Sunday, December 31, 2006

10,889


As the year draws to a close
Let me see
If I've lived a worthy life.

10,889 days have passed
Since the day I popped
From the amnionic depths.

What have I accomplished
I hope it's a long list
That this page will not fill
What have I missed
I'd rather not dwell on
As new resolutions swell.

People say
A lifetime is short
But not until I count it for you.

If you lived to 90,
It will only be but 30,000 days
Few centenarians
Can survive 40,000 days.

In this age of giga-anything
Mere thousands are nothing
But life holds a deeper meaning
Live it well
Our 30-thousand days on earth
Can mean many a great thing.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !


Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Of Meeting and Missing

10 years. I've been a regular at the interstate bus interchange in Melaka for 10 friggin years - from when it was only a little corner by the Melaka River to its current residence at the bustling Melaka Sentral, specially built for this purpose as travel demands continue to be on the rise. Orang Melaka are venturing to other states for a myriad purposes - further education, better jobs, holidays, to visit loved ones. In the same spirit, Sentral welcomes "foreigners" both from within Malaysia and abroad as Melaka, I'm proud to say, continues to be a favourite tourist destination in Malaysia. One really hasn't seen Malaysia until he's been to Melaka.

Yet, yesterday, as I sat in the JB-bound coach and watched families kiss goodbye and a couple hug, I was suddenly overcome by emotions. It could be the fact that it's Christmas - Why can't we stay and spend more time with our families?! Such is life these days, economic strength sustains life, sustains family. We have to be apart now so we can be together in a better economic climate, in future. F**k the future. If you have to be with someone dear, do it now. If you have to say something important to someone significant, do it now.

NOW. NOW. NOW.
NO Wait.

{Or it's the little verse that caught my eye on Christmas morning, in the papers - "In our giving, Jesus lives. In our living, Jesus gives." I am by no means a Christian, but I think it's wonderful how the spirit of Christmas can be so clearly explained in 10 mortal words. Yet, people were incredulous that a local supermarket pledged 1000 free turkeys in celebration of the birth of Christ on Christmas Eve, to be redeemed with absolutely no conditions attached.}

I am digressing. Always digressing.

I want to reflect upon the importance of interchanges.

The bus interchange - the importance of its mundane existence. The place where tears of joy and sadness are shed. Where people meet and miss. Where old friendships are rekindled or undone, and new bonds forged. Hundreds of people, hundreds of stories take place there each day. If only we could see speech bubbles floating above their heads ...

Same as the little bus stop in front of your flat. It has been the quiet confidant of many a tale.

The train station that we take for granted. That we get into as quickly as we get out of. Pause for a moment and look around at the exchanges that take place. The characters of life dramas unfolding on the busy platforms. Do not risk being caught between the closing train doors. Step back, sit back and enjoy the live play. Oh, and it's free.

Or MSN Messenger. Much emotion, secrets ... if you can think it, it has been quietly exchanged on MSN before. I am immensely thankful for the creation of the MSN Messenger. For keeping me in touch, and building special friendships which were forged but would have been short-lived had it not been for the MSN Messenger.

Sometimes, the most inconspicuous can be the most tell-tale, only they won't say it. Or cannot say it. I would like to know them as the unsung heroes - not truest to the meaning of the word, but that's what they are.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Living Mind, Travelling Thoughts

I've been a Couchsurfing member for exactly ONE year today. Hurrah!! But I've yet to have any CS experiences yet... but am definitely looking forward to some. Hopefully in the upcoming year.

Counting down... 15 days to 2007

Time used to fly, but now it seems to just zip past. This song sounds like something time would sing -

Once I was traveling across the sky
This lovely planet caught my eye
And being curious I flew close by
And now I'm caught here
Until I die
Until we die

It's a blessing we have time on earth but we won't be having it forever... So seize time while it's still here. Fear not, carpe diem!

"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones that you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

"When I was about twenty-one, I went broke for the first time. I slept on chair cushions in my 'studio' in Kansas City and I ate cold beans out of a can. But I took another look at my dreams and set out for Hollywood. Foolish? Not to a youngster. An older person might have too much 'common sense' to do it. Sometimes I wonder if 'common sense' isn't another way of saying 'fear'. And 'fear' often spells failure." - Walt Disney, Animator, Dreamer, Father

Yet I fear for our planet. I fear for all the species the human beings, beings of the "higher order", are tasked to protect, but are unwittingly destroying in our pursuit of dreams. Dreams of "advancement" for the human race. For convenience. But do we all realise the inconvenient truth of this convenience we are seeking - the inconvenience of convenience.

I saw Happy Feet last Monday. Posters and trailers show a bunch of bubbly, cuddly penguins. Another cutesy animation? Happy Feet begs to differ. There is a message about human interference, pollution and the destruction of natural habitats in Antartica. It does not address global warming. The picture above does. Like Happy Feet, this is "art" with a message, up for each individual's interpretation. I see penguins melting in the rising temperature, trying to shelter from the heat with little umbrellas. It gets too hot, they are burned, the parapluies fall, the penguins die. Their blood is melded with snow, hence the pink patches on a surface of white.

How much of white ice still covers the poles? As seen in Al Gore's disturbing An Inconvenient Truth, polar bears are beginning to drown because they have to swim farther afield to find a piece of solid ice on which they can rest. Imagine this - polar bears swimming with their little cubs, find a piece of ice, climb on it, it breaks because it has become so thin due to global warming that it can no longer hold the weight of its resident bears, the family has to swim again to find another slab that breaks again... until they become so tired, their feet won't peddle anymore and they sink. This has NEVER happened before. This is the bloody truth, inconvenient or not.

What do you see? The irony is, viewpoints on environmentalism are as varied as opinions on works of art. The same issue, different opinions, each motivated by selfish agendas.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

A Week of Feasts...

This has been a week of great cuisine and good wine, though I had few drops of the latter.

<Tue> Dinner with boss and the team at swanky Mezza9 at The Hyatt. Between XM, EC, WE and myself, we downed between $300 - 400 worth of appetisers, main course and dessert. A special mention to the delicious desserts! Strawberries and chocolate fondue... and the Mezza9 extravanganza which is a combo of crepes, alcohol-drenched pudding-like concoction and more! ... so exotic that I don't even know the proper name for them!

The meats were fabulous - tender, fresh, sweet. The seafood platter was awesome too though the lobster proved a tad bit challenging... most afraid our clumsy fingers would cause the flesh to fly onto some unexpectant diner's plate, or worse, face. Fortunately, the dinner ended blissfully, accident-free :)

<Thu>The company's D&D!! The feast began with a Movenpick ice-cream. I got a refreshing lemon and lime sorbet... yummy! The owner of the unit adjacent to Movenpick was rather rude to us, chasing us away for taking up his outlet space when we didn't buy anything from him (think he's just envious of his neighbour which got several hundred dollars worth of business from us that sizzling afternoon!)

Our games began with the Photo Hunt. Equipped with 6 modified photos, the teams were supposed to take a shot of the objects in the photos with their SE mobile, and then SPOT THE DIFFERENCE. That was one rather challenging game! Game #2 was pure brawn - dog & bone. The competitive guys would just pile up on each other fighting over the object (water bottle) that would earn them points to win the game. Third game was blow the balloon, which later, each team had to attack and burst as many of their competiton's balloons. The team with the most balloons left would be the winner.

Just as we completed the games, the rain came. It was gone in about 15 minutes, allowing us to venture out for showers before the BBQ dinner began. I'm not a big fan of BBQ, but if it's all done for me and all I had to do was eat, why not! That's exactly what we all did all evening - EAT.

