authentic that it makes me understand how food can be restorative, even remind a person of who he or she is.

These two people will never know the kindness they offered a homesick girl in a foreign land simply by being themselves and cooking good food. I am truly grateful.

2nd time around

2010-07-18T00:47:00.004+08:00

"Maybe I'd gone up twelve stories, then down three. Maybe I'd circled the globe. How would I know?
- Murakami -

Although there's nothing like being in a place for the first time, I say sometimes coming back is even sweeter.

Sydney after 7 years, and Amsterdam just about two, it's good to see you again.

Actually, it is Simple

2010-07-11T08:13:00.001+08:00

When things are going well, be grateful.
When things are not going well, don't worry.

Euro-Asia

2010-07-08T03:36:00.003+08:00

Where “privacy” and “personal space” are still buzzwords for some living in Asia, these here are requirements as basic as breathing, existence unfathomable without.

Where watching, gauging and measuring before speaking are valued as strengths, these may be a handicap here.

Strength, built from self-possession and individualism, pit against fluid power gained from years of tolerating and standing in the shoes of others.

A million other things, none right or wrong, just as different as apples are from oranges.

How is it we are so exhaustingly different? And how do we achieve more common ground?

Be it as Neil Gaiman said “If only experience could be endowed without experience”, surely we will be enriched by these times, but the currents of give and take make trying teachers.

The Dropdown List

2010-06-14T03:10:00.005+08:00

How is it that sometimes things are said quite eloquently?

“Because of the rat race, a lot of us have been pushed into studying something that would give us security for life”.
– Scarlette of Core Design Gallery, Timeout KL April 2010 –

If you were a post-secondary / college student in Malaysia in the late 90s, instead of “I want to be ___”, your career decision may likely have been influenced by “I will select from the below list”, which looked something like this:

1. Accountant
2. Engineer
3. Doctor
4. Banker
5. Lawyer
6. IT (no designations because to be honest at the time, no one really knew what it was, other than IT was the next big thing)
7. Pharmacist
8. I am struggling to even come up with more

Call it realities of capitalism, the developing country, or the arguable conservatism/foresight of parents who want the best for their children, there is no wrong or right. I do hope though, that we are moving towards an environment where individuals from more professions can find their choices equally rewarding in practical and personal aspects, so long as they do their jobs well.

To fill that blank myself, I might have said….anthropologist. What about you?

Discussion with an atheist

2010-06-08T23:55:00.007+08:00

Today a colleague of mine told me that spirits cannot exist in the same realm that we do, simply because the world would then be overpopulated. I told him that unlike real people, probably more than one spirit can sit in the same chair, so really they wouldn’t take up so much space.

This is the math grad who believes that there is no God (in the context of the bible, at least) because given the proven time that photosynthesis takes, the world could not have been created in 7 days. I don’t argue with that, but then, I haven’t read the bible.

Anyway, he counters by saying that even if this were true, at some point, we would still run out of room because think of the multitude of spirits we must have through time since the creation of man (being from Hong Kong, he is very concerned about space and population control. Being Malaysian, I am a little more easygoing about real estate in general).

Why then I say, that is exactly why we have reincarnation. Same soul, re-born into a different body that lives through a different time. At some point, perhaps that soul might move on to somewhere beyond, and there will be room for a new one here and there. Everyone/thing else in between, is what we accountants would just call timing differences.

Hey I don’t have all the answers, but mathematically it seems to make good sense, no?

Are we ever 100% ready?

2010-05-23T02:43:00.005+08:00

"How often I have found out where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else."
- R. Buckminster Fuller -

I guess maybe the idea is to first, set out.

God I hope I am a sophomore, but I am not really sure

2010-05-19T00:48:00.006+08:00

A good friend of mine once introduced the idea of the “University of Real Life” [社会大学], a place where there is no course duration, no syllabus, unlikely and unbeknownst teachers, and no guarantee of passing with honest study.

Two years ago, I made an “enrolment” of sorts into such an institution. I applied all my pre-requisites, watched and learned, and here are some takeaways I have so far:

- We are all alone, yet no man is an island
- Talk is cheap, yet information is power
- There are no perpetual friends and enemies, but relationships go a long way
- No news may or may not mean good news
- You may not agree with the rules of the game, but to be honest - winning is fun
- Go with the flow, but all is lost if you are not true to yourself

I’d like to say that 2+2=4, and I still believe that it does, but My Goodness, sometimes so many invisible forces need to come together to make that unsuspecting equation happen, and depending on who you are, who you know, what deliberately / inadvertently happens, it just may not add up despite best efforts.

I suspect that in the end, only I can define flying colors for myself. Until then, I'm just doing up the homework and waiting for the next lesson to unfold.

Life As We Know It

2010-05-09T23:49:00.025+08:00

Work took me to the slums of Malabon last week - this particular one was called "Vegetable", a community of makeshift huts built on a haphazard network of cement slabs and planks, elevated above trash and stagnant water below. Yet, life goes on every day as it does anywhere else.

Pouch pack everything: shampoo, cooking oil, washing powder, you name it. Small packs mean affordable prices for the low income groups.

How perfect Creation is: Flowers bloom, and children are beautiful no matter where.

Pedicab drivers: These guys were blaring a Tagalog version of "Nobody-nobody-but-you clap clap clap clap" (it is The song to play now for the upcoming elections).

Hardware store on wheels: Torches, batteries, mobile phone chargers and other bits and bobs.

These little convenience stores or "sari-sari" are everywhere - usually the store is at the front, and the family lives at the back. Salted eggs are painted red.

Resident dogs - these friendly guys looked like they'd been here a while, maybe seen a couple of things in their time.

Manila and me

2010-04-24T20:50:00.007+08:00

A barangay (Filipino: baranggay, [baraŋˈɡaj]), also known by its former Spanish adopted name, the barrio, is the smallest administrative division in the Philippines and is the native Filipino term for a village, district or ward. Barangays are further subdivided into smaller areas called Puroks (English: Zone). A sitio is a territorial enclave inside a barangay, especially in rural areas. Municipalities and cities are composed of barangays.

You get the idea - there are small places inside smaller places, which are then sub-divided into more small places. Welcome to the Manila, the city of villages.

It is important to exhale here, more than in most other cities I've been to. My most pronounced memory of Manila after spending about 3 months here in 2009 and being here again now, is the traffic jams. There are just a lot of cars. The roads burst at the seams at almost at every hour of the day. More flyovers and tunnels would help. Jeepneys, which typically do not go faster than 50 km/h should probably not be allowed on the highway. I am no city planner, but one should probably be able to turn right when they need to, instead of cramming with a crowd of vehicles turning left just to make a u-turn, and then join the futile congestion on the other side.

Still, that is life sometimes. Messy, a little hopeless and you just got to laugh. And keep on trucking, measuring out on each other’s patience and mercy as we go. In time, I hope we will all get home.

Why I Do What I Do Sometimes

2010-04-12T17:13:00.001+08:00

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

-Maya Angelou-

Thank you Alliz, for introducing a great lady!

Kita bebas beragama, maka saya beragama bebas

2010-04-09T17:07:00.013+08:00

Recently I was on a plane home from somewhere, and a teenager about 13 or 14 years old sat next to me. I will admit this – I deliberately ignored him. It was late, the plane was stuffy and he was the sort of fidgety, meng-a-a* kind of kid who pretended he wasn’t noticing if anyone was watching, yet acutely aware when someone was.

Anyhow. An hour or so after meals, we established we were both Malaysians and I asked if he was going home. He was, to his mum for the holidays from the international school he was attending in Surabaya. This and that for a little while more, and then:

“Aunty (well, I suppose I AM twice his age) orang Cina kan?”
“Ya”
“Tapi aunty boleh cakap Bahasa Melayu?”
“Kenapa pulak tak boleh?”
“Biasa orang Cina cakap Inggeris”
“...”
“Aunty Kristian?”
“Tak…”
“Habis Aunty agama apa?”
“Em.. I beragama bebas”
“Apa tu?”
“Percaya pada Tuhan, tapi bukan pada satu agama. Kenapa pulak?”
“Biasanya orang Cina agama Kristian”.

I wanted to sit him down, and ask him why he would think these things. In Malaysia, we all speak Malay. Granted, in varying degrees, but we all. speak. Malay. This is who we are.

Also, we are a God fearing nation as our Rukunegara first principle states, but it should be God we are united in believing, not religions decreed by race.

I know why he is right, yet he is so wrong. I want to re-adjust the structure of his thinking, almost how you would move the skeleton of a toy square to shape an octagon or triangle. Little shifts, that mean everything.

*meng-a-a: meng-attract attention

I'll Be Home for Christmas

2009-12-23T02:05:00.004+08:00

It is Winter Solstice today, the turn of the year on the Chinese calendar and Friday will be Christmas. Time for tong yuen, presents and family. Time to slow down, look around and a little charity.

This season, may you find yourself warm in the hearts of those dear to you. Merry Christmas!

One for The Girls

2009-10-30T00:27:00.007+08:00

I am in the company of great women. You know who you are.

Strong women. Well, maybe not physically, I am not that fit myself.

But strong-willed women. And sometimes strong-headed too.

We may not be easy to be with (some of the boys may say no girl is).

But then again, it is not that hard.

Her soul really is as deep as the sea.
It will be necessary to fight her at times. Please do.
But don’t ever forget, that you love her.
And never forget, that she loves you too.

To J and Z, to love and be loved. How wonderful. I am glad you have each other.

If I'd talked to my younger self re this entry

2009-10-20T17:44:00.013+08:00

http://roadtrip-pw.blogspot.com/2006/08/attagirl_14.html

I'd say, "Biting bullets with your teeth? Sure way to lose a couple of them."

Haha. Reading old entries is so priceless.

Of course there are Chow Sing Chi moments where you hear the gunshot, the impact throws your head to the side, and you slowly bring it back to face the camera with the bullet perfectly intact between your teeth, and I have had those moments. Cue hero music. But sweetie, just know that they may be shaky for a while.

Playing with the boys

2009-09-29T21:29:00.010+08:00

I work with more men than women these days. Clever men with knowledge, self-assuredness, decisiveness, forgiving forgetfulness, and liberating disregard of unimportant, needling things. But the following words from Franny and Zooey do bring a smile to my face; it is very much like this working with them sometimes:

“..standing around in hatless, smokey little groups of twos and threes and fours inside the heated waiting room, talking in voices that, almost without exception, sounded collegiately dogmatic, as though each young man, in his strident, conversational turn, was clearing up, once and for all, some highly controversial issue, one that the outside, non-matriculating world had been bungling, provocatively or not, for centuries”.

