about me A loner, although do enjoy the occasional companionship, if you can handle it. Enjoys long term friendships, sensitive, ponders a lot about life and people. Sunday, August 16, 2009
Colourblind
[ 6:22 pm ] As far as I could remember, I never thought much of my heritage. It didn’t bother me much while growing up whether I was Chinese or Ceylonese or Indian or whatever. When you’re a kid, it didn’t matter what your race was or whether your friends were Chinese, Indian or Malay. To me, they were just friends, my friends. I wonder how things got complicated when we start growing up? When did the misunderstandings and ‘intolerance’ came in? Oh that’s easy; I know the answer to THAT one. The previous generations of course. When you’re a child, you grow and pick things up through observation. E.g emulating what your parents do/react to situations, listening to adult conversations, television, etc. I knew my mom’s side of the family had issues with a certain race, probably because being the Chinese that they were, aren’t really open to new cultures and differences. Imagine the shock and confusion when my dad and mom started dating. I can only guess what they had to go through. I never did ask my grandparents how they felt. We’re talking about a generation that was fairly new to mix marriages. In primary school, I had a mixed group of friends. I used to like hanging around my Malay friends because I felt really welcomed by them. In fact, the girls that I used to like back then were mostly Malays haha. During recess time we’ll gather behind the school canteen to share our food. I had Indian friends as well, in fact one of my bestest friend in primary school was an Indian boy. Crap, I can’t remember his name. Oh, I had Chinese friends too … I had friends, it didn’t matter what their race were, you get what I’m trying to say? I never had to figure out whether I belong to a particular group or not. Secondary school was different. I studied at a school that was predominantly Chinese. We had 4 Indians and less than 15 Malays in the same form … that’s about 5 classes. I had trouble fitting in; there were a boatload of problems. I realised that people kept to themselves. You don’t see people of different race mixing around. Except for maybe during PE. Even that in itself was a little racist. You’d have 2 teams playing football, the Chinese versus the … others. Oh, guess where I was. Moving on up, I had a pretty defined group of friends. Sad to say, they were mostly Chinese, only because my classmates were Chinese. I had only one Indian friend. As for the Malays, I didn’t have much contact with them. It was superficial at best. I started to feel a lot more comfortable being around my Chinese friends. I could communicate a little in hokkien and mandarin, if not we’ll just speak in Malay (oh the irony). English? Less than 5 of us spoke proficiently. Most couldn’t even string a proper sentence, only God knows how they managed to pass SPM. There was a time when I was 10 or 11, I stopped eating pork. I think it was an influence from my Malay friends, since they don’t eat pork. I got teased by this particular uncle of mine, he could be pretty mean about it. “How can you not eat pork?? You’re Malay is it??” Hah … life sometimes can be filled with sweet ironies. He married a Malay and now have 3 wonderful kids. And yes, he stopped eating pork, while I on the other hand enjoy Siew Paus and Bak Kut Tehs. I am very proud that my family is multi-racial. The racist attitude that my family had pretty much disappeared over time. My aunty communicates with my grandma in Malay, while their children are educated in a Chinese school and speaks fluent Mandarin. My other uncles married Caucasians and Chinese Australians, both of different cultural backgrounds and upbringing. Yes, I am proud of a multi-cultural family and heritage. When will we start looking at people pass their colour? Coz honestly I’m so sick and tired of it. I had a number of experiences that left a bad taste in my mouth. Ok, fine I look like a Malay, Indian whatever, I don’t give a damn about it. There was a time when my ex and I were still dating, (she’s Chinese btw) and we were browsing some wares at Petaling Street. Back in those days, they were manned by mostly Chinese traders. As we walked pass this stall, we could hear him say … “did all the Chinese guys died that you have to date a Malay?” and “a flower is walking with a cow dung” in hokkien. Sometimes, knowing all kinds of Chinese dialects have its advantages and this case, I rather not had heard these things. A couple of stalls forward I found my shirt had RM1 price tags on it. Probably to show what a cheap person I am for dating someone from their community. Bastards. What’s my community then? Ohhhh … let’s talk about puasa month! There was another time while my ex and I were walking down the street holding hands in KL, a Malay man wearing a songkok pointed and shouted at me and said that it was a holy month and we shouldn’t be holding hands. I told him I