Oh, of course, there was the lucky draw. The prizes this year were great and many - approximately 1 in 2 chance of winning. All the girls - WE, XM, YX and WS - got something from the draw but not EC and me. The top prizes went mostly to the ultra new finance girls... lucky!! Oh well, in a way, EC and I had something to bring home too - EC's team was the dark horse in games, coming in first when they were the most relaxed team. Me, having been part of the organising committee went home with a token of appreciation. So it ain't bad, and we enjoyed ourselves!

<Sat> Jeni's wedding dinner that I almost missed. Came down with a bout of flu yesterday. My sore throat had been developing since Monday, so I guess it just kinda exploded. My nose was blocked and I could barely breathe in the air-conditioned office.

Should have taken MC for the day but didn't think I was very sick, plus I really had to run through the schedule with S and the team. However, by mid-day, I could take it no more so I chose MC instead. Went to see the doctor, and then had a good 3-hour sleep. Felt better by night-time though the nasal cavity was still congested.

Woke up this morning still feeling a little feverish. Went out for coffee, right after which I decided to clean the floor. After a good hour of sweat, I actually felt great! Hmm... it could really be my sedentary lifestyle that is causing the breakdown in health...

I had to return the book that borrowed for the trip to Sydney. Gee, how time flies! It's been almost 3 weeks since Sydney, since the ultra fabulous U2 show. There was already a great number of fans gathered at the concourse of Compasspoint, waiting for the Star Awards nominees to appear. There were supporters of Terence Cao and Chen Hanwei carrying banners... not sure who else would be there. Darn, why wasn't (my favourite Mediacorp star of the moment) Elvin Ng scheduled for Compasspoint instead of Bkt Panjang Plaza? Sighz...

Well anyway, after I was done with the library and my shopping and the clock ticked close to 2, no star had yet appeared. So I went home, popped Disc 3 of KSS into the DVD player and enjoyed my favourite K-drama while mulling over my favourite Chinese brand of the moment (Haier) until I had to leave for Jeni's wedding dinner.

I love wedding dinners. I love to see all the guests arriving in pomp and splendour, and especially the bride and groom, they SHINE. Jeni looked gorgeous! She's already a very attractive woman, but tonight, in the simple yet oh-so-elegant wedding gown, she was brilliant.

During the course of the dinner, I was seized by 2 moments of emotional upheaval. Seeing Jeni's grandma at the bride's table and on-screen during the tea ceremony earlier today, I am reminded of Grandma. She will never be at my wedding. She must have so looked forward to my big day but she had to go before I am able to seal my vows with the right guy. But I know she'll always be there in spirit; at that moment, I missed her so much. I miss you, Grandma...

The second almost-tearing moment was when the song 月亮代表我的心 played. It reminded me of former President Ong who played this song in memory of the First Lady at one of the President Star Charities. It had been her favourite song, and the love he had for her was so great! Everytime I hear this song, I think of them. Alas, or at last, he rests in peace with the love of his life. God bless.

We all had fun. The little printout of our group shot was neat! Although I am not too fond of myself in photographs (I usually take shadows of myself, or my feet, like in this recent Sydney trip, I had plenty of those as the Australian sun shone bright), I think I look ok in this one. Hope PT has some time to sort out her OZ photos and check if Alan had sent over that awesome picture of me looking deliciously leggy in the final rays of the sun setting over Botany Bay.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Sweet Surprise :)

Haha!! Elaine and I got a really sweet surprise today. We're supposed to have our company D&D tomorrow, so the committee had to do a briefing so that everyone's aware of the process, dress code, games, prizes, blah blah...

After the briefing, our Finance Mtook over. We quietly filed out of the room because that was a promotion and increment announcement, and having joined the company relatively recently and missed the evaluation period, we didn't think we were eligible for a fatter paycheck so soon.

Or so we thought.

Until our Finance Manager walked over to our desks and handed the envelopes to us! We were ELATED. ABSOLUTELY ELATED!

It's probably the sixth sense... hmm, and if it's really so, it's friggin' creepy, I'm freaking myself out! But this afternoon, I had the urge to get my hands on the RED iPod. The Aids charity version. Elaine said, "pay for it with your bonus". I laughed. Paying with future money? Not to be made a habit of.

But now, looks like I don't have to. I can pay for it with "present" money. Hehe, quite literally :)

P.S. A funny tagline for New Zealand tourism in a mag - "Come now. If not sooner." Err... what can be sooner than NOW? Present? *still grinning*

Hallyu Camaraderie

This is SOOO funny!

I logged into MSN at half past mid-night, after a long dinner with the boss and the Trends department. Someone buzzed me - it's Harry, from way back. He used to help us with technical issues regarding video production, AV setup and DVD authoring. Gosh, I couldn't imagine why he'd wanted to buzz me, if he still remembered who I was. It turned out that it was his wife, mistaking me for one of her cousins who is a K-drama fan based on the MSN picture of Kim Sam Soon that I had.

We spent several moments chatting, exchanging tips on the latest and best dramas to catch... why everyone is so into Goong, I cannot comprehend. My sister bought the VCD (technically I was the buyer because I paid for it in a moment's folly!) and it's now making its rounds in our circle of friends. Sis watched it, but with the remote control close by. She was forwarding the discs more often than actually sitting through a scene. Myself? I caught some parts, but hmm... let's just say they did not justify my sitting still in front of the tv for a full 5 minutes. See, I am not so immersed in the Hallyu yet - I practise selective viewing. Only Kim Sam Soon works for me, or most shows with Hyun Bin in it, I guess.

Currently, I am tuned in to The Snow Queen, an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, which some say, is also inspired by the suicide of the youngest daughter of Samsung's chief last year. There is only Chinese subtitles, so it's really testing my skills in comprehending the dialogue and making sense of the story. So far, I'm following it fine. It seems interesting enough to have me want to keep watching, and actually piques me as to how a genius with everything going for him could spin out of control and spiral downwards in life.


Even though the ending is predictively tragic (since the heroine is terminally-ill and the hero seems to have lost his fighting spirit - coincidentally, he is a boxer), it may not necessarily be so. It could turn out to be a story about love, loss and the courage to pick up the broken pieces and put them back together again, to once again realise its true potential. That would be a good twist, for everyone is predicting a tragic ending, as Andersen would have liked it.

Speaking of Andersen, my colleague and I were so goofy, scouring the streets of Copenhagen for the Hans Christian Andersen store that we spotted on the city map when we were there for a presentation in Lund (Sweden) in September. We later found it tucked into a corner on the 4th level of a departmental store, much to our disappointment. We had imagined it to be housed in a grand 16th century cottage-style building made of stones with a roaring fireplace while mobils and clay models adorn the mantelpiece. Alas, what we found was quite a departure from what we had in mind. Nevertheless, we bought a mobil each, just to commemorate that little escapade into the cobble-stoned streets of Copenhagen on our first business trip to Europe :)

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Hallyu ...

... sweep me under you

Who'd have thought ... the least of all - myself, that someday I'd fall victim to the ominously omnipresent Hallyu phenomenon in Asia.

I thought Bae Yong-jun was ugly. I could be bludgeoned by the millions of adoring female fans, I usually kept this comment to myself, or checked my back before offering this offensive (duh!) thought - to make sure there was no female species around, just in case she hailed from the "Yonsama" (as the Japs call him) fanclub.

I adamantly rejected any tour itinerary with the Hallyu theme when we visited Korea in May this year. Okay, we succumbed to a tour of the Dae Jang Geum (Jewel In The Palace) film site by the majority vote of our tour group, which turned out to be a rather delightful experience for cultural appreciation on a trip that tended to flaunt only the material side of modern Korea.

I cringed everytime an acquaintance commented on my resemblance to a Korean. Or Japanese. I get that all the time, much to my amusement. I've learned to live with that now, and honestly, I am sort of relishing the association as I slowly but surely become one of the Hallyu chasers.