Tokyo Impressions

2009-09-29T21:15:00.004+08:00

I am in a hole-in-the-ground Thai restaurant in Akasaka. Thai music is playing in the background, the air is somewhat musty, understandably so (we are 2 floors underground) and I just spotted a wispy spider wave its legs above the door frame. My fellow diners are two Japanese guys drinking Singha, and a pair of Americans talking loudly in a corner.

Tokyo has trash - two empty cans of Coke in a park flowerbed. People do not walk as quickly as Hong Kongers. It is very clean here. The fizzy drinks are amazing. Women do not like to show their toes and thighs. People do not speak English, although they may understand it. Caucasians are more reserved here than I’ve seen them anywhere else.

I don’t know what I was expecting. But I appreciate Japan most for its acceptance of quiet. Silent mode equals manner mode. It’s okay to not talk, or want to talk. There is no need to project through words. No one minds. The relief is like a deflating balloon in your skull. One gets to know another slowly, acknowledging that layers are not to be discovered all at once. This is nice.

Where We Go

2009-08-23T23:35:00.005+08:00

Because I took this job for its travelling, I guess it is only apt that I do not forget what I did it for. So, in somewhat chronological order, I close my eyes and I see...

Hong Kong

1. Victoria Harbour and the skycraper skyline at night, most beautiful at night, from some cab speeding towards Causeway Bay from the office.

2. Me, standing outside Sogo on the corner of Queensway, holding out an outstretched palm, and literally feeling the current of the crowd run through it.

3. Me, trotting down the terminal gangway toward the Star Ferry, with a big grin on the inside - it's an institution! For HKD2.20 a ride.

4. Junk boats in the evening, with their red sails, which could not have been anything but as stately during the days of fisher people and straw hats.

5. My cousin, who said he would meet me on the Mid-Levels escalator. Where? Where I'll see him coming down and he'll see me coming up. And uncharacteristically whimsically, we did.

6. Dinner, with my sister at the wonderful M at the Fringe, amidst falling petals and the heady scent of flowers.

More for another day. Also to come - before I forget - Korea, Indonesia, Switzerland, Philippines, Australia. Cities, not the whole whopping country obviously, but it just makes for easier reference. And also as always, Malaysia.

Driving

2009-08-18T00:48:00.002+08:00

I cup my chin in my palm
And prop my elbow
On the smile of the wheel
And wait for the lights to turn

I cross my legs
With a foot on the pedal
And it’s pretty fun
To drive like this

I sing, and I rock it out
Like I’m in a club
To Alanis Morisette’s “Thank You”
Which goes down like cold lemonade
On a balmy day

I relish this
Accelerated mobility
Silence and independence
When on the road

Just me
And my little black car
Troopers – the both of us.

Places

2009-07-26T13:56:00.008+08:00

I would love to see:

- Elephants in Sri Lanka
- Icebergs in Greenland
- Bhutan
- the Greek islands with those white houses and that turquoise sea

What about you?

Quiet time

2009-07-21T19:03:00.005+08:00

Is:
- Cushioney
- Audible
- A place in the middle of the stairs

Today, it pays me a visit in the office. After much talking and listening to people talking, I am savouring it like a hot peppermint tea.

A Little Malaysian Goes A Long Way

2009-05-17T23:53:00.001+08:00

A Vietnamese meal and a bottle of wine were the beginning and the end.

The long and short of it was that I dropped my driver’s license, unknowingly, somewhere in the dark streets of Richmond, Melbourne one night in my search of the perfect bowl of Vietnamese noodles. About a week later, a lady working in Kampung Pandan, Kuala Lumpur sends a letter to my home, saying her brother in Melbourne picked my license up and would I like to have it sent, or collected somehow.

She had sent the letter twice, after having it returned the first time due to some postcode mix-up. I call her up, then her brother, who turns out to be a cook in Tien Tien, an Asian restaurant in St. Kilda’s. He says he came home one night, and there it was on his doorstep. Probably a neighbour had picked it off the street and thought it was his, or some relative’s.

I collect the fateful document at the restaurant, which is charming, and return a few days later with a bottle of wine as a gift. He takes it after much back and forth, then proceeds to cook dinner for me and a friend, and refuses to let us pay for it. Because we are all Malaysians, he says, and have “yuen fen”, to meet each another.

Kinship, across borders with people you have never met. I am inspired, and so comforted to have encountered this – simple yet amazing bond among us. Good things in life are hardly free, but you know, evil is banal as good is simple.

Thanks again Kee Weng! I am a lucky girl.

Good quote

2009-03-02T18:01:00.006+08:00

...Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves...Do not...seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will...gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Letters to a Young Poet, Letter No. 4

Without a doubt, for better or worse, this has somehow often been the case.

Thanking Distracted by Shiny Object, whose blog is on Blogs of Note today for the quote. Nice pages you got there.

1st quarter and selective feeding

2009-03-01T19:14:00.019+08:00

February gave me the slip. Today is March 1, before you know it the first quarter will be over.

Where am I? Where have I been? Well the year started sickly, literally. I was hospitalized for the first time in my life, for mild typhoid supposedly contracted from Indonesia. Then I went to Hong Kong. Then Manila. Then home for the Chinese New Year. Then Manila, and Hong Kong and Manila again. 3 weeks home, 6 weeks away. 7 weekends home, and 2 weekends away. Time measured in expense claim statements.

Well. I suppose that it just where I have physically been. In my mind, the hospital is far away and so much has happened since. It is true what they say - we race ahead. A month apart can mean many different things. It may not seem that way in hindsight when you are 50, but hey even 50 is getting redefined. I wouldn’t even use it as a benchmark of old people anymore.

An interesting quote picked up over the weekend:

“Ï guess that's what it's like with all our dreams and our nightmares, Martin, we've got to keep feeding them for them to stay alive.”

Yes we have time to feed. Yet we have a disproportionately larger amount of what do you call them? Things, to supply. Living the so-called corporate life half the time, and trying to make a life out of the other half means these "things" are called challenges, priorities, ideals, realities, emotions, surprises, disappointments, realizations, learnings, rubbish, egos, fatigue, hunger, adventures, reflections, appreciation, recuperation etc.

Getting lost. And finding your way, defining the way. Sometimes uncontrollably yet necessarily veering off it, redefining it, and staying on it. All take time.

But then, this entry is already longer than it should be. Because simply, there are only a few appetites that one should indulge at a time, and the trick is to have a handle on which.

It’s like finding the Optimal Feeding Pattern to Optimize Results of Life. I bet some management consultants would love to work on this one.

And on the flipside we find

2009-02-02T23:28:00.011+08:00

This other un-great thing about travelling. For business. And very frequently.

When you just had a great Chinese New Year break with family and good friends and it feels too soon to leave.

And packing and calling the cab seems to be going against every grain in your body - like slicing salmon sashimi in the wrong direction.

And you're standing in the terminal, holding an overly sweet chai latte with scalded sticky fingers because it spilled as you pulled the lid off.

And you sigh enough to move the plane as you unfold your little tray table and switch on your laptop.

But little mercies - the comfort hanging around in a bookshop brings, good enough company from the stranger sitting next to you, airport acquaintances who will share the journey to this place not our home, and colleagues who do not piss the hell out of you when you arrive.

I will want what I have. Oh the realities are so real they make me shudder, but I'm taking them. With a nod and that smile.

My first time in Europe

2008-12-25T21:26:00.012+08:00

Inspired by how interesting and strangely prophetic it is to read old blog entries, I will write about this, regardless of facebook status updates and posting of albums.

So. My first trip to Europe.

I got to see Lausanne, Paris and Amsterdam.

I saw snow-capped mountains while flying over Geneva and renewed that same feeling of awe when approaching the brick-red mountains of California last year. I can’t believe I am here.

I thought it plain silly to require euro coins to operate the luggage trolleys in the Geneva airport. Which foreigner lands with local coins on hand?

I was and still am intrigued by Evian, where they produce Evian across from Lake Ouchy in Lausanne. I hope I’ll get to go the next time.

I think the KLM lounge in Amsterdam is brilliant, and in Geneva like a bus stop.

I landed in hailing Amsterdam, and sat in bed watching the pebbly ice knock on the high windows in the dead of the night.

We missed the Thalys to Paris, and I got to see snow for the first time. It was cold.

We had the coziest, most wonderful apartment in Paris and I will never forget it. It even came with food, like a close relative had thought of you and stocked up before leaving.

People huddled close in queue to go up the Eiffel Tower – it was so cold. Just being up there, there in Paris, on the Eiffel! was for me, so fulfilling. Walking down through it was even better. I felt I knew how Batman felt, hanging on to the structures in that blue Gotham City light.

Sacre Coeur, or the Sacred Heart Church. It was snowing lightly and there were unpleasant peddlars trying to make a quick buck outside. But inside, it was so beautiful – you feel like God is really there. And the etching of Jesus on the ceiling is so handsome. Funnily too, a long holy-sounding statement in French by the solemn-looking pastor turned out to be an invitation to lunch after the service.

I cannot write everything down, but what else?

The Pantheon was a very nice surprise. The Foucault pendulum which told time (reliably 11 degrees every hour) is something to watch. Those art students sketching enthusiastically on the ground floor, and the great French dead resting below was a very interesting mix.

The Lourve – hmm, the Lourve. It is closed on Tuesdays, my friends. Don’t ever forget that. But in Musee d’Orsay, I feasted on the Impressionists, not believing I was actually seeing these works in the flesh. Another big check off my wishlist.

Then Amsterdam. Beautiful Amsterdam. I felt so at home, maybe because Ren Horng’s there. I wouldn’t have done the trip with anyone else.

There was a magical foggy afternoon which melted into a magical night. Bicycles and canals which belonged so much to each other the picture would be incomplete without either.

Dutch houses the color of dark chocolate rimmed with peppermint leaned quaintly towards and against each other, telling whimsical secrets from wisdom accrued since the 16th century. Little fairy lights dot the streets and bridges with their warm amber glow.

The girls at the Red Light district, so beautiful and powerful. Working girls with a determination in their eyes I recognize in my own. I did not feel sorry for them; they had the upper hand. And swans in the water, the image of purity conjured was an incongruous one, but then again, maybe it was not.

More museums, where I got acquainted with Dutch artists and Van Gogh. What a prolific man! Almost as though behind the demons in his mind, there was practicality to produce, do better and leave his mark.

In all, Europe was a wonderful fortnight. Parisians are not unfriendly as people say, and the Dutch speak good English so it's easy to get around. Looking forward to the next trip!

Another page out of The Prophet's book

2008-12-23T00:15:00.011+08:00

Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay."
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.

When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.

And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

-Kahlil Gibran-

Dear friends, may your 2009 be a year of peace and fulfilment. Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!

Ok so I found one detestful thing about travelling.

2008-11-22T00:34:00.004+08:00

Compared to airports and airline lounges, there aren't many more mind-numbing places that I can think of.