wasn’t Malay and to that he gave me a dirty and disgusted look. *shrug* While on my way home to Muar during one of my semester break in college, the bus stopped at the highway rest area. I got down and went to the stalls to purchase some junk food. I overheard a Malay stall owner saying, “Dik, gerai orang melayu pun ada, apsal gi orang cina punya?” I glared at him. I don’t really care anymore at this stage of life. I love going to the Ramadan bazaar. I love Malay food, heck, I love eating in Bawang Merah, Subang Jaya. I love banana leaf rice, so much so that I tend to overeat when it comes to that. How can you say that you don’t like the race that’s different from you and yet you partake of their food? That sounds stupid and hypocritical to me. I hate filling up forms. I started ticking ‘lain-lain’ under the race column since form 4. Only because I refuse to accept that I’m neither Chinese nor Indian. My teacher said I should follow my dad’s race. Says who? That’s biologically incorrect. I’m not pure Indian and neither is he an Indian. Why then should I lie? Stupid forms. Fast forward to the present, I still have to go through this shit of ticking either Malay, Chinese, Indian or Lain-Lain on a form. What utter nonsense. I’d like to see this column removed and made illegal in the future. There’s no need for one to know your race. I do think about my future children … I hope they don’t have to go through what I did. Oh wait, they can’t really escape from that. At least they’ll have an old man ready to guide them. They will need to mix with all kinds of races. I can’t have racism in my family. Will be able to accept it if one day in the future when my daughter introduces me to his Indian boyfriend? I hope I would be able to embrace him and make him feel welcomed in the family. Yeah, talk is cheap, remind me if this happens 20 years down the road, and I’ll remind you the worth of my words. "Oh, you’re a mix! How do you feel about it? You must feel very special " To that person who asked me that more than a decade ago, here’s your answer. It sucks to be a Chindian. Pure blood? I am made pure by His blood. This is a non-issue. Anyways, looking forward to Sri Paandi banana leaf rice tonight!! And of course the start of Ramadan next week … that means … Ramadan bazaar! MMmmm Ayam Percik! 1 comments Friday, August 14, 2009
:)
[ 12:04 am ] "Life is not judged by results, how you live is what's important" Who said you can't learn anything from animes? 0 comments Sunday, August 09, 2009
Panas
[ 8:31 pm ] It was 40 degrees a few days ago ... this was the first time I saw it went up THAT high. 0 comments
Mr Fix-it
[ 8:09 pm ] So, a necklace broke, what do you do? You attempt to fix it, doesn't matter if you have the nimble fingers nor the knack for it. Let's see ... a bunch of beads here and there .... No problem, just imagine they don't exist ... let's concentrate on what's left on the necklace ... HMMM ... nylon string aren't even in length on both sides to tie a knot, let's take a few more beads out :X Oh good, now it's even in length. What a lousy knot hahaha ... I did a couple of dead knots :D See, looks brand new. Bet you can't even tell the difference ... probably 4 inches shorter only, don't think she'll notice that. It's like having your intestine cut short, you won't notice one la. Bravo! Wait till you see what I did to her broken handbag strap :P 0 comments Monday, August 03, 2009
Visit to Raub
[ 9:32 pm ] Contrary to what one might think, I was actually excited about this trip to Raub. I've often wondered what kind of town YS grew up in, so I was pretty keen to know. We left Sunway at about 8.30 in the morning and reach right about 11 something. It took that long because we stopped by McDonald's for breakfast and I drove slow since I never drove along the Karak Highway before. The trip to Raub wasn't really that exciting ... I mean, what kind of excitement is there on a highway? We had to entertain ourselves with lame jokes. My poor little Swift didn't had enough power to climb up hills D: Poor thing was struggling ... ugh ... ugh ... D: I hate trunk roads. It's so dangerous ... I can't recall the number of times I had to flash my lights at the oncoming cars overtaking my direction. The roads aren't really that wide :\ It's best to drive safely. I was killing myself thinking about what to bring as a gift. Hamper? Hahahahaha no way. Bird's nest? Not rich. Abalone? So traditional AND I'm not rich (yet). Roast duck? Hmmm ... yeah, why not. So, I brought them roast duck. You can't go wrong with roast duck. Her dad greeted me and let me in to the house. We spoke in English ... which I thought it was pretty ok. Though I was prepared to speak standard 3 mandarin and totally embarrass myself along the way. Thank God he spoke in English. We spent some time talking ... about ... umm ... the forest, education, about the town, his job, my job, my family, etc. The usual stuff. Oh yeah, we spoke about the weather too. About an hour later, her mom came to join us. She spoke