3 separate incidents converted me -

1) That frustrating trip to Korea that I couldn't resist bashing, and the rationalising of (highly) possible beauty that we totally missed, and why we should make our own way there in order to fully appreciate the country and its culture.

2) The work assignment on the meteoric rise of Samsung as a brand had me researching far and deep into the Korean people, business, culture and history, and hey, guess what, the Hallyu.

3) Kim Sam Soon - sheesh ... this series got me officially hooked! When I first saw Channel U's trailer of this series, which claimed to be bigger than Dae Jang Geum, I was very much in doubt, but definitely curious. I had it at the back of my mind for a while and even missed the debut episode. The very first time I saw it, it must be episode 2 or 3, when Sam Soon was at the restaurant, in all her chef du jour confidence, introducing herself to her co-workers - "My name is Kim Sam Soon ... I am 30 years old this year" - and instantly, I felt an affinity to her. Ever since then, I followed the series diligently, although the crazy work schedule in August made me miss some episodes - all the more the reason to get the DVD, which I am running the risk of wearing out now ^.^

This is a series of modern Korea with references to its cultural roots, sometimes mocking them, and other cool influences from Europe -

* It is a cultural and societal obligation to obtain parental blessings in marriage. Class issues plague the relationship of Sam Soon and Jin Hun - they receive violent objections from Jin Hun's mother, owner of a luxury hotel chain, who obviously views the relationship from a class-prejudiced perspective. Sam Soon's mother, however, despite having reminded Jin Hun of their differences when they first met, is able to set that aside for the sake of the couple. Jin Hun, by opposing his mother and following his heart to be with Sam Soon, probably characterizes Koreans who are straddling tradition and the freedom to act according to the heart.

* There are several interesting European references that add to the richness of the plot and explains the show's increasing appeal to me -

- Sam Soon is a French patissier, having graduated from Le Cordon Bleu, a top culinary college in France.

- Jin Hun is the owner of a French restaurant, Bon Appetit, which serves only authentic French cuisine. Prior to Sam Soon, the chef was a Frenchman.

- The madeleine (a plump mini cake that is shaped like the kuih bahulu) is credited in a scene, with the mention of Marcel Proust's "À la Recherche du Temps Perdu" (In Search of Lost Time). Proust had described the madeleine as a "plump and sexy cookie", and I couldn't help smiling at the uncanny similarity between the madeleine and Kim Sam Soon. She did not read the book, however, because "it was too hard". Damn right. I have gone and found it at the library - a whopping 6-volume, 1000-odd pages per volume of somewhat autobiographical account of Monsieur Proust's life experiences. Hmm... I might venture into reading it someday, but it's certainly interesting to know of the existence of such a book.

- More book reference comes in the form of Momo - a little-known work of German author Michael Ende, who, to my immense delight, also wrote The Neverending Story! That is one of my all-time favourite - Falkor, the dragon that looks like a dog is right at the top of the list. Momo is a little girl with the ability to listen and relieve people of their problems. When the Men in Grey come to the village and convince people to save time for the future, upon which time will be returned to them with interest, the village people fall under the spell. People have less time for themselves, thanks to their "savings", and they cannot have fun, they no longer have time for their loved ones and the things that they want to do. (Doesn't this sound oh, so reminiscent of ... us, modern folks who are so caught up in mundane material pursuit, that sometimes we forget to have fun, saving it for the future?) But luckily, the villagers have Momo, Professor Hora and the magical turtle Cassiopeia to the rescue. (The moral of the story - live every moment to the fullest! Have some fun - be happy!)

- Toward the end of the show, and what a great ending the show has by the way, there is an adaptation of a quote from Mark Twain.

춤추라, 아무도 바라보고 있지 않은 것처럼

사랑하라, 한번도 상처받지 않은 것처럼

노래하라, 아무도 듣고 있지 않은 것처럼

일하라, 돈이 필요하지 않은 것처럼

살라, 오늘이 마지막 날인 것 처럼

The original quote from Mark Twain:

Dance like nobody's watching

Love like you've never been hurt

Sing like nobody's listening

Live like it's heaven on earth

- The actors and actresses, maybe with the exception of Hyun Bin who plays Jin Hun, are somewhat westernised. There are few Koreans who can converse in English, yet in this show, there are 3 languages being spoken - Korean, English and even French, albeit in just a few scenes. Even Hyun Bin, the archetypal Korean, speaks OK English, probably out of simply memorising the script. Daniel Henney who plays Dr. Kim is American. He is the closet lover of Hee Jin (as in he quietly, undemandingly loves her... quite the fool, if you ask me), played by Jung Ryeo Won who grew up in Australia and therefore, speaks fluent English. Hee Jin is Jin Hun's ex-girlfriend who left him without explanation 3 years ago for the United States to treat some acute gastro problem because she couldn't stand to be the bearer of more bad news after the accident that killed his brother and his wife, and almost crippled him. Kim Sun Ah, who plays Sam Soon, is college-educated in the United States, and can thus, handle the English language well. She even speaks in French when introducing herself to Dr Kim as Sophie, a typical French name. The other scene with French dialogue is when her ex-boyfriend announced their relationship in a Parisien pub when they were still very much in love.

* The realness of the show is the greatest appeal. It is fraught with insecurities, there is no typical "happy ending" although I think it ends great. Sam Soon and Jin Hun are together, although they never receive the blessings of his mother and thus, cannot marry. But as Sam Soon's narrative goes, "to be able to bake the best cakes and love passionately every day, and not to worry about things that are yet to happen" - that is most important. Think about it, how often have we worried ourselves sick, quite unnecessarily?

* The many "lessons", remarks and pointers woven into the luscious fabric of the multi-tiered script take time to uncover. On the surface, it is a very simple drama and that's the beauty of it. I have watched the show a few times, and everytime, I seem to find a new "lesson" or two. Interesting. And oh, everytime I feel blue or bored, I can trust Kim Sam Soon to lift me out of the dumps.

So really, my Hallyu obsession is only with My Lovely Sam Soon. I couldn't really care less for other Korean dramas, they bore me quite easily. Nevertheless, Korean music is now more pleasant to my ears than before. And to my own surprise, I sat through a Korean movie, "Almost Love", during the plane ride from Sydney just this past Tuesday.

Hmmm ... maybe I have been swept under the currents of the Hallyu after all.

v(^o^)v

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Hope

Hope.
Hope.Hope.
Hope.Hope.Hope.
Hope.Hope.Hope.Hope.
Hope.Hope.Hope.Hope.Hope.

If I had only 1 hope a day
That's 365 hopes a year
3,650 hopes a decade
36,500 hope to last me a lifetime

Assuming a century of hopes
Old ones replaced
New ones replacing
Then I would have died
A contented soul
36,500 hopes fulfilled.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Couchsurfing 2.0

Yippee! It's back. So there, I'm hopping over right this moment.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Save Couch Surfing

Somewhere last week, CouchSurfing died. Its demise was a blow to us all, its faithful members who have built a 90,000 strong and rapidly growing online community of travellers, whose vision of world travel is unanimous - to travel to the far ends of Earth and experience a place like the locals do, understand other cultures and people, witness and appreciate the great beauty of diversity.

How better to do that than to surf a couch - stay with a local who has a spare bed, spare couch, or simply some spare moments to share stories of his/her hometown with a fellow traveller from abroad.


I have always liked to be a part of the community I travel to. I believe in embracing foreign lands through its people, not just the sights. Which is why staying in hostels has had such great appeal for me. Meet people, live with people from all walks and talks of life in a truly local setting. Some hostels are set in the best country houses with sprawling lawns or the beach in the backyard. Awesome experience.