Perhaps because it is filled with people on their way to someplace else, the vibe is often restless, and busy in a million directions but here. Add on the queues, luggage waiting and hauling and weird displaced hours that don't belong in a day, and the novelty of duty-free shopping quickly runs out.

But then again, how do you make more hospitable a place that is built for the sole purpose of getting out of?

Wild, Potent and Beautiful

2008-10-19T17:43:00.006+08:00

The Juanda airport, against the setting Surabaya sun and freshwater farms. Did you know that here, airports are called cities in the sky?
Where the language is an upped ante, caffeinated version of Bahasa Melayu
In Jakarta, where the local music scene is so alive, I realised what it means to have a local music scene that is alive
Where the little bookstore in Soekarno-Hatta yielded Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer, which I had been looking for
Avocado juice, with deep brown streaks and pools of chocolate sauce

Indonesia - aku gembira kita bisa berkenalan.

The Sartorial Interview

2008-09-18T18:37:00.003+08:00

Tagged by Afti Rusli.

*Job?
Corporate Auditor.

*Best sartorial advice from your parents?
Mum: "Don't dress like an aunty"
Dad: Bunyi cengkerik comes to mind....but probably "Why wear until like that?"

*Style icons
Kate Hudson

*Describe your personal style
Boho-chic

*I build my daily look around...
What I feel like in the morning

*Personal Style quirk
Accessories with sentimental value

*Favorite designers
Let's see - designers that strike a chord...Elie Saab, Zac Posen, Missoni, Monique Lhuillier, Christian and Jeffrey from Project Runway...

*Most cherished item
My grandmother's 5 gold bangles

*I feel best wearing?
Anything that makes me feel like I can walk straight into a photo shoot. Annie Leibovitz's, preferably.

*The first thing I look at in another Sartorialist’s outfit...
Shoes

*I always break this fashion rule...
Wear suits for work

*I never break this fashion rule...
Don't wear brown shoes with black bottoms

*Never caught wearing?
Earrings. Don't have holes!

*Most underrated item in menswear/womenswear?
Have to agree with Afti - undergarments is a good one

*Dress to impress who?
Myself

*Shine your own shoes?
Never bothered

*Favorite stores?
I ALWAYS walk into MNG at the airport, Naf Naf at the Curve, Dorothy Perkins at One U, Jaspal at Pavilion. Come hell or high weather.

*Your next “must have” purchase?
Bought them already. Black pointy patent leather shoes.

*I only buy __________ in Europe.
Don't know man. Haven't been there yet.

*I skimp when buying …
Branded goods.

*I splurge on…..
Shirts (whenever I find a nice one)

*Favorite item of clothing
Depends on the mood of the day

*Guilty pleasure
Probably shoes.

*Cologne, skincare
Cologne gives me a headache. Loccitane and Body Shop for skincare.

*Most stylish city (Milan, Paris, London, New York, other)
Define stylish. I think any city can be stylish.

*When I was in high school I wore?
Too many bad outfits.

*Sports?
Does Yoga count?

*Favorite fashion magazine?
InStyle.

*Favorite vacation spot?
Haven't got a particular one yet.

*Favorite neighborhood restaurant?
Dragon-I, Centrepoint.

Tag: Doubleaye, Faza, Jo-Ann.

Teeth

2008-09-15T15:24:00.006+08:00

It has come to my attention today, that there are friends I did not know about who read this blog. Well, welcome, and hope you have come to stay.

Today, I will blog about a topic not particularly juicy, but interesting to me nonetheless.

If you make yourself really really small, like maybe half a cm tall, and stand on an adult human's lip, I guess teeth may seem something like the Stonehenge to you. Huge, old and immovable.

Imagine my surprise to find out that just like everything else, they rely on each other to stand, with balance pivoted on that point of leaning against the other. So when you take one away, like sleeping ogre children in a cot the adjacent ones wake up surprised, and rumble and grumble their way to making themselves heard.

Now imagine wiring them together and trying to pull them straight in a row.

Yes I just got braces put in. Not quite as traumatizing as I had imagined all these years, but not the most pleasant sensation either. Suffice to say that I am glad I waited for the right dentist, orthodontic options and ability to laugh at my own little scrapes to come along.

One day, I will tell you all about dentists’ nurses. Those ladies, who I usually find to be reserved with quiet compassion – they really have a good reason for that stoic expression. God bless their little souls for some of the literally twisted things they have had to see.

No matter how far your mind wanders, teeth decay if you don't brush them

2008-08-09T22:21:00.005+08:00

Nick Hornby quotes Oscar Wilde in “A Long Way Down”, saying one’s real life is often the life one does not lead, and the one you do lead does not let you be who you thought you were.

I commiserate. When I was eight, I was convinced that I would have my own condo and car by 24. It was only recently that I acknowledged I would probably never sing live at a concert in front of a thousand fans, and more recently than should have been that I would never be an accomplished ice-skater.

One body, 24 hours in a day, and only 100% to give.

I used to think of these as limitations but really, they are the default tools everyone gets to shape their life with, then fill it.

Ironically, knowing your boundaries is the only way to stretch them, the same way having a cup with finite capacity is the only way it can runneth over. And if you do it right, you might just be that kind of person for whom ex-ex colleagues still band together for a hearty send-off when you leave the country.

Child, sibling, friend, traveler, worker. That is all I am. And that is plenty.

The Occasional Detour

2008-06-19T23:29:00.002+08:00

I believe we all have our own paths to follow, and lessons to learn. For this reason, there is no point in envying or coveting, and in the same way showing up the next person.

I’m good with this concept, and most days live peacefully by it. But sometimes, there is just a need to step on over to that offensive someone's path and give him a tight slap in the face, before carrying on.

The Urgency of Transformation

2008-05-17T18:28:00.001+08:00

"When faced with a radical crisis, when the old way of being in the world, of interacting with each other and with the realm of nature doesn't work anymore, when survival is threatened by seemingly insurmountable problems, an individual life-form or a species - will either die or become extinct or rise above the limitations of its condition through an evolutionary leap."

by Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth.

What a great paragraph. I have always been one for the leaping.

Hey it's a little late to make resolutions but...

2008-05-12T18:04:00.006+08:00

This year - I will

1. Do something about things that make me unhappy.
2. Not sweat the small stuff.

The thing about moving forward is to never to look back, and I have figured out that it is because if you did, you'd be terrified to see the things you're leaving behind.

Feel your cells.

I am apprehensive, excited, in my zone, out of my league, all at the same time.

What If

2008-05-05T19:14:00.002+08:00

Two totally unrelated topics, but what if:

1. For one day, all of us knew how we really felt about each other. The complete realisation of what you are as perceived by the other person. Parents and children, husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, bosses and subordinates, friends and enemies and everything in between. Do you reckon we'd be better people for it?

2. The peace we have now in this country is at a stage where it is coincidental, that every day where nothing happens to you is because someone has not decided to commit a crime where you are? That really, the safety support system is no longer much more than the impression that there is one?

Getting off the EY interstate

2008-04-19T23:17:00.009+08:00

SM – who got off the table and wrote over every permanent-inked word on that whiteboard
DS – who said “learn, learn, learn” and “manage, manage, manage”
CO – who taught me to laugh at myself
DJS – who has an impact like no other, relating the theory of the four faces
GL – who closed the door and let me cry when I was not much but a girl hurt
RR – whose first response to bad news is often laughter
My teams and co-workers – with whom I cracked coconuts, jumped puddles, watched strung poultry, walked minefields, sang songs of high hopes and love after death, shopped, sunned, fished, wined and boozed, reheated and ate out with. Travelled and grew with.

There will never be another time like this.

Click and Snap

2008-03-02T22:37:00.004+08:00

Sitting on your sister’s bed in a new red knit dress, eating refried fish with soy sauce on a rainy Sunday evening.

Click.

The streetlamp light through the tree outside the house where you’re having your first barbeque party.

Lying on your stomach on the roof a car, talking hopes and dreams with a buddy like only two 18 year olds can.

The amazing number of stars you can see from an oil palm plantation at night.

Being spun around in a shopping cart on New Year’s Eve by your best mates.

I have a thing about taking mental snapshots for moments significant in a way that you know but sometimes can’t describe. Absorb the scene, let it sink through your eyes, hold it in your breath for a moment…and snap.

I like to believe that at the end of things, the road, whatever, apart from that bit where you finally find out how it all works out, there will also be a re-run of these pictures. Should be a good show.

Btw, can you believe it's March already?

Happy Chinese New Year!

2008-02-10T13:37:00.000+08:00

It's 2008 - it tastes of promise. And like every Chinese New Year in Malaysia it's sweltering as well, something to do with the soltices and equinoxes which I will go figure out at some point.

This year we get 4 restful days to eat, drink, be merry and try to lose weight after. And for those of you like me who get back to the grind tomorrow already, there was a nice Gibran passage on work which I meant to quote but no longer seems to make sense on a lazy Sunday afternoon like this.

Suffice to say good luck, good health and every happiness this Chinese New Year.

Gong Hei Fatt Choy!

Teabagger nights

2007-12-14T02:59:00.000+08:00

It's 3am and I am hungry. Caffienated with a headache hinting at my right temple, but it's an all-good kind of night.

Annual dinner tomorrow! My third in five years. Let's hope they don't give out last year's door gifts as lucky draw prizes again.

Bangkok, Thailand.

2007-12-07T22:48:00.000+08:00

Suvarnabumi Airport. Such an enchanting name. The smog – not so enchanting. The shopping – very enticing. The local charm – a little cloying.

Here’s the bit that’s priceless. The feeling you get, on a weekday morning, on your own at a train station, in a foreign land, headed towards nothing but possibilities of enjoying yourself for the day. When everyone around you is going to work. Makes me literally float around and laugh in annoying lilting tones.

Something else memorable – sitting in my first guesthouse room (Pranee Building, Soi Kasem San 1) bawling over pages of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. In the middle of the night for fear of a) bad hair from going to bed with wet hair and b) things that go bump in guesthouse nights.

The Day I Got Really Clever

2007-12-07T22:16:00.000+08:00

I recognized that I’d saw it coming.
I said the things I should have never stopped myself from saying.
I exposed you.
Despite not knowing what I would see.
I rolled with my gut. I reel from it still.
I was full of bravado, and I am spent from it still.
I hurt myself.
Maybe, I broke you too.
We were headed there anyway.
But no one deserves to be hurt in that way.
We both chose.
I’m learning still.
I saw what I needed.
But I’m reeling still.

"While your parents are alive, you should not go too far afield in your travels. If you do, your whereabouts should always be known"

2007-11-03T13:43:00.004+08:00

Like I said, I’m reading Confucius. I did expect to, and found some antiquated sayings, but was also pleasantly surprised to see that the Master was….

a decent relationship advice-giver…

The Master said “In his errors a man is true to type. Observe the errors and you will know the man”.

pretty damn funny…

Chi Wen always thought three times before taking action. When the Master was told of this, he commented “Twice is quite enough”.

a romantic...