very fluent English, that made me feel really comfortable. I was prepared to speak Hakka you know. Anyways, later on she took me to her ... backyard. Lol ... she showed me her garbage enzyme ... hahaha ... it's a good thing I read about and knew a little about garbage enzyme to hold proper conversations. See, reading a lot is good. She gave me the recipe to make garbage enzyme ... hmm ... I might give it a shot this weekend. The backyard had a little garden that they tended. Good thing I grew up in the estate to know enough about gardening and soil. Then something caught my eyes ... this! Isn't that cute? That's a full grown tiny cucumber!! I've not seen cucumbers this size. It's tiny :O We had lunch a little later than usual because ... the clock was out of battery and thought it was still 11 something ... heh. I wasn't complaining, guest mah ... cannot complain. Follow house rules. Her mom prepared us lunch, which was pretty nice :) We ate at the backyard ... haha ... Her cousin told me YS's little brother was cool ... like really cool ... you know what I mean? So I was prepared for the 'coolness'. And 'coolness' was what I got. Ok la, it was a little rude, but that actually put a little smile in my heart. To think I used to be like that. The introvert (still am), playing computer games and ignorant of the surrounding and guests type of person. Not gonna blog about the brother. We might have some things in common, plenty of time in the world. I'm 'cool' too. I wish I didn't drink that coffee at McDonald's in the morning. It was quite acidic ... so I had an upset stomach the whole day. Had to sit on the throne 3 times. Talk about impressions, eh? It's ok, I'm not shy. Guess what? I could drive AROUND Raub in 5 minutes. Yeah, it's that small. Ok, I exargerated a little, I could drive AROUND Raub in 10 minutes! This was the rest house and the oldest building in Raub. Honestly, didn't really impress me coz the architecture was very very similar to the estate houses we used to live in :) Yeah, we used to live in colonial houses ... but yeah, I do miss being in the estate. This, my friends ... is the entrance to the gold mine. I apologize for the crappy shot, I could only snap one photo before the security guards (looked like they were in military uniform) ran out to stop me. Good thing I was in my car ... cabut lari lor ... talk about adrenalin rush. I was worried they would give chase =X On the way back I went to tah pau the supposedly famous Sempalik chicken curry since Mr. Auntie was raving about it. It tasted ok ... I mean, not to be biased, I think my mom makes better chicken curry :P 1 comments
Back dated date ...
[ 8:55 pm ] Ok la, this happened like 2 Fridays ago, haven't found the time to post this up ... alas, time has found me. I read about Bread Basket Bakery (I've used the word basket to scold people when I was still in college ... basket fella ... basket!! Bad) from Amelia's blog and thought yeah why not give it a shot. I knew I hadn't been spending enough time with YS due to the workload we have, so a little dinner would be a welcome break. I didn't really had any expectations ... wait, I had expectations. I had imagined the place to be a steakhouse/cafe/bakery place all rolled into one. When we got there, we were greeted with bright lightings and lime green walls :O It's A BAKERY!!! Like duh ... should had known it was a bakery, what was I thinking? Anyways, I'm not saying the place sucked, as a matter of fact it was packed with families having dinner. Definitely not a place to date-date, eh BUT I still like having a lot of people around ... I can't really have dinner at a place that's void of crowd, my eyes just aren't used to it. Ok, we took our seat ... right NEXT to the cakes ... right NEXT to the door. I love siting next to walls and corners ... so this was a little awkward for me. I felt a little weird. I need walls. I ordered the Lamb Chop ... probably the safest thing to order. It was ok, but a little on the salty side. I don't like salty food. The mash potatoes was ok, speaking of mash potatoes ... nothing beat the ones in Rib Lee's Hartamas! YS ordered pizza ... this is something different for her. Usually it's hor fun or wat tan hor :P I took 2 slices, I don't have much comments on the pizza, it was ok. I can't really recall if I ever had good pizzas ... it all tastes the same to me. I mean, don't ALL Hawaiian chicken pizza taste the same!? It's always chicken + pineapples + cheese + tomato paste? Wish someone could come up with some variations. Notice the wall? It's lime green. I went to a bakery for dinner :D The total bill came to about RM35 including drinks. They gave us complimentary ice-cream ... I thought we were special until Amelia mentioned it was normal. Suddenly, I don't feel so special anymore ... for a split second, I felt how Sylar felt ... I don't like JAGUNG ice cream. How can people eat JAGUNG ice cream? What's wrong with you people? 1 comments Archives nothing |
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