So when I discovered CouchSurfing last year, that sense of adventure shot up a few notches. It took my breath away. WOW! What would it be like to go stay for a couple of days with real locals? Somewhat like farmstays minus the commercialism of it. The couch hosts will be real families, real people whose profiles are posted on the site, with whom we could have communicated and made fast friends before we decide to borrow their couches. It is a concept I am keen on trying but alas, now it's gone.

But wait. Casey won't let it go down so easily. The dream he had built CouchSurfing on is too strong. Plus the dreams of close to 90,000 registered Couch surfers. The physical site is now down and will probably be undergoing some really difficult times in the immediate future, but the community is still there. We are just waiting for a rebirth, like a departed phoenix re-emerging from its ashes. http://savecouchsurfing.com/

Friday, April 07, 2006

Surprise

I cannot remember when was the last time I saw Kenny Rogers. Not in photographs anyway, because those are abundant in most KR outlets (which, by the way, serves great macaroni in cheese... my favourite side dish absolutely).

I caught him on American Idol today, leading the country theme in this week's competition. My immediate thought was, I want to be like him when I grow old. He is such a jovial 'old' man, almost like Santa Claus. And boy, can he emote too, through his song, true to his advice to the Idol contestants - every country song tells a story, the listener must be overcome with emotions at the end of each one.

That leads me to wonder why no one attempted Collin Raye's "Love, Me". Is it too safe, boring and lazy like Simon's love life?

No friggin' way.

It is definitely one of the most emotive songs ever. I shed tears the very first time I heard it way, way back in the 90s and it has since been the ultimate love song for me. I would recommend it to anyone in need of some love boost. So far, a few have listened ardently to the words of grampa to gramma as he stood in the hallway of the church.

This week's Idol casualty - the marvellous Mandisa. I am so very pissed at her early exit! This woman can sing anything, and even if she isn't exactly Idol material (let's face it, she ain't no Beyonce and in this business, as Paula often likes to contrast with Elliot's humility, it's all about the surface), she is definitely Top 5 or even Top 3 material. There are a couple others I would like to see disappear from the competition but it sure is not poor Mandisa.

I had a bad day, thank you very much Mr. Powter (Song change please!)

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Club 30s

If there is such a thing as a thirties club, it has just gained a new member today.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this spanking new 10-year membership in this spanking new club, except that I had forgotten to bid goodbye to the Club 20s. What the hell was I doing the instant the clock struck 12? Probably watching Mr. Darcy on the spanking new Pride & Prejudice VCD. Oh well, it would have been tearful otherwise, I might as well be grateful I'm spared all that mess.

Somehow, being in Club 30s is like a huge huge deal, a giant step in life. Like totally grown-up now. No more playing funny. Responsibility time. And in my mom's opinion, settling down time. Oh thank God, mom is nothing like poor Mrs Bennet who worries sick over unmarried daughters, or she'll most certainly be bed-ridden by now!

Forget Victorian times. Fast forward in the future - now - in New York City. Carrie Bradshaw (Sex and the City), the epitome of modern women, open-minded, learned, street-wise, worries about dying alone, unloved on her 35th birthday. Can't say I don't kind of, sort of worry about relationships and companionship. But if I were to be tossed into one out of age-related desperation, I'd much rather die alone, unloved. Though that's quite unlikely to happen, because there're always family and friends, the best people you can count on in this world.

Friends made my turn-of-the-quarter century birthday one of the best, if not the best, I've ever had. I had a really long day on location shoot, heading back into the office after 7pm. My colleague-friends had cleverly designed a mini treasure hunt, which I unashamedly busted by finding the biggest present they got for me first. It was an autographed NSYNC poster, the one thing that I wanted more than anything in the world, at least at that time. That night, we partied in the office watching 10 Things I Hate About You. Chit, Fauzie, Pauline, Rachel, Karen, thanks to the googolth*.

Maybe I'll go watch Munich today. Why on my birthday? I don't know. Perhaps to remember the 5th anniversary of the best birthday I've ever had. That year, too, was when terrorists slammed 2 jetliners into the World Trade Center in NYC on September 11. I was there. Although I wasn't born when the Munich incident happened, there are a few chilling coincidences. The attacks were carried out on 11 Israeli athletes by a terrorist faction called the Black September. See? I'm going to catch Munich today.

*Googol = 10 to the power of 100

Monday, March 06, 2006

Oscar's Fair

The results are out. Nobody made a clean sweep this year. Not Brokeback Mountain, whose director Ang Lee picked up the directing Oscar but lost the Motion Picture of the Year category to Crash. Congratulations! I didn't manage to catch the movie but I've heard nothing but goodness. And isn't its theme so achingly haunting? What's up with 'Hard Out Here for a Pimp' winning the Best Original Song category? Rap culture is inching its way into the uppity Academy Awards, so it seems.

I think this year's Oscars is the fairest of all the awards so far. It honours all the great films of the past year, instead of just one or two. Crash, The Constant Gardener, Walk The Line, Brokeback Mountain, Memoirs of a Geisha, Narnia, King Kong. Even Wallace & Gromit.

Narnia and Geisha for art, costume and makeup awards as they are truly outstanding in recreating worlds so different that they wrench the audience from their place in this mundane world to enter another plane of existence, a beautiful, exciting one, for a couple of hours. King Kong for sound and visual effects - who can top the wrath of a tormented 25-foot monster?

The Constant Gardener should have picked up more awards but well, I think I should quit b***hing about it now. At least Rachel Weisz is deservedly honoured as Best Supporting Actress and yes, she's sweet, she still has to mention 'the luminous' Ralph Fiennes to remind the Academy that her co-star is just as deserving of at least a nomination. YEAH! What's up with that?! Fiennes deserves an Oscar nod as Justin Quayle! Oh well, Fiennes will never win that category anyway. It is Philip Seymour Hoffman's all the way. His portrayal of Capote is uncanny.

Finally one for Reese Witherspoon. That girl has proven herself. I think she wins the Best Thank You Speech category too - "June Carter once said, "I want to matter. That's what I'm trying to do." Yes Reese, you have mattered.

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

REVIEW: Brokeback Mountain

I went into the theatre 2 days after Brokeback Mountain made a clean sweep (or almost) at the BAFTA, picking up accolades for Best Picture, Direction and an acting award for Jake Gyllenhaal. The BAFTA affirms the rave reviews it has received since it opened to an enthusiastic American audience in December (NY/LA) / January and signals a similar triumph at the Academy Awards come March 6.

Critics and moviegoers alike hail this controversial tale of gay love in an era where homosexual relationships are persecuted with no recourse as anything from “the love story of the year” to “a cinematic landmark”, resulting in Golden Globes for both the film and its director, Ang Lee.

Well, I can’t exactly say I am one of them.

Perhaps, the mountain heaps of critical acclaim, public applause and industrial accolades have raised my expectations too high and as always, the higher you go, the harder you fall. I find the story extremely ordinary. It fails to move me until the final few minutes of the film; when I begin to feel something stir in the depths of my heart, it’s all over.

The leads, Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, are only two of the thousands of homosexual individuals in this world, even back in the dark age of the 60s, who engage in similar dangerous liaisons, some more courageously than others. It is merely putting onto the big screen something that we all know. A few times throughout the movie, I find myself saying, “Enough already, we all know that. Let’s move on.”

That said, Brokeback does raise an issue, as deliberated in author Annie Proulx’s short story, upon which the film’s screenplay is adapted by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, that people who are thrust into a position of sexual disorientation, either by birth or circumstance, reserve the right to humanly feelings. That includes love. It is an issue that the most conservative of us still refuse to acknowledge today so at its best, Brokeback Mountain can cause hairline cracks in long-standing prejudice against homosexuality.

The film also lives up to its genre as an epic western. Abundantly featured are sweeping shots of expansive prairie land and rugged mountains under clear blue skies, summoning a feeling of intense loneliness and longing, a prelude to the story that follows.