The Master commented, “He did not really think of her. If he did, there is no such thing as being far away”.

downright relevant…

The Master said “ It is rare for a man to miss the mark through holding on to essentials”.

“To attack a task from the wrong end can do nothing but harm”.

And for better or worse pivotal, to the core of the Chinese judgment and mentality:

The Master said, “It is rare, indeed, for a man with cunning words and an ingratiating face to be benevolent”.

Did your parents, or even you ever look at someone for the first time, and go "chan hai yong suei lor" or "that man's face is kan tou sei"?
Yea, that makes two of us.

Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

2007-10-22T00:37:00.000+08:00

View from Victoria Peak, Hong Kong Island.

Bustling as they say, not as unfriendly and expensive to get a meal as expected though. The dimsum IS great, roasted goose personally is overrated, and yes Cantonese does help get you around.

17-21 October 2007. Family, bauble-shopping, catching up, fishballs so bouncy they induce toothaches, too much walking in not-so-right shoes, trams that run backwards downhill, bus drivers who step on it the nano-second you alight, people who walk and talk right into you. The Light Show from Aqua at One Peking, the old-school ferry ride across the harbour after.

Not unlike in KL, it's nice to see old and new things co-exist.

The Neighbourhood

2007-10-06T19:18:00.000+08:00

The little three storey shelf is a bustling place. On the ground level reside pale yellow RM8 Penguin editions of James Joyce, Henry James, an Edgar Allen Poe. Also a rickety combination of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, Treasure Island, assorted haunted and unhaunted fairytales, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula where it all began.

One floor up the serious favourites reign – Maugham, Orwell, Dahl and Rushdie hold their own in hard-bound omnibuses, paperbacks and dog-eared childhood copies of both well-known tales and the odd essay or prose.

Still higher is an eclectic mish-mash of pairs, trios and quintuplets of authors who respectfully managed to entice purchases beyond the first encounter - A.A. Milne, John Kennedy Toole, Banana Yoshimoto, Steinbeck, Wilde, Gibran, Carson McCullers and Roddy Doyle.

The rooftop is fashion high street – Penguin Read Red adventures with their crimson overleaf share space with Cecilia Ahern’s pretty, heart-rending brand of chick lit. Skip to the adjacent shelf and tucked in the corner are the Little Books – collections of Cicely Mary Barker, Mitch Albom, Freud and Confucius in appetizer portions resting atop a gift of Chairman Mao’s quotations.

Cross the room and you will find on the lofty top shelf the fabulous Singles. The Beach (yes the Leo DiCaprio movie), Kazuo Ishiguro’s Potrait of a Floating World, Peter Pan, To Kill a Mockingbird, Sylvia Plath, Ken Kesey and a few others powerful enough to evoke realisations, potential heaviness of the heart and laughter that catches you unaware each time attempted.

A jar of pencils sensibly divide these from some paperback heavyweights– the complete novels of Jane Austen, Tales from the Arabian Nights, and the alphabetical guide to Greek Classical Mythology, admittedly yet to be leafed but reassuring in their quiet promise of a good read.

Yet more un-reads on the coffee table by the bed, a variety of short stories, movie tie-ins, plays, and fiction from Shakespeare to Jonathan Safran Foer. Each in this row seems to promise a good time simply by being something new.

I wonder if books could speak, what would they say?

Songs

2007-09-15T00:19:00.000+08:00

Hey there Delilah by the Plain White T's.

Have you heard the song? I'm very fond of it, but it makes me kind of sad everytime I hear it because it's so full of hope, of the hope-with-abandon kind, which is the worst because it then becomes unbearably crushing if things don't actually work out. And the naivety in presuming that one person could manage everything that could pull a relationship through, without quite considering that just maybe, the other person doesn't feel the same way? Poor fella.

Everything by Michael Buble, now that somehow always makes me smile. Don't know how he's like in real life but lucky you, Emily Blunt! What a lovely, balanced, song of a relationship. How does one not marry a man that writes a song like that?

Mobile phone paralysis

2007-09-15T00:01:00.000+08:00

It's like it got the stroke or something.

The Right and Left cursors work, but the Up and Down ones don't.

The green Pick-up Call button works, but the red End-Call one doesn't.

The left sidekey skips 3 lines when it scrolls, but the right one for the camera works fine.

I adapt and learn new tricks. Scroll sideways 5 times when you want to scroll once up. Text "not" instead of "no" because the predictive text switch doesn't switch.

I'm wondering if this unpleasantry is going to last.

I could, but I don't want to get used to working around things that don't work.

I'm thinking, maybe it's time for a change.

1st post for September

2007-09-02T18:06:00.000+08:00

For lack of a better title. Almost every blog I've visited have an entry on random thoughts - I guess this is mine.

It's a mellow Sunday on a 3-day weekend. There really isn't a better word to describe an evening after an afternoon rain, golden sunlight on red rooftiles and the soundtrack of Elizabethtown on the player. Mellow is a word I haven't used a lot of in long time, I am reminded of it from JL's blog where it appears frequently - hope you had a good time in Bali, kid!

"Look closely at the beginning of the heart line. If there are small hairlike influence lines dropping away from the line or passing through it, the owner will be a restless type, constantly looking for something new to stimulate mind and body. It is not unknown for people of this sort to vary a routine journey just for the sake of change".

I have been harsh in my previous entry. Sometimes it isn't ego. It can be truly hard to be happy. You just have no idea how to at times. The negative half of things is real, justifiable and stares you in the face. You will have to consciously look the other way. That's tough.

"..that naive coarseness that women often prefer to the affectations of politeness, because it reveals the depths of thought and proves that feeling has won out over reason".

"Women was created for our ruin, and it is from her that all our miseries come".

:). The above two quotes from The Three Musketeers. I'm barely a third through, but at this point I think I'd like to date Athos.

How do I say this? When there are a million thoughts milling around your system, and sometimes you chance upon one which correctly explains so many others headed in the wrong direction, the relief makes you want to cry.

Death of Sorts

2007-08-26T22:38:00.000+08:00

This has been one of those great weekends where Saturday felt like a Sunday, hence Sunday felt like an extra day off. Which has left me time to be pensive over complex topics one should not spend too much time thinking about.

Like being happy. Over Thai food in Penang last Thursday night, my friend LCL tells me that the thing that keeps people from being happy is their Ego. Emm...hmm? She explains that Ego is what causes people the need to feel different from others. When really of course, we are all part of one another and part of the same body of...God.

Stay with me here.

Sometimes I suppose we do revel / wallow in our past experiences, hanging on long past their memorabilia due date because these make us feel that we have encountered a depth of something that others may not be enriched enough to understand, making us more special because we did. We "survived". Add sentimentality and you're singing too much of Pink's "Who Knew" when someone leaves your life - a death of sorts. Add cleverness and sometimes you get prejudice.

Doesn't help either that happiness is a pretty commonplace thing. Let's face it, most of the time we don't realise we had it until we get into an unhappier place and look back. Plus, happiness is a current thing, and living in the present is always scary - running the same circles of lessons unlearnt from the past has at least some hopeless certainty to it.

Maybe we shouldn't be afraid of forgetting since it's harder to forget than we think anyway. Maybe we shouldn't be afraid of a blank canvas everyday, although it may turn out to be empty, lonely or just plain boring.

Gone Snorkeling

2007-08-15T21:53:00.000+08:00

Coming to think of it, I really should post an underwater picture, but unfortunately I’m no proud owner of such useful camera gear. Also, this shot will always be special because piqued by the enthusiasm of a certain reassuring MC, it is where I first wander off safe, solid beachfront into the unknown under the cool, blue surface of the sea.

The beach just-around-the-corner of Gem Island, Terengganu

And what a party it is down there! Bulbous corals beckon, and when approached, you find that they are perched on some underwater rock and just beyond is space, storeys and storeys of space that open up below and entice you to dive down and explore. Fish graceful and playful, flitting things which make you think of every colour you’ve ever learnt of – carmine, indigo, teal, in combinations you’d never see on land. Sedentary sea cucumbers on the seabed, sea snails suctioned tight onto rocks, man I even saw an oyster.

And us – how encumbered and clumsy we are with our life jackets, mouthpieces and precious buoyancy, bumping our way through a world where I could not help but think we do not belong. If you stick your hand out and look at it under the water, you will find it an unnatural, unhealthy shade of greenish-grey, not unlike how fish look as they lose their gleam almost immediately when out of water.

Nevertheless, it was such fun to visit – I could almost hear the band carrying on as I made my way back over the sparkling water to land.

Hello Malaysians!

2007-08-04T22:53:00.000+08:00

It's Merdeka this month - we are 50. You may not find me at the Putrajaya parade but I still have a certain sentimentality about Tanggal 31 and all that, perhaps quite well represented by this ad in MAS' Going Places. It's a shame that it is so small here, I really liked the shots.

It IS the little things that make being Malaysian great. So many of us take for granted things which we share to an extent that amazingly every Malay, Chinese, Indian and other race in this country can call their own, yet respect that it comes from a different race. Like satay. Mamak. Yong Tau Foo. Our festivals - I've seen Chinese people wear their cheongsams during Hari Raya in the shopping malls just for the heck of it.

And for me, being known and accepted first as a Malaysian, then a Chinese. I don't think that neccessarily goes in that order in other countries of overseas Chinese diaspora.

Living in this country can be frustrating. Snatch thieves, seemingly increasing cases of people being cut up and stuffed in freezers, tunnel vision driving, public transportation networks not linked up, gripes of preferential treatment bla bla.

But you know what? I like it. I still believe in it. I believe in things big and small- like genuinely chummy conversations with cab drivers, the Prime Minister just because he looks like a good man, the layered tastes of our food, our identity. It's hard to define what that is because we are not the kind of people who put labels to things, but ironically that's exactly because we kind of know what's Malaysian and what's not without having to rename the rambutan the Malaysian lychee or something ridiculous like that.

So come back. Stay here. Stay wherever you are. But never forget who we are, and the little, frustrating, hilarious, heart-warming, trying, growing country called Malaysia where we come from.

Happy Merdeka Day!

San Francisco - The 2nd & 3rd week

2007-07-22T17:46:00.000+08:00

Shopping, shopping and more shopping. No, I'm just kidding. On the 2nd&3rd week of.. Friscmas? my goodself went to see..

