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

5 Nov 2010 – Happy Deepavali/Diwali

This morning I was woken with much commotion outside my flat, my first thought was that they are starting the Deepavali celebrations. No, but the muslim neighbour will be going to Mecca on her Hajj and having 100 people for lunch to announce her pilgrimage. Today is a day of all kinds of celebration including a lunch hosted by Les. To Hindu friends & their families and the Indian Community, Happy Diwali. This is what I really like about SIN, the celebrations of all the races & religions’ special days.

My brother, Dato Dr Leslie LAM one Asia’s most renowned cardiologists appeared in the latest This Quarterly and it was funny to have the magazines staring at me at the bookshop when I was Christmas shopping. Another strange thing is this box with the word MORMOR, had to find out what it is all about as mormor in Norwegian=mothermother=grandmother on the maternal side. That is how all my grandchildren address me! Turns out to be a piece of material which is so diversified and can be worn in countless ways… quite a good way to portray a grandmother 🙂

Playing tourist guide to Jan SOSA’s friend Linda STEWART from Toronto/Canada but ended up seeing new buildings and skylines for the first time and older skylines in another angle! It was nice to see young people having clean fun with a sack-race by the new Fullerton Bay Hotel*****

The truth is that existence wants your life to become a festival… because when you are unhappy, you also throw unhappiness all around – Diwali Quotes

4 Nov 2010 – The Accidental Billionaires

Paul took off back to L’don after his two days conference and Linda flew off via China back to LAX. Hope that she will get a chance to see the LAM ancestral hall in Jiangmen when she is in Guangzhon. Catching up with movies and starting with Christmas shopping, just hate the thought of fighting with the crowd when the time gets nearer!

The Accidental Billionaires: The founding of Facebook, a tale of sex, money, genius and betrayal is a 2009 book by Ben MEZRICH about the founding of Facebook. Co-founder Eduardo SAVERIN served as MEZRICH’s main consultant. Mark ZUCKERBERY declined speaking with Ben while the book was being researched and after Mark and Eduardo settled their lawsuit, Eduardo broke off contact with Ben.

The movie The Social Network*** is based on the above book. 2hrs long with good acting but will anyone (besides those who are involved in it) ever know the true facts behind the startup of the sensational website/Facebook that grip the world? As Mark’s creation grows bigger by the day, politics, backstabbing, legal suits, differences in opinions creep in, ultimately, costing him to loose his only friend and partner in the company. A sad life of the corporate world!

The internet’s not written in pencil Mark, it’s written in ink. And you published that Erica Albright was a bitch right before you made some ignorant crack about my family’s name, my bra size, and then rated women based on their hotness – from the movie The Social Network

It’s a Wonderful Afterlife** this Bollywood comedy uses satirical and Ealing-style humour to depict life among the Indian community in the London suburb of Southall. Mrs Sethi is a widow who wishes to marry off her only daughter Roopi who is a little chubby and opinionated. Mrs Sethi finds that all her matchmaking efforts to find a suitor for Roopi are rudely rejected. She avenges her by killing off the failed dates using her culinary skills. A police hunt begins for a serial murderer using a killer curry.

Mrs S feels no guilt until the spirits of her victims come back to haunt her. They are unable to be reincarnated until their murderer dies. Mrs S must kill herself to free the spirits, but vows to get her daughter married off before this. Entertaining with some good laughs. The moral, don’t mess with daughters who have revengeful mothers 🙂

2 Nov 2010 – Quit or Retire!

Sharing some scenes of the progress in SIN. Whenever I return from a long trip, the skyline changes and so has one of my bus route. 16 bus which normally takes me to the stadium (now under construction, thus barricaded) is now re-routed and I had to go nearly all the way to town to reconnect with the new Circle MRT line/Yellow line into Stadium Station! Time to buy a new Bus Guide book! It is certainly impressive with all these progress; wish that the people here can also progress as impressively with their courtesy & smile campaigns!

Now if anyone can tell me how many containers plus the tonnage can fit onto the container ship in the picture, I will surely appreciate it!

Nov special dates:

5 Happy Deepavali to the Indian community

11 Happy Bday Audrey MOH

13 Happy Bday LEUNG Yee Fun

17 Selemat Hari Raya Hagi to the Muslim community

19 Happy Bday Yulis ADAM TEO

25 Happy Thanksgiving

27 Happy Bday Daisy CHIA

29 Happy 4th Bday to my only grandson John Whitham HALL

30 Happy Bday LAM Kwok Chai

Thanks to my Norwegian friend Mette BACKER, the picture made my day 🙂

Perhaps it is time to quit and retire?
Skjønner dere hvorfor det var på tide å pensjonere seg kanskje?

31 Oct 2010 – Trick or Treat

Pictures of Linn & May‘s 1987 Halloween in Long Beach, CA/USA. 1985 the 1st Halloween in USA, May was even afraid to go Trick or Treating until she discovered that people gave her candies! Those were the days when parents had to check through all the candies as there were some psychopaths lacing candies with drugs etc then. Will not bother to go into the origins etc of Halloween. Just let the kids enjoy the Trick of Treating without bringing religion into it. The ancient Celtic times, this celebration is to observe the end of the harvest season and that is a perfectly good enough reason for me. Thus Happy Pumpkin Day!

A pleasant surprise treat yesterday: Linda (TANG Pui Chung) & Alfred TAY called to say that they are in SIN for a wedding. Linda‘s mother is my father’s first cousin (our parents’ father, ie our grandfathers LAM Ji Chiew & LAM Song Kee were brothers). When our mothers played mahjong in the 1950s, Linda and I would be running around playing@5Temenggong Rd. Her brothers played with Les who has not seen Linda or her brothers over 40yrs! The TANGS immigrated to CA in the early 1960s. Appreciations to Linda & Alfred who kindly and graciously helped me to settle in when I moved to CA in 1985.

Thank you to Les & Ivy for hosting dinner@Sentosa Golf Club and for a lovely weekend@Sentosa Cove. Managed to enjoy a good walk and swim yesterday morning. Les just got his tonsils out on Fri as they discovered some stones, very unusual but was informed that nothing too serious. Hope this will stop his throat irritations. According to Ivy, he must be one of the world’s eldest tonsillectomy patient 🙂

Next week is going to be one hectic week. Auntie Winnie arrived from HI on Fri, Paul arrived from L’don tonight (another treat!) and some Canadian friend of friend arrives tomorrow!

A grandmother pretends she doesn’t know who you are on Halloween –
Erma Bombeck