The scenery is certainly awesome on the big screen but alas, the story trudges along a bit too slowly, as if to let the audience take in the picturesque country as they would on a holiday and witness a robbery of the freedom to love in extended moments of solitude in a dark theatre. The one redemption to this film for me is some great performances by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as the ill-fated gay lovers and Michelle Williams as Alma, the estranged wife who discovers her husband’s sexual orientation too late to live in humiliation forever.

Alma has been engaged to Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) even before he meets Gyllenhaal’s character, Jack Twist, in a herding assignment out in Wyoming’s Brokeback Mountain. Up on the lonely slopes, Ennis rediscovers himself. Ennis is a taciturn man, who speaks with a drawl that hinges on incomprehensibility, either by nature or in a bid to suppress his true sexual identity after witnessing the torture and mutilation of a queer. Jack is quite the opposite. An aspiring rodeo rider, Jack is an exuberant youth, unafraid and totally frank about his sexual orientation, at least to Ennis. Jack seduces Ennis, drawing him into a tragic romance that spans 20 years.

They are prematurely recalled from the mountains due to a brewing storm, probably just an excuse of the owner who glimpses the boys’ travails as he delivers news of Jack’s ailing uncle. That explains the increasing number of coyote attacks on the herd, clearly due to the absence of the shepherd who is babysitting his new lover rather than sheep. Ennis goes on to marry Alma and fathers 2 daughters in Riverton, Wyoming while Jack settles in Texas with rodeo queen, Lureen (Anne Hathaway), the daughter of a wealthy farm equipment dealer, and promptly takes charge of the family business.

The memory of Brokeback Mountain lingers on for both men. Jack’s postcard arrives unexpectedly one day. Alma questions her husband, to which Ennis replies that Jack is his longtime fishing buddy, a lie that will quickly come to light with Jack’s arrival.

The passionate embrace shared by Ennis and Jack below their apartment stumps Alma, reeling her into the chasm of humiliation. Quietly, she examines Ennis’ fishing kit upon his return from a weekend with Jack and finds no trace of a consummated fishing trip. No surprise.

For several years, Jack and Ennis meet in the wilderness of Brokeback Mountain. If Lureen never discovers the truth, she is certainly displeased with Jack’s frequent 10-hour drive north. Ennis and Alma drift apart, a divorce is inevitable. An ecstatic Jack arrives at Ennis’ door the instant he receives news of the divorce, with hopes of a new life with Ennis at a ranch he plans to buy. Ennis, always the more reserved of the pair, rejects the idea. Infuriated, Jack heads back south, their regular rendezvous at Brokeback Mountain ceases in the aftermath.

The years roll by. Ennis meets a new woman whom he is unable to accept for fear of inflicting the same hurt on her as he did Alma. Jack, on the other hand, begins sexual pilgrimages to Mexico to fill the void that Ennis leaves behind. The couple meets again at Brokeback Mountain as thirty-somethings, Jack sporting a moustache and beer belly, a somewhat ridiculous and clearly unsuccessful attempt at adding 15 years to Gyllenhaal’s own 24. Ledger’s aging makeup is more convincing, with graying sideburns, a weathered countenance and if I heard correctly, a voice more gruff than young Ennis’. With his face always in the shadow of his cowboy hat, it is hard to tell.

Jack has not given up on his dream of a new life with Ennis. But after all that he has been through, Ennis is resigned to his fate – perpetual estrangement from the love of his life. That would be the last time he sees Jack, who dies at age 39 in an unwitnessed accident back in Texas, drowned in his own blood … or is it an accident after all?

Here is the sad part, the part where I feel my heartstrings tug a little. The only way to dissolve a homosexual relationship is by the death of one of the partners who brings the deadly secret to his grave while the living partner mourns. It is also apt that Jack should be the one passing, for tight-lipped Ennis will never ever tell, the final scene a symbolic closing of the closet door where Jack’s shirt, worn on Brokeback in their happier days as young ranch hands, now resides – the closet affair that must never see the light of day.

I love Heath Ledger as the quietly suffering Ennis del Mar. Here, the Australian actor demonstrates acute empathy for closet lovers living in 1960s America, when much of the country’s sociopolitical landscape is marred by bigotry. In a long time coming, Ledger, who has always been cast in roles that belie his potential, finally proves himself as an actor to be reckoned with, his outstanding performance as Ennis duly recognized by the Academy with a Best Actor nomination.

Jake Gyllenhaal who already bags a Best Supporting Actor BAFTA for his role as Jack Twist, is a tad bit pale in comparison to Ledger’s strong characterization of Ennis. Nevertheless, his wide-eyed exuberance and sheepish grin brilliantly personifies Jack Twist, whose waghalsig, devil-may-care approach to homosexual relationships (and Ennis) in an age that forbids it breeds dire consequences.

Michelle Williams, who is incidentally Ledger’s fiancée, puts on an amazing performance as Alma, a stereotypical woman of the 60s in small mid-western towns who suffers the cruel blows that life deals her in silence. No one can forget her stunned revelation at Ennis’ passionate welcome of his “fishing buddy”.

The trio is indeed the saving grace of this over-stretched drama.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

The Happy Place

My best friends will know that I affectionately refer to the hypermarket Carrefour as The Happy Place. Simply because my spirits get mystically lifted everytime I step foot in there.

I am one that craves space, an incorrigible claustrophobic. Plus the multitude of merchandise that come under those two floors of well-spaced racks means I can spend hours there without a single second of boredom.

Enough to kill all blues. Enough to make peace with myself, to purge all inequities I feel about life outside this cheery kingdom, to simply shop and chatter away with family and close friends. When all other places fail to incite unanimous agreement for a rendezvous, there's always The Happy Place.

Many years ago, we would receive word from one friend or another updating everyone on our chum's BGR because he/she had been spotted at The Happy Place cozying up to the significant other. It's not just one odd couple but many of my dating friends seem to pick The Happy Place as their dating ground. And aptly so, it being the Happy Place, only it's not so advisable if one hopes to keep the BGR under wraps because EVERYONE, dating or single, is on the prowl there like a pack of hungry hyenas!

So yesterday, two friends bumped into each other again after more than a year of disconnect, at The Newer Happy Place down at Plaza Singapura. SS was busy shuttling the skies while I was preoccupied with trying to stay grounded. Welcome home, SS. We have lots to catch up on. But it was delightful seeing you again at The Happy Place ... where else.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

REVIEW: The Constant Gardener

Finally! The Constant Gardener hits local cinemas almost half a year after it opened in the United States. Even Malaysia released it 3 months ago. What is the cause of delay? Is it the guileless exposé of postcolonial high-level corruption or the blatant stab at modern capitalism that entail a closer scrutiny from the axe-wielding censors? Whatever it is, I am glad the movie finally makes its way to our shores. Perhaps we have the Awards to thank, for bestowing a Golden Globe on Rachel Weisz even before her nomination for the Oscar was announced. The movie itself is up for 4 Oscars and receives a whopping 10 BAFTA nods!

The Constant Gardener is no chintzy prate. Very clearly, this is a message-ridden masterpiece. To Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles, whose own country is nonetheless an underprivileged cousin of one of today’s political superpowers, The Constant Gardener probably echoes his own views on the cruel exploitation of third world countries, in this instance, Kenya in Africa. Bringing on board Jeffrey Caine for screenplay, Mereilles picks up the John Le Carré book and gives it a voice in the medium he knows best – poignant, albeit fragmented but very effective, documentary-style story-telling with stunning cinematography and some truly outstanding acting.