One Exploratorium,

Two pretty cool museums - Asian Art & SF MoMA,

Three very nice bookstores - Adobe in Mission, Alexander in SoMA - opposite KPMG, whaddya know? and Overland in Pac Heights where i was very happy to find lots of Somerset Maugham in very old volumes,

Four guided tours - Local food tour around the city, Muir Woods & pretty Sausalito, Alcatraz - who knew audio tours could be so cool? and Yosemite National Park for a day (spend 2, if you do get the chance),

Five - don't have one for five actually,

Six parks and gardens - Yerba Buena, Japanese Tea Garden, Alice Street Community, Alta Plaza, Lafayette and Delores,

And a host of other things which won't fit in numbers nor a pear tree such as admire-till-you-drop Victorian houses, Union Square (go Macys!) & Gilroy shopping, hippy Haight district, Castro, electric light-bulbed Chinatown, brunch in Noe Valley, sleepy-grand City Hall, dimsum and beautiful Farmer's Markets fruits in Milbrae..and lots of tv on demand in the apartment.

Some of my favourite shots to share:

View of Transamerica Pyramid through Grant Street in Chinatown. I also found a Jack Kerouac street somewhere around here.

One of many ornate features on the walls inside City Hall. After some squinting, this one says:

"San Francisco O Glorious City of our hearts, That hast been tried and not found wanting, Go thou with like spirit to make the future thine".

The underground stage at The Purple Onion, where people like Woody Allen and Barbra Streisand got some of their earlier acts

The weeping maidens at The Palace of Fine Arts. If you look really closely, you can see the seagulls perched on their heads. I thought that was pretty funny.

Me and the Burghers of Calais at Stanford University. Ok so this is from the first week but I like this picture alot so it gets to be posted here. The Burghers were six French civilians who offered to sacrifice themselves to the English to end the siege back in 1347 against Calais, a French port.

THE Yosemite National Park and all its amazing forest and granite rocks. I did a little hike up along the way up to the Vernal Falls, alongside fit and fitter people, grumbling children and encouraging old people. Really great albeit sometimes scary viewpoints from up there.

Landscape north of San Francisco, on the bus ride back from Yosmemite. You might not be able to see it, but those are windmills atop the hill.

Richard Spreckel's (I think) mansion in Pacific Heights. Pretty postbox right? Crazy steep roads back down to Union Street from around here.

And last but not least, the sun setting over the Golden Gate Bridge, taken from the ferry back from Alcatraz tour.

Must not forget: Much thanks & salute! to Ziggy and Denzil for cross-continent IT support in restoring some of these pictures. I had a horrible scare over the weekend when my now-to-be-disposed thumbdrive collapsed with 414 of my shots.

Also big shout-out to Zuf and the boys in Bangladesh - hang in there and come home safely soon! Will keep some chocolates for you guys.

I'm coming home, I've done my time

2007-07-19T05:40:00.000+08:00

HK International Airport, Gate 23.

In a very nice way, of course. Tell you guys about the 2nd week a little bit later.

For now, it's 2.30 pm Weds in San Francisco, 5.50 am Thurs in Hong Kong where I am and probably 6.00 am in KL.

I am feeling...good. Alert, and normal, which is i think alot to say when flying through different time zones.

Good 12 hour stretch from SFO, sat next to a kind of short-fused Hongkie teenager who would awake from morose concentrated silences to snap at his dad at the window seat for his seemingly profound ignorance e.g. that HK is a 3 hour (well 15 hours, but 3 when you're adjusting your watch) difference from San Francisco. That, plus a pre-tty noisy baby across the aisle. His mother would give me a hapless, "can you believe this?" look every so often. The patience of parents of babies never ceases to amaze me.

Nevertheless, somehow managed to catch some decent shut-eye.

You know what happens on long-haul flights though? You get really THIRSTY. They don't allow water to be brought onto the plane, it comes in very small plastic cup portions on the flight, and if you are on transit in the middle of the night like me with no HK dollars, the vending machine looks sympathetic but can't do anything to help you.

----

Still HK International Airport, Shopping & Food Area

Thank goodness for fast food places that open at 6. Here I am, rejuvenated by a nice chrysanthemum drink bottled by, let's see Healthworks of Coca-Cola. Fascinating. That is one of my favourite things about travel. Eating and drinking whatever you don't seem to be able to get at home.

You know another thing that's true? All airports really do look the same after a while. Although I have sort of fulfilled my wanderlust for the past 3 weeks, do regret a little not being able to step out and see Hong Kong. It's a strange, time-warpy feeling being stuck in an airport.

San Francisco - The 1st Week

2007-07-10T14:49:00.000+08:00

I did plenty! Can't put it all down but here's a quick recap:

Monday 2/7: Arrive. Took the Bart - it's a nice train, something like the LRT.

Tuesday 3/7: Petaluma Outlet shopping. Pretty typical huh? This place is kind of insanely far away from town (but I got to cross the Golden Gate Bridge!), not somewhere I'd suggest attempting on your first day especially when your mind is fighting jetlag. But the 4th of July sale was on, so what was I supposed to do?

Wednesday 4/7: Berkeley. Ziggy goes to graduate school here and was kind enough to take us. We did the Scharffen Berger chocolate tour factory, learnt about nibs and orange chocolate lipgloss. The 4th Street area and shops are really nice - all relaxed and sunshiney. And to round the night off - I got to see 4th of July fireworks from on top of a hill.

Thursday 5/7: Fisherman's Wharf and North Beach. Yes we did the tram - got to stand next to the gripman too, his name was Fish. Clam chowder? Not great. Ripley's Museum? Pretty good fun. North Beach? Nice. Hilly but Coit Tower and the pretty houses and cafes is worth the walk. Here's Janine trying to figure where we're headed outside the St. Peter & Paul church:

Friday 6/7: Googleplex. Yes - the very coveted, "wonder what it's like inside" workplace. Wonder what it's like? No one's dressed for work, dogs are allowed and there are 14 gourmet cafes serving free food. Abit surreal for me.

Stanford University. Wow this is a nice campus. Earthy tones and low-rise buildings. I really liked the church - mosaics and warm colours have always done it for me. They also have a very nice park of Rodin sculptures - check out The Three Shades, now does that man have an appreciation for the human body and muscle shapes or what?

Saturday 7/7: Napa Valley. I remember being very very happy at Mumm - that's a sparkling wine vineyard. And what lovely vineyards - we went to V. Sattui (lunch here - good bbq ribs and deli), Clos Pegase (schmancy man, schamancy), Mumm (classy yet simple) and Clos DuVal (quaint, and so pretty). And then, more outlet shopping - as it turns out there was a Napa Valley Outlet Mall (shrug).

Sunday 8/7: Some Golden Gate Park gardens. It was a pretty chilly day. I liked the Legion of Honor museum alot - there was a pipe organ performance going on when we got there, which made the whole experience terribly atmospheric. Afterwards, Richmond Chinatown for tong sui and grocery shopping. Janine and I cooked up a success that night, notwithstanding toothpaste, falling soba and scrambling crabs. We deserved a big pat on the back. Us and Amy Beh both.

I don't hate you, but

2007-07-05T14:41:00.001+08:00

If I knew how to write clever little poems, I'd write one now, but I don't. NPS has correctly advised that I should just forget about the whole thing and get on fabulously with life, which I am, but I am also one for finding words to express exact feelings at certain points in time, so here's an ode of sorts to the ex:

I don't hate you but I do hate how you've made me:

1. Doubt every guy I see and get to know, thinking at some point he'll be able to hurt me, or any girl he's with.

2. Make what could possibly be one of the greatest trips of my life feel like a trip of recovery, rather than that of discovery and appreciation.

3. Have to have these moments where I tell myself "You'll be fine".

4. Feel terrible despite making the right decision.

5. Battle with the hurt of encountering something that reminds me of the good things about you, or us.

6. Cynical. At this point I don't think I could ever write an entry like "World Peas" or "Sniff" again.

So yes I don't hate you, you make that hard because you're a "nothing but nice" sort of person and full of vague yet cleverly phrased answers like "I don't have an answer for that yet", and "I don't know why you still want to speak to me" which detracts from the ugly chronology of the case.

So yes, lessons learnt and fingers burnt. Now let me go get on with the business of getting over it.

Arriving in San Francisco

2007-07-03T14:31:00.000+08:00

Because it was a stupefying question to me before I left as to what a person would do on a 17-hour flight from KL to SF, here's sharing what I actually did:

1. Browse in-flight sales magazine.

2. Pore through in-flight entertainment magazine. Which on SIA I must say, the entertainment is pretty darn good (see below). There were at least 8 movies i ticked to be watched / get excited about.

3. Flipped a couple random unmemorable magazines..gourmet food etc etc.

4. Movies!

The Land of Women - which is a terrible name for a really good movie. Love Adam Brody. And Meg Ryan.

Pretty Woman - not sure if the whole hooker makes good thing is still so condoned, but still, she had spunk and it was a good movie.

Black Snake Moan - if Justin Timberlake had 10 more minutes, the whole movie would be ruined. Boy's acting is okay, but eclipsed by the likes of Christina Ricci and Samuel L. Jackson.

5. Buy guilinggao at HK airport - had it confiscated before boarding..very annoyed.

6. Nap. Can you believe how lucky I was? On all legs the seat next to me was empty, so there was room, well some room to stretch out and sleep. VERY thankful for small stature.

7. Eat. If you ever get the Indian menu option, opt for it. The mango chutney is amazing.

And...4 airports, 2 airport transfers, 1 train ride later, here I am in the very lovely apartment of the very lovely JYoong and Ziggy, having crepes and thinking about how the weather is somewhat like autumn in Sydney. Only of course, this is summer.

Pinch me - I still don't quite believe I'm here.

Peter Pan

2007-06-26T22:12:00.000+08:00

Why didn't anyone tell me that this is such a sad story? I cried when I read the ending. I mean, there is just something so bloody tragic about how Peter forgets that Wendy has grown up and comes back every year for her, thinking she'll still be the little girl that will fly away to spring clean with him.

Imagine the shock. The betrayal! The sense of loss!

But then of course, he got over it and started off with some other little girl again. Because he's "gay and innocent and heartless" and all, but still the whole thing about everyone else growing up and leaving Peter behind again and again WITHOUT him knowing it, and him in turn forgetting them quite callously, actually, just made me weepy all over again.

So much for fairytales being light bedside reading material.

Blogthings

2007-06-08T12:29:00.000+08:00

To take a page out of Doubleaye's blog (hello!love your pages btw) this is what my birthday means, can you believe it?

I can see some people, yea yea I know who you are who are probably lol-ing and going "yeah, right. puh-leeze" - own up renhorng! but you know what? It's true, actually. It is. Never thought of rose being a powerful colour, i'll admit..but the rest, not something you might see on me everyday if you don't know me well enough, but it's true. A free computer generated thingy has somehow got it quite right.

