24 Nov 2010 – Survivor of the Fittest!

Yesterday Jo made me lunch. While sitting in her living room supposedly watching TV, but more focus on the birds outside. These birds are so tamed and used to getting food that they fly into her house. By the door on top of a shelf are bits of bread for them. Previously the bread was just thrown out on the lawn but the bigger black magpies would fight the smaller sparrows… survivors of the fittest! With this arrangement, there is some control with that only the smaller birds are welcome. There is also a blue pet budgerigar in a cage… the irony of life. Birds in cage is a sad sight to my eyes! Tomorrow I will be roasting another bird for Thanksgiving dinner… another survivor of the fittest 🙂

Shopping in IKEA yesterday evening really made my day! Went there to get a bracket to for the microwave (also ended up getting some decorative Christmas lights… like I needed them!!) and decided to grab a bite there. Their chicken wings are quite decent. Found a tall table by the window where I could watch the rush-hour traffic. Just finished enjoying a few pieces of wings, a bottle of pear-cider when I heard this timid soft voice in Chinese… 請 問 literally translated to please ask, meaning may I ask in a formal polite form. Looked up to see this nerdy (no derogatory meant) young man with black rimmed glasses gesturing to my tray to ask if I was done so that he could clear it.

This took me by such a surprise as I do not even remember when and where I have encountered such soft-spoken courtesy especially in the IKEA cafe! Managed to murmured a quick thank you. Such gestures are far and in between and was in such a state of amazement that I forgot to ask his name. Will write to the IKEA management to thank this young man for making my day.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world – Francis Bacon

22 Nov 2010 – as only a Mother would know!

~A Cup of Tea ~

Had a nice Sat breakfast at our local wet market with Audrey WONG. She is one of the few younger SIN I know who has character and personality. She and her family will be off to NZ for the holidays. Safe journeys to them. Sun dinner with Les & Ivy. Have been so busy since my return that some of my clothes were still in the luggage, a badly needed weekend of cleaning and clearing up. Now that it is cleaned and cleared, messing it up again! with my Christmas preparations and the LAM Heritage research, the never-ending project…

Sharing this cute picture of Sophie. youngest grandchild who recently has been puking and got us all worried. Thank goodness she is now better. Linn has received the Thanksgiving care package Huang mailed from HI. Thanks Huang. Hope that it wasn’t the candies that caused Sophie to throw up. Cousin Yun who knew me at that age remarked that Sophie looks like me at that same age, except a blond version! Others who did not know me at that age also said same. Poor Sophie but she will grow out of that looks soon 🙂

One day my mother was out and my dad was in charge o f me.

Someone had given me a little tea set as a gift, and it was one of my favorite toys.

Daddy was in the living room engrossed in the evening news when I brought him a little cup of tea,  which was just water.  After several cups of tea and lots of praise for such yummy tea, my mom came home.

My dad made her wait in the living room to watch me bring him a cup of tea, because it was ‘just the cutest thing!’  Mom waited and sure enough, here I came down the hall with a cup of tea for Daddy and she watched him drink it up.

Then she said, (as only a mother would know), ‘Did it ever occur to you that the only place she can reach to get water, is the toilet’?

…. have a good week !

20 Nov 2010 – Two movies

Spring Fever* set in present day Nanjing, portrays contemporary China as a seething hotbed of erotic curiosity and discontent. Luo Haitao has been hired by Wang Ping’s wife to spy on the passionate relationship between her husband and another man, but slowly loses control of the situation. With his girlfriend, Li Jing, he is drawn in to the affair, overcome by dangerous malady that leads the heart and head astray to a damnable journey of jealousy and obsessive love.

There are both English & French subtitles and sometimes on top of each other, rather annoying. In addition, many of the scenes are far too dim, thus more confusion.  Not my type of movie!

Son of Babylon**** Best Foreign Language Film at the 83rd Academy Awards and the winner for the Peace Film Award this year featured a movie from Iraq. A willful young boy follows his just as obstinate grandmother in a journey across Iraq, determined to discover the fate of her missing son, Ahmed’s father, who never returned from war. The sad consequences of wars where someone will lose a grandfather, father, father-in-law, husband, son, son-in-law, grandson, brother, brother-in-law, uncle, boyfriend, friend, lover, acquaintance etc… does this list justify wars???

Some of the other reasons besides winning the awards to watch this movie are thoughts of my Iraqi brother-in-law Khalid AMEEN who has been living in SIN since the 1970s. How does he feel with his family living in Iraq?

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace – John Lennon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzHAVgJzx5U&NR=1

18 Nov 2010 – Until we meet again!

Last night Hong Sze hosted a delicious seafood/vegetarian farewell dinner for Pui Ah at Copthorne King’s Hotel Tien Court Restaurant*** Thank you Hong Sze for including me to the family dinner. Good to catch up with some of the WONG clan. Have not seen Sam & Orlando since their wedding dinner/posting Weekend 23 Feb 2009. Pui Ah flies back to Vancouver via HKG today. Her two weeks have certainly flown by quickly too! Next year is just around the corner and hopefully we will meet again then.

Scallops

Sea cucumber

Braised cod

Foo chuk (soya skin) with bamboo.
No pictures of soup, noodles and almond paste for dessert!

Don’t be dismayed at goodbyes
A farewell is necessary before you can meet again
And meeting again, after moments or lifetime, is certain for those who are friends – Richard Bach

17 Nov 2010 – Selamat Hari Raya Haji/Feast of Sacrifice

Mon: an afternoon with auntie Winnie Olivero LAM from HI who will be returning back to HI on Wed. Aloha and safe journeys to her.