I was first attracted to The Constant Gardener for 2 reasons – Ralph Fiennes and the magnificent African landscape. Then came the story. John Le Carré writes deeply intellectual fact-founded fiction that lacks the mass appeal that is necessary for the message within to propagate. For this purpose, The Constant Gardener, the movie, is the vehicle. It is a timely release, too, in an age when pharmaceutical companies come under fire for introducing inadequately-tested drugs, the most notable of which is the Vioxx saga in 2004.

The Constant Gardener delves deeply into the essence of humanity, pulsating with righteous preach lines in the voice of impassioned activist Tessa Quayle (Rachel Weisz) for the people of the Kenyan slums. It is also a story of unconditional love and mutual respect that comes with the genteel character of Ralph Fiennes’, Justin Quayle, an English diplomat who works his hands at his quaint garden so he can keep them off the life of his lovely wife. Sad to say though, his hands-off policy gives Tessa the diplomatic passport to places that would eventually bring her damnation. Justin’s hands-on approach in the aftermath of her death, in turn, triggers a plethora of intriguing discoveries that send him racing across Europe and Africa, turning over unsolicited rocks and gardening for the ugly truth.

Perhaps it’s the essence of an archetypal political thriller, or perhaps it parallels the elusiveness of real world high-level conspiracies, Meirelles’ fragmented narrative style seems to be the best way to tell this twisted tale of government malfeasance and the moral quagmire that arises when corporate greed supersedes the value of humanity. The story telling comes in diverse layers, alternating between the past and the present in a series of flashbacks which explain why things happen and to pick up where a crucial narrative gets interrupted. This, coupled with hand-held, fast and frantic shots plus razor-sharp editing, create a sense of beleaguered logic as we watch the events unfold through the eyes of confused Justin Quayle. Justin is such a heart-wrenching sight to watch, simultaneously crumbling under his grief and upholding the very noble and very dangerous secret causes of his murdered wife that the director slowly lets on.

The film begins mysteriously with the ecstatic chatters of a woman as the opening credits roll. As the images kick in, we see an exchange of longing goodbyes by a loving couple, the Quayles. She says, “Bye bye, sweetheart” … He hesitantly replies, “See you … in a couple of days”. And then Justin receives news that Tessa has fallen victim to a fatal bandit attack.

In a stark comparison with Meirelles’ earlier internationally-acclaimed work, City of God, this film is violence without the blood and gore. At the morgue, Justin’s superior, Sandy Woodrow (Danny Huston), the Head of the British High Commission, leans over the sink, puking at the sight of the mutilated body of Tessa Quayle. The eyes that remain fixed on the nauseating remains of Tessa are Justin’s alone.

Is this lack of visibility of the apparent violence an insinuation of what is happening in the world today, as will be appropriated in the film as the story progresses? Is this the ‘bloodless’ violence of profit-taking and blood-sucking corruption in the very places where the ailing public pins its hopes on? Is this the ‘goreless’ violence in which the lives of the poor and the destitute don’t count, where cover-ups of their gory deaths as guinea pigs are rampant and immaterial in the thick of material pursuits?

There are answers that Justin seeks, especially when Arnold Bluhm (Hubert Kounde), a local doctor with whom Tessa works closely, goes missing. This is where Justin gets a little side-tracked. How can he not, when he had accidentally retrieved an email message addressed to Tessa that read, “What were you and Arnold doing in the Nairobi Hilton Friday night? Does Justin know?” Even before he solves this mystery, another letter that points to Tessa’s infidelity turns up. It is a note from Sandy Woodrow, who, among words of affection, mentions a report and an incriminating letter that must be returned immediately.

Justin starts digging. Dypraxa, the ‘wonder’ drug for tuberculosis (TB) developed by Canadian pharmaceutical giant KDH and distributed locally by Three Bees, which also provides free AIDS drugs and TB testing to the Kenyan slums. It sounds like a genuine philanthropic effort and corporate citizenship on the part of the drug companies, or are they using these programmes to mask the testing of other drugs? Lab tests would have cost millions and considerable delays with opportunity costs that run into billions of dollars. Human trial and error cost much less, and furthermore, these lives are worthless anyway.

Justin’s transformation from a quiet diplomat who is detached from issues to one who pursues the truth with astounding fervour does not escape the eyes of his superiors. He suddenly finds his diplomatic passport confiscated. Woodrow tries to convince him that Tessa’s death is nothing more than an unfortunate robbery gone awry. Sir Bernard Pellegrin (Bill Nighy) who heads the Foreign Office back in London, wants him to return to Kenya, resume his diplomatic post and stop the senseless questioning of his wife’s accidental death.

Justin’s incessant probing turns up more truths about the wife that he never really knew. Tessa did not have an affair with Arnold because he was gay. However, she had never really loved him. She had ‘cold-bloodedly led him on’ for her own mission. She had used herself to get into Africa and into places where she would otherwise be shut out of had she not been the spouse of a diplomat, just as she had no qualms about offering herself to the lustful Woodrow in exchange of the top secret letter.

Tessa is a beguiling, unforgettable character; her presence is ubiquitous despite having only appeared in the first half of the movie. While I am trying to decide if I should admire her valiant pursuit of human rights for the African people or detest her conniving ways of achieving these motives, it is clear that Justin’s love for her is unwavering. The scene where he breaks down at Tessa’s house is heart-breaking. When he sternly forbids concrete from being poured into her grave because “it is Tessa’s wish to be buried in African soil”, I thought, for someone who never really loved this man here, Tessa is one hell of a lucky woman.

Needless to say, Justin stops at nothing until he gets to the bottom of Tessa’s murder. Not when he is brutally beaten up in his hotel room in Germany, not when he is fleeing the marauding horsemen of a Sudanese tribe, not when every face around him seems to have a hidden agenda, every car seems to be hot on his trail, every friend could turn around and be the foe. When he finally puts all the evidence in a package that he entrusts to the UN aid pilot to mail to Tessa’s cousin, the one person he trusts to bring to light one of the darkest conspiracies involving the British and Kenyan governments and well-respected corporations, Justin has Tessa on his mind. He asks the pilot to fly him to Lake Tenaka, where Tessa had been headed. In a gripping final scene, Justin speaks constantly to Tessa in the land of nothingness, as though to the end of time.

Somewhere, far away in London, the truth comes to light.

And I dig it. Really, really dig it.

Monday, February 13, 2006

BOOKS: The Imagineering Way

I spent a fruitful Chap Goh Meh reading 'The Imagineering Way' by The Imagineers. I'm still on it but I feel such an inspired rush to share some of what I've read, which I think could be the guiding light of many in pursuing their dreams. Oh, for those who are still in the dark, The Imagineers are the mysterious creative team behind Disney theme parks across the world, the ones who build the worlds they live in in ours so we could be Peter Pan and Wendy once more.

I am such a huge Disney fan, first because of just how cute Mickey & friends are, and then of how true, and truly inspirational, the Disney philosophy is - Dream. Believe. Dare. Do.

I have always wondered what working for such an immensely creative corporation would be like. The creative thoughts, process, implementation. The relationships. The clash of creative minds. All of these so completely focused on the end products that have transcended generations for close to a century, and still well-loved to this very day. I dream of being part of the creative engine at Disney (hear ye! hear ye!). After glimpsing the animators at work at the Walt Disney World and now this, an intimate look into the minds of the Imagineers, I am keeping my dream alive.

"When I was about twenty-one, I went broke for the first time. I slept on chair cushions in my 'studio' in Kansas City and I ate cold beans out of a can. But I took another look at my dreams and set out for Hollywood. Foolish? Not to a youngster. An older person might have too much 'common sense' to do it. Sometimes I wonder if 'common sense' isn't another way of saying 'fear'. And 'fear' often spells failure." -- Walt Disney, Animator, Dreamer, Father

"Take a chance."

"Always say 'yes' first, then go off and figure it out."