Your Birthdate: February 6

You tend to be a the rock in relationships - people depend on you.
Thoughtful and caring, you often put others needs first.
You aren't content to help those you know... you want to give to the world.
An idealist, you strive for positive change and dream about how much better things could be.

Your strength: Your intuition

Your weakness: You put yourself last

Your power color: Rose

Your power symbol: Cloud

Your power month: June

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

You know what is really great?

2007-06-07T14:51:00.000+08:00

1. Introducing Joss Stone - the album. Summery.
2. Little Miss Sunshine - the movie. Real.
3. Cicely Mary Barker - the drawings. Pretty.
4. Herbalists - the knowledge. Whimsical.
5. San Francisco in July - the trip. Rejuvenating.

If you google yourself..

2007-06-05T13:45:00.000+08:00

you sometimes find that you, or your namesake at least are already famous.

In my case, I am an Asian diner in just about 20 states across the US. I knew this earlier, but just sharing this with you guys now because a. I am too distracted to work (nobody works after OD-ing on an entire season of Grey's Anatomy) and b. it is really fascinating. Check out the site man - i have a logo and all.

The Big Bookstore sale

2007-06-05T01:01:00.000+08:00

Is on at Atria in Damansara Jaya from now until end of the month (or 10th June I can't quite remember).

It is with some reservation that I divulge this information to you people, because seriously, I think these Big Bookstore people have no idea about the value of the books they are selling.

Almost all paperbacks go for 10-12 ringgit. And these are good books - same titles you would find in MPH / Borders. Travel journals, fiction, classic, bestsellers, conspiracy theories, collectible giftbooks, really-great-children-books, cookbooks etc etc AND etc.

Only word of warning - the fiction and paperbacks especially are mostly just arranged by size? rather than any other particular order. It's pretty random so don't get frustrated if you can't find a particular author / title you're looking for. Rather, I just tend to sift through and pick out whatever may look fascinating.

Can't wax the same lyrical over the Book Fair in KLCC Convention Centre, unfortunately. One big Popular bookstore in a fancy building - with RM2 entrance fee.

Change

2007-06-04T22:27:00.000+08:00

You know what change is like sometimes? It's like learning a new song in a language you don't understand.

You watch closely the words that are coming out of peoples' mouths, and you mouth along with them. You don't know what it means, and it doesn't make any sense but you say it. And repeat it to yourself again and again until the words develop shapes and meaning. Until you eventually learn it.

Why do you do it? Because you have to. Because although there is a kind of comfort in understanding the situation you are in, understanding it doesn't make it better. Because there are things that you can't tell yourself. Because it is people whom you believe in, and believe in you who are telling you these things.

You don't become someone different. I was relieved when I figured that out. It's not that easy to become someone different. Who a person is, is so much bigger than what the person can control. But if you force it, try to make change tangible, then all you get is a small, superficial, subset of what you are trying to become. That, and an overly loud voice (your own, actually) trying to convince yourself of your "new" self.

So just be. Know that it doesn't happen overnight. Know that you can be different things in a day. There will be days when you know things are better, and there will be days when you realise they are not fine yet. Like in a break-up, there will be looking in the mirror and seeing the sadness in your own eyes, but there will also be a day where you see sadness, but you'll have strength to let it run through you without looking away.

Point being, change does not neccessarily make things better all at once. Rather, in choosing to act, to make some changes, you've earned the right to have some clarity over what's going on in your life. And I'll tell you this - while it may be painful, the sensation of lucidity which flows through your body right up to your fingertips sure beats the numbness of the easier but pointless fantasising / rehashing of "what could have" or "what really" happened.

Till I Wise Up

2007-05-23T23:57:00.000+08:00

On the soundtrack of Jerry Maguire, there is this song by Aimee Mann which says, "It's not going to stop, til you wise up".

Caution - this entry is about my recent break-up. Again. And I'm sorry if the previous few entries have not been happy ones, but you know what, it's a bleeding miserable time.

I am pretty sure what happened now. It's one of the oldest stories in the books, it's stupid and it ain't pleasant - but I'll leave that for another day. I'll post it for sure, because I'll need it on PMS-raged days, or rainy days when I might get convolutedly compassionate where no compassion is called for or when self-doubt sets in. A break-up done wrong can be devastating, not just because of the emotional loss, but the loss of self-esteem as well.

Today I will talk about lessons. Cycles. Repetition. Same kind of guys I seem to keep going out with. Guys who leave me because they seemingly don't want to "hold me back". Guys who can't lead me. Taurean guys. Guys who need fixing or some kind of polishing to make them whole. Guys who cry when they say goodbye yet neither flinch or look back. Do I attract them or do I get attracted to them for some reason? Here's the honest truth - I like fixing people. I like seeing the best in people which they don't see themselves, and draw it out of them. I like giving people time. I keep thinking, one day he'll be "All That" and I would've been "The girl who did it with him". Sk8terBoi style. This has not happened yet.

Maybe I can love saving people, but shouldn't fall in love with such characters.

And I've somehow always been riled up by Type-A guys; the smug, clever ones who are so damned sure of themselves. Why? I don't know. Why? Maybe because I think girls who are equally clever do not feel the need to act as smug. Maybe because I think smart guys never really want to go out with smart girls. Maybe because I think I'm one of the so-called "smart girls"? Sure, why not.

And I'm not sure if I'm totally wrong. I wasn't right, that's for sure and that's hard for me to take. It shakes me. I am shaken. I missed a meeting at work today - I've never done that, not unintentionally anyway.

But Dorothy Boyd says "At least I can do something about it now". I am going to try. It's hard - learning about yourself is always hard, especially when you have to do it alone. But let's face it, it's the situations where you're most alone like dealing with a death, being lost in a forest etc. where you learn most about yourself, isn't it?

Last Night in Bintulu

2007-05-16T02:19:00.000+08:00

And an eventful one it is. Tonight I met one guy who has been happily married for two years and another guy who is unhappily about to be married.

The first one keeps a video of his wedding on his mobile and shows it to us like it's any other event in his life, such as his last fishing trip. I kind of liked that - apart from the gloss of being supposedly "the" event of your life, it was also one of the things he liked enough to share on an everyday basis.

The other guy just got registered for marriage today, and somewhere between one and too many drinks asked me, if there was anything wrong with marrying one person, but loving another. I just gave him a reproachful look, but in hindsight I think I should've told him that I didn't think he should get married at all.

But really, I wasn't sure. At first you think you have all the right answers about these things, but who's to say video guy won't stop being happy tomorrow, and soon-to-be-married guy won't start?

Anyhow. Bintulu. It's been an interesting time - the place has its unexpected charms, we made some friends and there were some firsts - open sea fishing with a bunch of divers being one of them. If you think about it, it's actually quite safe. Afterall, since the greatest danger is really that of drowning, what's the worry since you have a boat to pick you up and an oxygen tank if you need one?

Maybe Angels

2007-05-11T14:38:00.000+08:00

The Catholics – they have angels. Beings that watch over you, because God is so great that sometimes human beings can’t really ‘see’ and communicate with Him.

Mine sits with me. He looks somewhat like Billy Crudup, and he sits on the side on the bath tub while I lean against the door and bawl my eyes out. I give him a look which says it all, and he gives me a look which says that he understands.

I come and sit next to him. I tell him I am defeated and I am tired. He says, “That’s ok”. It helps to know that it’s ok to be defeated and tired. We sit for awhile more.

Dear Charles and Poh Suan, congratulations and God bless. May the angels be watching over you too.

Soy sauce, television and fair skin

2007-05-02T21:26:00.000+08:00

Apparently these are things which make husbands and children of Asian, Chinese in particular women want to come home to them.

In one particular soy sauce advertisement, a woman manages to get her eating-out husband to come home for dinner by switching to a more delicious soy sauce brand. Same with the ad selling TVs, where a lonely mum and wife upgrades to a bigger screen to entice her son and husband back to the house. And in a Taiwanese ad, a precocious 6-year old actually tells his mum that she's not good-looking because her skin is dark! Upon which she purchases a Dr Bai skin whitening cream and it all ends happily ever after.

Why does this kind of idiocy still exist, unfortunately more predominantly in the Asian culture? And why is it husbands and mostly sons, not daughters?

I do hope that these manufacturers are wrong. About the number of Chinese men AND women who buy into these concepts. Yes I think it'd be nice to be able to cook a good meal, and yes MiCasa SuCasa may translate into having a 41" for some but really, in the end I hope that my husband or children will come home to me simply because I'm me. And God grant me the strength to not buy some stupid condiment or night cream to measure my self-worth by.

Hermit crabbing

2007-04-26T22:39:00.000+08:00

We have hermit crabs. From the beach of Similajau National Park of Bintulu, Sarawak.

My colleague RL had this epiphany while on the beach that we should pick up some crabs which are apparently sold for like RM20 each in KL and keep them as pets.

So now in our hotel room in a takeaway box (which www.hermit-crabs.com/ tells me is not quite the right crabitat but we'll figure something out), we have about 15 active crustaceans and a clam, which frankly quite shocked us by turning out to be alive.

We feed them all a diet of drinking water and Quaker oats which they seem to enjoy, and these guys have really been quite entertaining with their daily clambering and digging, and more clambering and more digging - it's incredibly peaceful yet intriguing to watch.

Some trivia, correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that hermit crabs:

1. Move backwards or sideways but never forward

2. Move their legs in circular breast-strokes, which sort of explains how they form those sandballs on the beach

3. Like standing on each other alot

4. Have one big and one small claw..

...and we're still learning.

I managed to cajole the hotel's housekeeping guy to feed the boys (we like to believe they are boys) over the long Labour Day / Wesak weekend. Apart from being slightly worried they might get out of the box and under the sheets, he's pretty game. Have I mentioned how great these Everly people are?

Reality bites..more like chomps away savagely at your guts

2007-04-21T00:21:00.000+08:00

When I was a young-er person, I made several vows, if you like to myself i.e.

1. To always do what I think is God's work, and
2. To never forget what it feels like to be a child

Now these, while having served me well have also landed me in a fair bit of trouble. Trouble meaning?

Meaning believing unrealistically in the fundamental good of people, and expecting again unrealistically, that people should act a certain way because of how you treat them. And believe in them. And try for them. And of course the older and wiser will rightly expect, this has ended up in SO many disappointments to-date in this disgusting period of my 20s, where apart from crash landing on the hard tarmac of real life you're also supposed to find your place on it.

It's 12.45am and no time to be politically correct.

There is fundamental good in people. It's just that together with it there is fear, weakness, self-preservation instincts, priorities, whatever!else that push come to shove makes them act...differently from how you thought they would. And like a child, each time it happens I am still surprised - why would someone do that to me?

Work has helped. 4 years have helped me separate responsibility from commitment, and the understanding of how to meld the two again if I want to. It has made me see that sometimes there is a need to make bad decisions for some people in order to make a good decision for more in the end. More importantly, just because someone or something is the centre of your world does not mean you are the centre of theirs. And vice-versa.