Tue: news from cousin LAM ChengEn in Shanghai that the fire was only a few streets from his place. Sad for the 53 who lost their life and 126 who are injured by this disaster which engulfed the entire building in 15mins. A few days ago Richard posted on Facebook – Chinese Build 15-Story Hotel in Just Six Days… that’s how long it took to build this level 9 Earthquake-resistant, sound-proofed, thermal-insulated 15-story hotel in Shanghai, complete with everything, from the cabling to three-pane windows…

6 days to build, 15mins to destroy! A relationship can take a life-time to build but just one sentence to destroy!!

The La MaMa Experience at The Room Upstairs@ACTION Theatre featured bits and pieces from SIN playwrights CHONG Tze Chien, Jean and Verena TAY. 42 Waterloo Street has been transformed from a two-storey pre-war bungalow to a charming place which now houses an intimate 112-seater studio theatre, two cosy outdoor performance spaces and a Mexican restaurant. ACTION Theatre, a non-profit professional theatre company that focuses on developing and presenting original new works.

Wed: Hari Raya Haji is a festival for the Muslims in SIN to mark the end of their annual holy pilgrimage to Mecca and is celebrated after 70 days of the holy month of Ramandan. The prayers started at 0800hrs in the HDB common areas, in this case the tent is pitched in the common grounds of the basket-ball court. There is also a Chinese wake going on next to it and a few weeks ago a Malay wedding.

The multiculturalism makes life more interesting, provided that one learns to respect the differences! The complexity is a never-ending challenge! Today the prayers seemed to be dampened and shorter compared to the usual loud broadcasting over the microphone! Do I sense that there might be some respect for the departed next door??

عيد مبارك Eid Mubarak=blessed festival or may you enjoy a blessed festival, a traditional Muslim greeting reserved for use on this festival. For me the arabic script and calligraphy is one of the most elegant and beautiful writings, even without understanding a single word of  it! ايمي =Amy 🙂

O unbelievers, I serve not what you serve and you are not serving what I serve, nor am I serving what you have served, neither are you serving what I serve. To you your religion and to me my religion – Qur’an

14 Nov 2010 – This & That

Fri: grand-nephew Lucas‘s high point at present is to ride the sky-train@Changi Airport. Does not take or cost much to make this 2+yrs toddler to be happily running and singing away. Enjoy while it last as he too will certainly grow out of this and will want to ride the fastest train someday! The luxury of being a grand-auntie is that I allow myself to treat and share a scope of chocolate ice cream with him! Lucas has his grandmother by his finger tips but he is smart enough to not try his nonsense with me, perhaps he finds me intimidating 🙂

Sat: thanks to Lena and Pui Ah for introducing The Storytelling Association SIN (SAS has 40+ members). Jessie GOH (In Search of Ralina), Rosemarie SOMAIAH (Hunger), Juriah ATNA (The Chempaka Tree), Kamini RAMACHANDRAN/founder of Moonshadow Stories, Verena TAY (The Gravedigger), Dolly LEOW (Peony Flowers) and NG Seng Chuan (The Incredible Story of the Legendary Dr Faust) all did an excellent job with their storytellings@The Substation. Tonight’s program is Beyond Knowing-Tales of the Unexpected… and I thought that Halloween was over!

Date & Venue: Sunday 14th of Nov 1100hrs onwards@Tanjong Beach Sentosa
Things to bring: a big smile on your face, happy mood, food and drinks.
Attire: Skimpy and sexy beach wear… yeah, right!  ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸❤¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪

The rains certainly did not dampen the spirits on this combined Bday picnic celebrations for Beverly & Hakim. My contribution was a home-made tropical fruit salad. Thanks for including me in this international gathering and glad to meet people from Australia, Bangladesh, France, Germany, India and Taiwan.

The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease
Hints at human imperfection
Where there is perfection there is no story to tell – Ben Okri

10 Nov 2010 – More Voices from the Past

Pui Ah REYNOLDS/Canada and LOH Yoke Seong/Ireland are back visiting their families. Pui Ah is a family friend from the 1950s. Seong & Pui Ah are friends and classmates from CHIJ. Met Seong in Dublin during our boarding schools days. She attended The Hall while I was at Alex. At present she has an organic farm in Ireland. The network connections can be complicated, thus will not go into details, but it is always fun to catch up and yackety-yak with people one does not regularly get to see. Appreciations to SY CHONG for a nice lunch at the Grand Mercure Roxy Hotel***and thanks for sister Jo’s company.

Today the Christmas package to the grandchildren was mailed by surface mail. Was told that it would take 6-8 weeks. So let’s hope that it will be 6 weeks. Tried to have dinner with Pui Ah at the Banana Leaf in Little India, but unfortunately it was still closed due to the Deepavali celebrations. The lovely lights are still lit and will probably remain so until the Christmas lights at Orchard Road are switched on.

Japanese movie Flowers** Rin is worried about her arranged marriage in which her parents setup in the 1930s. Eventually, Rin has three daughters: Kaoru – who tragically loses her husband in a car accident, Midori – a career woman who becomes shaken by a marriage proposal, and Sato who dies after giving birth to Yoshi. In the 1960s Sato gives birth to Kanna and Yoshi. In the present day, Kanna is now worried about becoming a single mother. A story about 3 generations of Japanese women… slow and confusing at times.

So organic farming practices are something that, to me, are interlinked with the idea of using biodiesel – Daryl Hannah

7 Nov 2010 – Gastronomical Weekend