"Don't try to solve a problem too early ... let the problem evolve so you understand it. The stew needs to simmer. Let the idea tell you where it wants to find its own balance."

"Sometimes a doodle on an index card has advanced an idea further than mere yakking around a conference table ever could. You can judge a brainstorming session by how many cards are plastered on the wall at the end of the meeting. Blank walls are your enemy! We like our walls covered with artwork and photographs, thank you very much. All the better to inspire creative thinking" -- Steve Spiegel, Senior Show Writer, Theme Park Productions

"Every time someone challenges me with a blank sheet of paper, I'm overcome by an uncontrollable urge to wrap his next gift in it. Blank sheets, if taken, must always be returned in full." -- Mike Morris, VP Theatrical Design and Production

"Every sorcerer was once an Apprentice." -- Steve Silverstein, Principal Developer, Animation Programming Systems, Show Animation and Programming

"When we fail, we don't stop. Sometimes you have to go backward in order to go forward, but we never stop."

"How many Imagineers does it take to change the light bulb?"
See if you're on the same wavelength as the Imagineers. Highlight the next line.
"Does it have to be a light bulb?"

Stay tuned ... as I finish the book :)

Saturday, February 11, 2006

FEATURE: The Real Meaning of Chinese New Year

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Welcome to the 4704th Lunar New Year observed by the Chinese and many other Asians. It’s the year of the dog, one of the 12 animal zodiac signs in the Chinese horoscope that predicts the person one becomes based on the “12 earthly branches” and the 5 elements – wood, earth, metal, fire and water. Food for thought and some serious snooping just to tame that curiosity cat, eh?

It is certainly humbling to declare that despite its long and intricate history, this is only the 30th Chinese New Year I celebrate this year. Well, that is if you don’t count the time I was battling the amniotic waters of my mother’s womb to make the 1976 celebration but alas, still missed the finish line by more than a month. That made a Dragon out of me though, for which I consider myself truly blessed.

Umm… 30 may sound a tad bit too many in human years but hey, look at the big picture, folks. For almost 5000 years, people have been celebrating the Spring Festival, another name by which the Lunar New Year is known as (more so in Chinese-speaking cultures than the Banana Republic where its people are Chinese by birth but have a Western outlook).

In as many ways as the festival is known in different parts of the world, so is the Lunar New Year celebrated differently. Although all of them last exactly 15 days, the significance of each day blurs across geographical, cultural and generational borders. Likewise, legends, folklores and superstitions handed down the generations are caught in the tide of time whose ebb and flow erode the storytelling as new versions spring forth but the essence of these ancient tales is never once lost. They have triumphed to found the Chinese community’s unique identity as one of the oldest cultural civilizations in the world.

With the many tales and their numerous versions, so what, then, constitutes the real meaning of the Chinese New Year?

Growing up, Chinese New Year was the one thing I looked forward to the whole year. To a certain extent, I still do. For obvious reasons – the new clothes, the holidays, the never-ending and mostly great food, drinks, cakes and snacks, AND above and beyond – the ‘ang pows’! It’s no wonder that even on New Year’s Day itself, I was already wondering just how far ahead was the next one…

Many of my fondest memories of the Chinese New Year are not of the holiday itself but of the preparation for the big day. Even a boring, dirty, tiresome whole-day-wasted task like Spring Cleaning holds some cherished memories. I don’t know if ‘spring cleaning’ is an original word in the English dictionary or borrowed from the Chinese initiative of ‘cleaning for the Spring Festival celebrations’. We believe that discarding old things and clearing the dust signify a change in fortune – done with the bad, hail the good. Don’t ask what happens if the year has been a good one, and if spring cleaning might inadvertently turn up … worse fortunes? I don’t have the answer because when I asked the same question in an attempt to talk my mom out of spring cleaning, the only answer that I got was to keep the day free and say no more.

Spring cleaning was a family affair. Even my grandmother, at more than 80 years of age and then well into her 90s, chipped in. That, in itself, has a charming quality to it because it’s not very often that the whole family gets to come together and… do something. And then there are those precious moments of reminiscence – digging up old photos of the little imps that we were (and the devils that we’ve grown into… hehe) and paraphernalia that we simply refused to throw away for one sentimental reason or another. These ubiquitous moments of nostalgic sighs and hollering laughter are worth the dirt and sweat of cleaning. Besides, it’s really not asking too much to clean the house just once in a year, is it?

When I was very little, my mom would join her colleagues on a ‘baking day out’ closer to the Chinese New Year, every year. Mom was a smart student, learning great cookie recipes from her wonderful colleagues, improvising and improving each year so that now, she makes the best ‘kuih bangkit’ and butter cookies (not the Kjeldsens type) in the world!

Although she makes far less new year cookies these day because her arms and legs (us!) are only home on the few days before New Year’s Day, we used to help her with all the baking when we were still in school over a few days in the month before the festival. Because we did not have an oven, we depended on ‘tao sar bia’ (traditional Chinese green bean biscuit) factories to bake the cookies.

Mom would mix the dough at home and when all’s ready, mother and daughters would take the 15-minute walk to the nearest factory. At the factory, we would quickly get down to business, sometimes with new year songs playing in the background, adding to the festive mood!

It’s usually not till evening that we could call it a day but at the sight of the delicious cookies and oh, how heavenly they smelled, fatigue was completely forgotten as everyone scrambled for a piece of the freshly baked goodies. Mom would usually let us have our way provided we knew when to stop. After all, those cookies were meant for the new year and that’s only when we should feast….

Cookies aside, the real delicacies are sumptuous, important dishes (translated – we never get to eat these at other times of the year, at least at a single spread) which are offered to the ancestors as a connection to our past, inviting our ‘whole’ family to usher in the new year, as a way of saying thanks to the deceased for watching over the living members and providing the good luck which they have enjoyed in the past year and hopefully in the new one too.

It would be quite impossible to list the entire menu here as the food display usually takes up 2 sizeable tables but here are some more significant ones – braised sea cucumbers with pork and shitake mushrooms, braised eggs with pork, “tau kua” (hard beancurd), black fungus and sometime with ‘fa cai’ (a hair-like vegetable that we kids used to confuse with seaweed), white fungus/long cabbage/fish ball soup.

Traditional cakes include the hand-beaten egg cake, ‘huat kueh’ (a must for the Chinese New Year as a symbol of prosperity for the year ahead), yam cake (steamed yams will do just fine too as all this dish represents is abundance in the family line), and my grandma’s specialty and a cake unique to the Hokkiens – a springy rice cake that is best eaten with the braised meat dishes above.

A whole fish, either steamed or fried, is offered for abundance, usually wealth, as the pronunciation of fish in Chinese - ‘yu’ - means leftover and is part of the Chinese adage, ‘nian nian you yu’, which means there’s leftover of the things that matter (money, health, luck) every year. The chicken, usually offered as a whole (including the innards) albeit chopped up, is simmered in fragrant sesame oil, ginger and button mushroom. Boy, just writing about these makes my mouth water!

New year shopping for the family would include procuring these food stuff, especially the dried ones like the sea cucumbers, mushrooms, fungi, etc. The atmosphere was thick with festivity as people throng the stores. It was as delightful learning about the different dried seafoods as watching the women exchanging recipes.

Shopping for new year clothes was definitely one of the highlights every year. Probably not for mom, who very often was dismayed at our fastidious taste in clothes. We would spend the whole day mall hopping and would sometimes end up buying none, rendering a second day of endless shopping necessary. Sometimes, mom would disagree with our choices because we should wear red (for good luck!) but other colours seemed somewhat more fashionable... What can I say, but girls just wanna be pretty, especially on New Year’s Day!