So now....while I still think it's bloody hard to do God's work I do think that praying for clarity shows me the path to do what is right, objectively by everyone involved, and usually that is pretty much the best decision there is. And the other part of the pact? I'll take the wonderment, and but with some armory involved. You need it to keep it.

Back in Bintulu

2007-04-18T22:50:00.000+08:00

for another month or so. Here;

1. The stars are really bright at night

2. There's a surprising amount of seamstresses around town - under staircases, in houses, near supermarkets, upstairs of shoplots - I've appointed a particular Shirley myself, whom I am currently overwhelming with bales of Japanese-inspired-Indonesian fabric and Project Runway dreams

3. Fruits are beautiful, wild and strange - thorny longans, pink starfruits, snakeskin fruit, sappy dates called dabai, and the list goes on.

Gray's Anatomy Season 3! is on tv - gotta go.

Wounded, Pruned, Shaken, Threshed, Sifted, Ground and Kneaded

2007-03-30T21:15:00.000+08:00

On 24 March my two-years-and-a-week-shy-of-7 months relationship ended.

While this is one of the most private things to have happened, I feel that I should say something about it here since this is supposed to be about things that happen to me when they do, for better or worse right?

So.

A week ago I might've wrote something different. I might've tried to tell you what happened or at least what I thought happened. I might've tried to explain what it's like to not know what to think or feel about something that you thought you knew most about. I wanted to tell you about how somehow through this break-up I found myself again in the hearts of friends and family, who whether they knew it or not, nothing short of reached in and literally saved me. I am fine, because they tell me I will be.

But today I am going to tell you that it is a wound. A big festering thing for the past three weeks that, in a way exploded last Saturday night amidst too much Heineken and bloody Westlife. :).

Just like a gash on your head you dread each time you remember it's there, knowing that it will hurt to the touch. When you do accidentally brush against it - you wince and can't really believe it - then you remember in a rush of blurry pain how it got there in the first place.

I literally walk around like an injured person, my feet drag and my mind is semi-focused on just getting through the day. I pace myself because I have only myself to get through this with- this hurt which is ironically caused by the one person who was simply, my sanctuary in other times of pain.

But just like other wounds, i'm thinking the sides will start to dry out, the scab will grow and one day the centre - the red, bloody pulsating middle which just when you think will never heal, will.

Someday...I will be Saturday night. I just hope that when I do it will not take as much as I think it will to make me really smile again.

Where to Stay in Bintulu

2007-03-27T12:49:00.000+08:00

If you ever come to Bintulu, Sarawak and need someplace to stay, choose Everly Parkcity.

It’s my favourite kind of business hotel - a little place which works hard and makes good choices. The lifts are efficient, porters are quick and use of space is smart.

The décor (newly refurbished) is not ostentatious and features are actually functional e.g. the pretty hanging things which you see from the lobby are lights for the sunken café. Unlike Marriot IOI Putrajaya, where the huge pillars and well, just…pillars…and have pineapple (?) motives on top of them for reasons only the designer him/herself knows.

The rooms are spick-and-span, water pressure is strong and the beds are GREAT; smooth crisp linen and pillows that are just-the-right height.

The food I would consider to be good, although there were some hits and misses at dinner, but that could be due to us ordering something out of the menu..haha. But the pizza, is really worth a mention. It stands on its own in competition with Itallianies or Pizza Uno, not just something you eat because you have to eat in the hotel, you know?

Above and beyond all, the people of Everly are its greatest charm. It’s not about the rehearsed welcome smile and niceties, plenty of that in KL where I come from, but it’s about just being in tune with what people really need when they need them and well, simply providing it. Maybe it’s because they’re genuinely good people at heart, or there's some x-factor in their training - probably abit of both, but Management, you should be proud that you’re doing something right and that your people really live your “Best 4-star Hotel in Malaysia for Service Award” status.

So if you do fly MAS, and do see the ad in the in-flight mag which says “Everly Awaits You..” believe it, and come. Let these people warm your weary, business-traveller heart and show you what a good hotel is really about.

Have you loved before?

2007-03-21T00:05:00.000+08:00

"And with a great voice he said,

When love beckons you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked
He sifts you to free you from your husks
He grinds you to whiteness
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God".
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no desire but to fulfil itself.

But if you love and must have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night
To know the pain of too much tenderness
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving
To rest at noon and meditate love's ecstasy
To return home at eventide with gratitude
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips."

The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran

It's long, it is easy to forget - I forget it too sometimes but I think every word is true.

Have you loved before?

Flight of Fancy

2006-11-02T23:59:00.000+08:00

I took a plane to Penang last over the weekend.

While at the waiting bay, I watched two goofy sisters fall over one another, a rambunctious family offer sweets to a very keen little boy and his not-so-keen mother and a lady who did not look like she'd wear colour wearing colours in Bang-on-the-Door shades.

On the plane, I sat next to a pair of twins - grown men wearing yellow shirts, one in checks and the other in plain. They had round faces and both carried little bags for their size - a little backpack and a little carry-all. They spoke in that way that only twins can and understand and went to sleep in the middle of the flight - I felt like custodian of twiddleDum and Dee.

A little girl on the next aisle thought she landed the plane - as we were descending she pressed out her palms, kung-fu style. Afterwhich she told her mother very decisively that this caused the plane to stop. She had bright bossy eyes - her elder sister was so much more timid, and you realise how every little girl is different from the next.

Sometimes, it's nice to be on your own - your eyes see so much more when you're a fly on the wall.

My fascination with Pomegranates

2006-10-28T01:46:00.000+08:00

Which as it turns out is a fairly enchanting fruit:

1. Symbol for righteousness in Jewish tradition because it is said to have 613 seeds which corresponds with the 613 commandments of the Torah (Hebrew teachings).

2. In Greek mythology, Hades tricks Persephone into living in the Underworld for six months of each year by getting her to eat six pomegranate seeds while she was his prisoner - these six months become autumn and winter where the land is no longer fertile, as Persephone's mother Demeter the Goddess of Harvest grieves her absence.

3. In Buddhist legend (pretty awful story, this one) the demoness Hariti, who devoured children, was cured of her evil habit by the Buddha, who gave her a pomegranate to eat.

4. The Prophet Mohammad advised, “Eat the pomegranate, for it purges the system of envy and hatred.”

5. In early Christian doctrine, some believe that Eve was tempted with a pomegranate in the Garden of Eden rather than an apple as the actual fruit is not identified in the Old Testament Book of Genesis.

That, plus being very a pretty fruit, as well as having properties which cure weary hearts (pomegranate juice makes grenadine syrup which can be used in a whopping 583 types of cocktails!) and ill tummies (medicinally, seriously) grants it a spot in my book of not-quite-sure-why-this-is-important fixations.

Seasons Greetings

2006-10-24T00:19:00.000+08:00

How do yis like the new look? Big thank you to Denzil for helping out with the background :)

And yes, HAPPY HAPPY DEEPARAYA to all Hindu and Muslim folks out there! Have a safe and blessed holiday.

Actually I do have an analogy Re:My Work Situation

2006-10-15T13:36:00.000+08:00

The Sausage Situation

You know how sausages are made - gunk they call meat is stuffed into tube-like casings then tied at the ends? As you may imagine, there are specifications for such things e.g. a 2-inch casing fits 10 grams of meat. Well, the boss says one day "Multiply the meat by 10 and stuff it into a 1-inch casing". Us the minion-machine operators grumble and complain, but the boss says, "The client wants the orders tomorrow - that's final". The machine makes awful grinding noises, it shudders and sputters then the shit/meat explodes and hits the fan. It all goes splattering and everyone runs for cover.

Post retail therapy - I have another insight. Slightly more hopeful, I'd like to think.

The Inferno Situation

Instead of a wiener-churning machine, there is a burning building before me. As Junior Firefighter, the Superintendent says to me "Get in there, pull out the survivors, find the source and put it out". "But the fire has gotten so huge! (I protest) Getting in will be suicide!". And the Superintendent says "The client wants the building intact and everyone in it saved - it can't be helped that they only called us after it is almost razed to the ground".

But unlike the sausage situation, I choose another option. I pick up my extinguisher (tiny as it may be to fit my petite frame), put out the flames from the outside, and assess the damage after. It won't be pretty and there may be casualties but at least we won't all get slapped in the face with leftovers scraped from the carcass of animals. (If you are doubting it - don't, I really did review a sausage plant).

Move along move along when the hope is gone

2006-10-14T13:32:00.000+08:00

I have a car suction-cup thingee which says "When the going gets tough, the tough goes shopping".

How do I begin to explain what the going is like for me right now? aftotz does a pretty good job of hers, but I just don't really want to start because if I do, like a boss of mine says it really makes "my blood go upstairs". And things will start getting blown out of proportion, or are they already?

Suffice to say I now know what statements like "sanity hanging by a thread" means and it's really scary but I think I commisserate with Sylvia Plath's whole belljar concept more than I would like to.

So. I once said something about making choices and biting bullets, not excuses.

The thing is, to me there was always a difference between doing what it takes, and doing what you can do. And I always thought, if everyone tried a little harder to do what it takes, then we'd be so much closer to what it should be, less people would have to just do what they can do, the world would be a better place etc.

But now, when it comes to choosing between my sanity and what it takes, I choose my sanity - there's no bouncing back if you're broken. Maybe that's what the truth is about - people do what they can because doing what it takes is not feasible for survival.

So. My laptop taskbar is hung - I am going shopping in about an hour. Hopefully when I am back it'll be the little man, instead of the Wizard of Oz waiting.

Perspective my dear, is everything.

What my world needs now

2006-10-09T00:24:00.000+08:00

Is..

1. for the haze to go away
2. for internet banking from the bloody bank to be available 24-hours
3. a weekend without work
4. a really good iced chocolate

but what i do have - new shoes, a sister with permanently free hi-speed wifi, and someone who wades through workends with me. Enough reason for a smile.

Work sucks, I know

2006-09-24T11:16:00.000+08:00

I should be working, but I am really grumpy. And not able to see how faith, humility, courage, DEFINITELY not grace nor humour comes into the equation. And if fafalynx can bitch about work all the time on his blog, so can I.

It is Sunday. I am sleep-deprived. I have a job next week - the conditions are not perfect. I know what needs to be done - I am just too bloody blech about the situation to run with it.

It's like there's a call for the brighter, shinier version of me - seems like there always is these days! which is getting harder and harder for me to pick up. Maybe one day I just won't, and see what happens. George Orwell says: You have talked so often on going to the dogs - and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off alot of anxiety.

I have always been afraid of the dogs.

The Evening News

2006-09-15T22:59:00.000+08:00

The Taiwanese are angry.
The Muslim are upset.

Living with others has got to be one of the hardest, longest lessons to be learnt in life. When does providing for oneself cross the line to greed? And what happens if upholding your most sacred beliefs means attacking that of another person’s?

I guess the question is, is it really necessary? Truthfully, to you and not for the perception of anybody else, is it really necessary?

Do the family and friends really need to be rolling in money to be considered comfortable? Was the comment on Prophet Muhamad really necessary to put across that wars in the name of God cannot really be in the name of God?

Humans are hopelessly flawed, no matter who we are. For that reason alone, let’s never kid ourselves that any of us are above the other. Tread slowly and listen hard to voices other than your own. Everyone owes each other that much.

2006-08-27T22:21:00.000+08:00

Lumut to me is one of those places in Malaysia which is rather well-known, yet strangely does not have a proper highway exit. You get here either by getting off the North-South Highway at Bidor, Changkat something, or Gopeng/Batu Gajah and it’s a good 1-2 hours of trunk road journey from there.

Anyway, how to get to Lumut isn’t the point of this entry. What you do once you get here is. Apart from Pulau Pangkor which I bet people here don’t go to everyday, there is well, not much.

Today a colleague and I went to Teluk Batik, a beach about 15-20 minutes from Lumut. In not so many words, it’s like Port Dickson - not as dirty, but just about as enchanting. I think the best thing about our visit was this bunch of guys who were burying two of their friends in the sand, and making a real effort of it. At the end, one guy had sand boobs with pebble nipples and another had a coconut frond in a beer bottle vase stuck by his side. Very entertaining, but rather disturbing as well to watch grown men do this with the fervour of 12-year olds. And the artistry of Martha Stewart.

So what am I doing? Actually with the lack of the very-global Astro, I am watching local channels and learning quite a bit. Like:
1. there's a whole flush of local reality programs apart from Malaysian Idol
2. there are Malaysian teenagers who actually don’t know how many years we’ve been independent
3. there's this program that talks about restoring our old cinemas which I thought nobody cared about
4. the "I'm Not Stupid" series is surprisingly funny and real for something Singaporean, and
5. that there IS an updated version of the Adabi spice mix advertisement

I have another week to go - let's see what else comes my way.

Attagirl

2006-08-14T23:37:00.000+08:00

My favourite women in movies are Kate Hudson playing Penny Lane in Almost Famous and Zhou Xun playing Sun Na in Perhaps Love.

Why are these characters so great? Because although their lives were not perfect, they were fabulous, as my friend Jo would say. They made choices, not excuses and bit all of their own bullets. Right between the teeth, and with a smile too because as a chick lit I once read rightly pointed out - there is nothing more unattractive in this world than bitterness.

After which of course, since it’s a movie (but I do believe in life imitating art and vice-versa), they prevail. Stronger, a bit battered but so much wiser and on their way to the next discovery.

I think that’s a really good way to live.

thanks to http://penny-lane5.livejournal.com/ for the almost famous icon - nice work!

Rollercoaster

2006-08-05T00:15:00.000+08:00

There are times in life when you fear. I don’t that think anyone has spoken about dealing with it quite as eloquently as Morrie Schwartz, so I will step aside and let him tell you himself:

By throwing yourself into these emotions, allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what fear is. Recognize its’ texture, moisture, the shiver down the back, the quick flash of heat that crosses your brain - then you are able to say, “Okay. This is fear. Step away from it. Step away.”

- adapted from Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom -

For me, fear is when the mind closes in (this usually happens when I find myself in a dentist’s chair or eye-to-eye with a doctor’s syringe). Fingertips turn cold and there are walls everywhere I turn. I want to grasp blindly.

How on earth does one step away? I think as with all other quagmires, you hang on to someone or something and heave. I think that the someone(s) are those who love you enough to somehow will things to work out, and the something is your faith and perspective.

Hold on. It will pass - like rollercoaster rides, waiting IS the worst part. Let's do a day at a time and before you know it, we'll be on the sunny-side-up again. You are one of the most fearless persons I know.

Listen

2006-08-03T23:59:00.000+08:00

There's just something really great about American country music. The ones I like at least, and I won't pretend that I'm a seasoned listener or whatever.

Maybe it's the bang-on-the-nail lyrics, honest-to-goodness tunes, how it escapes being corny while rhyming or maybe simply because it doesn't try too hard.

Neil Young: When God Made Me. Spot on. All the right questions.

Dixie Chicks: Landslide. Brings back memories, but good ones now from where i'm looking.

Keith Urban: You'll Think of Me. Now that's a real man's breakup song. Nick Lachey, please take whatever's left of you and get some lessons.

Apologies for being technologically-challenged; would've put in some clever links for you peops to sample the music if I knew how to.

It Ain't A Party

2006-07-30T16:59:00.000+08:00

I work in an accounting firm, a Big 4 if you like. In such a firm, everyone in and out of the business knows that faces change faster than a Chinese Bianlian show.

Having said that, I will give you a first-hand account of what it’s like.

Corny but true and I make no apologies, it’s rather like the America’s Next Top Model lineup on TV - where each week one character fades from the picture until at the end, there is that last one standing. Only in this case, you don’t really know what you’ve won.

The next starry-eyed batch comes along (just like TV the show must go on, you see) and camaraderie has to be rebuilt, jokes retold, and friendships reforged. It gets old, and shockingly after not-quite 4 years of this jazz, I am tired.

Yes, work is just work, but somehow the workplace is not all about work is it? Unless you are from the cold-hearted, single-minded, climb-ladder-at-all-costs kind of school, the people who run the mill with you everyday do matter.

In short; allizdavidsengfunpohsuandilloncharleswaichoongcheliangjusttomentionafew, you are greatly missed. Group trips are not the same without you.

Sick Speechless

2006-07-27T15:46:00.000+08:00

Leaky nose. Cracked lips. Ping-pong ball lump at the back of my throat. Swallowing is a teary affair. Panadol after meals. Sleep after Panadols.

My brain works but in instalments. I need my bed and pajamas.

So here I am, propped up by pillows and achy knees.

Thank God for e-mail and sms, I can enjoy my own silence.

Big CROAKY birthday shoutout though, to the Musicman - Happy 25th!! Take the weekend off, buddy.

Miss Universe 2006

2006-07-25T00:08:00.000+08:00

This is what the world has come to.

I watched my Astro Starworld with growing horror as the title was officially won by a walking toothpick with a marble for a head. I mean, could she BE any skinnier? What happened to healthy looking girls with proportionately-sized boobs? What happened to Miss Japan - spunky, warm, sexy and by far with the most intelligent answers?

Okay. In all honesty, she wasn’t the only set of unnaturally gaunt cheekbones and protruding shoulder blades to grace the stage that night. But to grant this culture of emaciation the oldest crown and sash of universal beauty?!

I’m just thinking if this is the way things go, there may not be a Miss Universe next year. Not because of any anti-anorexia outrage, but simply because Little Miss Puerto Rico (and I emphasise little) could’ve disappeared sideways and not be around to give the crown away.

Food for thought, no pun intended - apparently she passed out during a post pageant conference. Too hot and dress too tight, as the reps say? Maybe. Pure hunger from bird-like diets in the months leading up to the competition? More likely.

p/s: Kudos to Project Runway - Miss USA Tara Conner's dress was great.

John Mayer sings...

2006-07-22T20:21:00.000+08:00

I wonder sometimes
About the outcome
Of a still verdictless life
Am I living it right?

At 25 - a commonly accepted age for the onset of quarter life crisis, I do wonder.

Living it right? My say:

It’s about choosing whoever you are. No waking up and not recognizing the person in the mirror, less whining about all the people who “make my life this way”. People try, but you make your life - no one can or wants to take that responsibility away.

It’s about debunking myths, while existing within them. Society in my view (especially the middle class Malaysian one) seems to think that there are only two types of young people - The Ones Who Toe the Line, and The Ones Who well, Don't. The former usually perceived to be more successful albeit rather boring, and the latter less likely to have the 'good job' although possibly more exciting hobbies. We have to have the courage to believe that these “quadrants” don’t exist. In-betweens do, and it is always the person that makes the job or lifestyle, never vice-versa.

It’s about acting. Action segregates the inspirers from the never-quite-theres. Translate your ideals into something tangible - small as it may be, or sit and gather dust with it on the shelf. It is a lonely place with echoes of past audiences, memories of those who believed in you, and a great view of the world passing by.

It’s about growing, reaching for new experiences instead of rehashing old triumphs. Friendships too - let’s go for a beer and talk about something you really want to say. Let’s be able to say “You’ve changed somewhat from what I remember, but so have I. I’ll get to know you now”.

So. After all this talk you ask "What about you, Little-Miss-Philosophy?"

Is my life still verdictless? Yes.

Do I remember though, all the things which I want to be? Everyday.

Will I get there? Baby steps now in unchartered waters, but yes. Yes.

Fly, Flying, Flown

2006-07-18T18:57:00.000+08:00

Touch down.

Rub the sleep out of your eyes.

Get your bags. Look back and wave.

Let the games begin.

Pick up your feet, but don’t trip.

Work it, girls. Let’s just work it.

p/s: Happy birthday, David :)

Malaysian Nights

2006-07-17T23:13:00.000+08:00

Mosquitoes must be one of the worst things about living in the tropics.

The word that comes to mind: RELENTLESS.

The same damn mosquito mind you, just one can keep you up all night.

11.30pm: Spot it flying around. Switch on Vape* - go to bed in the comfort of its poisonous protection.

1.00am: Vape has worn off. Mosquito has bitten 3 spots on right leg and 2 on left arm. Too damn sleepy to get up and replace the Vape mat. Scratch like mad and cocoon self in blanket - hah! There’s no where to bite now.

3.00am: Mosquito bites ankle and baby toe. Also dive-bombs a sting on earlobe. That's it. Get up, switch on the bedside light. Offer bare arms up as 'bait' and wait for it to strike. Come on! It's war now.

3.30am: It does not come. They must be smarter than we give them credit for. Damn it! Sleep beckons. I have less endurance than an insect. Must never enlist for war.

5.00am: It strikes AGAIN. Surprised it managed to find fresh skin surface at all. Almost pleading now..only 3 more hours till 8! Give me a break! Turn around to scratch, then..I see it. It’s gotten slow, gorged and fat. Oblivious of its impending doom.

SLAP. I am a little disappointed to see so little blood spilt. Surely there’s more to show for a whole night of listless dreams and itching, itching, itching.

I am resigned. Sleep now. The enemy is gone.

* Vape: By Fumakilla. Slip in a Vape Mat, switch electricity on, heat releases d-allethrin (40mg/mat apparently) which keeps mozzies away. Probably not the best for human inhalation as well, but I’ll take my chances.