Another feature of Chinese New Year in Melaka is the small but bustling bazaar at Kee Ann Road, off the once-upon-a-time hangout of Jalan Bunga Raya where shops and malls lined the narrow one-way street. Modernization has gradually but surely re-directed the shopping traffic to hipper malls like Mahkota Parade, Jaya Jusco and Tesco, leaving only the most nostalgic of merchants holding onto their stores along this shopping belt of bygone days. Yet, these small traditional businesses are the saving grace of Melaka, reeling the historic city from the vacuum of modernization.

Kee Ann Road comes alive every night for a month, up to New Year’s Eve, for as long as I can remember. We would take casual evening strolls to eventually end up amongst the crowd, savouring samples of cookies and candies of myriad flavours and colours. Undoubtedly one of my most cherished memories was that one year, when I was still real little (below 10, I believe), the whole family went out together (dad would usually prefer to beat the crowd) the evening before New Year’s Eve and ended up having duck noodles at one of the hawkers along Kee Ann. I love that occasion for 2 main reasons – one, because that’s the first time I had duck noodles (my family is more into chickens, and I don’t mean it in a bad way) and two, because we hardly ate out, especially not with my father who prefers the more hygienic home-cooked meals. We had a blast that night.

Come New Year’s Eve, it is an annual ritual of waking up early when it’s still dark to help with kitchen chores that would eventually give us that sumptuous meal mentioned further up. When Grandma was still around (she passed away in 2003), the first smells of her terrific cooking was the alarm clock. Even if our eyelids were still heavy with sleep, it was quite impossible to drift back to sleep with that wonderful smell stealing its way into our nostrils. Mom would come a-calling anyway, for an early trip to the market to grab the freshest prawns, veges and poultry (the porky dishes had been cooked the previous day to hasten the cooking process on the actual day).

At around 10 a.m., most of the dishes are ready. The tables would also have been laid out in front of the ancestral altar and the red canvas ribbon is up framing the doorway, another of many Chinese New Year decorations that herald vibrancy and good cheer in the new year. This is a day when most of the family will gather and offer their prayers to the ancestors. In a way, it’s thanksgiving, and also to pray for a smooth-sailing, healthy and prosperous year ahead. It is also reunion day; regardless of distance and time constraints, the family will be whole again when all members, young and old, gather for a meal.

Unlike many families who have reunion dinners, we usually have reunion lunch. And no steamboat to boot. Not that I crave it because I’ve always been partial to steamboat meals. Besides, all these great food that have been heartily prepared over 2 days certainly beat the everyday-steamboat!

In the evening, we would give the house a good wash in preparation of another offering at night, this time to usher in the new year with the blessings of the Gods. Fruits and various designated sweets are prepared. The ceremony begins at around 11 pm, with the whole family offering prayers for a good year.

After the clock strikes 12, ‘ang pows’ are handed out by mom, who at the same time blesses us with good fortune in our studies and now, careers, as well as life in general. These are called ‘ya sui qian’, which promise good life and longevity. Traditionally, children would go to bed with these ‘ang pows’ from their parents tucked under their pillows. It is also believed that the later the children stay up (‘shou ye’), the longer their parents live. Although these are just folklore, it is indeed a rare opportunity for children to stay up way past their usual bedtime to just watch tv, chat or have a game of cards.

In the years of growing up, most of these annual rituals remain albeit with marked variations. The holidays during my adolescent years became a show time – a time to catch all the music award shows that all the tv channels seem to have waited a whole year to show them all at the same time. As obsessed as I am with pop music, no one could pluck me out of my seats when these went on air. And then I left home for Singapore for an excruciating 3 years of undergraduate education. Show time traded for study time as the psychotic lecturers and tutors had to have mid-term tests scheduled right after the New Year celebrations. Only when I began working that the holidays were a complete bliss again, but with an expiry date that came far too soon.

Time spent with family and friends in completely relaxed, bonding-conducive climate is over with a blink of the eye. Although I’ve never taken a real liking to relative-visiting, not especially since the ‘ang pows’ diminish with our growing ability to ‘make money’ and the steady rise of nosey questions (come on, I don’t have to spell these out. You must have heard them a hundred times), I recognize the significance of this practice.

It’s the real meaning of the Chinese New Year – a celebration of family ties and friendship.

Medicine for the curiosity cat:
Wikipedia's Chinese New Year
Meaning of the 15 Days of Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year Taboos
Chinese Zodiac Signs

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

FEATURE: Crossings

I've been pondering this for months, the notion having quietly slipped into my mind one fine evening, when I was on the free shuttle bus service from Clementi to Turf City on the way back to Toa Payoh, and there it has lurked ever since. Every now and then it would peek its cheeky head from the mass (mess?) of grey matter, reminding me of its omnipresence, that attention-seeking little brat. I'm digressing, forgive me. But if there're only 6 degrees of separation among us homosapiens on earth, surely a little digression in thought won't throw us too far off track. And there I go again. Digressing.

So are there really only 6 degrees of separation between 2 people, regardless of location? Word is, if you pick a random name out of nowhere and address a letter to him or her, and then mail the letter to someone you know with instructions to pass it on to the next person this someone knows, the letter will reach the intended recipient in the 5th exchange. Imagine this, he/she is only the 5th link in this seemingly endless chain mail even if he/she lives half way round the world! Although I haven't bothered experimenting, it has reportedly tested TRUE.

Recently, some anthropology think tank came up with the cool idea of creating the GREAT-GRANDMOTHER of family trees. The idea is to map out our genetic origins and so far, the evidence is leaning very much towards all of us being one big giant happy family some gazillion years ago. Osama is your and my cousin/brother, only we are separated by some thousands of years and countless rounds of genetic mutation. So Bush too must have a strand of DNA that also exists in some remote part of you and I. Gasp! Bush and Osama and Saddam must also belong to the same genetic map if not for the myriad millennia that have elapsed, blurring their bloodline in its trail.

DNA test kits costing USD99 each were available for the curious public's purchase. The class geek could make a swab of his cheek, mail the DNA back to the designated lab and eagerly await the result that he was indeed a descendant of Alexander the Great. People from completely different cultures across the globe without the slightest physical likeness have shared the same DNA. I've read of a pure Chinese since as long as she can remember suddenly finding Welsh influence in her genes. Hmm...

With all of us so intricately linked, even if the exact details of our proximity continue to elude most of us, does it come as a surprise that our paths have crossed more than we can ever imagine or know. Many of us must have been on the same bus or train or waiting for the rain to stop under the same shelter, more than once, but have failed to consciously register the face so there, another stranger, although you have probably been by my side more often than my new boyfriend. Many of us are travelers who have met, bumped into or brushed against some people from abroad who are now in Singapore and our paths cross once more on the busy Orchard Road without our ever knowing it.

I guess this kind of explains instances of déjà vu, which can be attributed to our subconscious trying its darnest to record every frame of life as it unfolds. Yet somehow, the data transfer over to our conscious state of mind is lagging so much so that subsequent occurrence of a particular instant is erroneously registered as the first and the mind is overwhelmed by an inexplicable subliminal revelation we term déjà vu.

Along the logic of déjà vu, fate is probably also a mind trick, or rather, a tricked mind. It only seems to come into play when your consciousness finally acknowledges the person who will go on to claim an important place in your heart, although for the longest time, your subconscious has been profiling this incredible character who crosses your path more times than you care to know; every second of his/her previous ephemeral existence in your life a building block of unwavering affection, the zenith of which eventually shoots through your roof of consciousness with effervescent sparks of love and happiness. Voila! You think fate brings him/her to you but you never know, he/she has perhaps always been there.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if we had the power to remember every single person or thing that we encounter everyday of our lives and by the end of it, realize just how many people have repeatedly wandered into it unregistered but how shockingly few have actually touched it in more profound ways, some more than others.

That will bring mankind even closer by several degrees.