About time

It never fails to amaze me how many films there are on time travel. Time travel has long held a fascination for many of us. Apparently, even famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking believes humans are capable of time travel into the future. There are at least 150 well known short stories and novels dating back to 1733 about time travel. As for television series on time travel, early recollections go way back to 1951 where Scientist Captain Z-Ro,  had a time machine, the ZX-99, both to view history and to send someone back in time.

Popular movies on time travel include Back to the Future,  Groundhog day, The Lake House, The Time Traveller’s Wife and recently About Time. The main thrusts? Reliving past events, returning to yesterday and even the possibility of changing what had been.

Then I ask myself if ever I am confronted with such a possibility, would I do it?

To satiate my curiosity I would certainly like to see how Van Gogh painted his sunflowers, how Beethoven composed the 5^th Symphony or how Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. Nearer home, I would like to see how my parents lived as children. Maybe I would like to see again all the good stuff that happened to me in the past. I would like to see what would have happened if my life choices were different: careers, relationships, ambitions, values. But I certainly would not like to travel into the future because I am not brave enough to see unfavourable events unfold, especially if they concern the people that I care for.

The possibility of ‘altering’ the sequence of events is also very tempting. Just imagine that I had done something totally awkward and because of that one incident, my whole life had been ruined. Or I had uttered one wrong thing and lost my good friend in the process.  Unkind words, like feathers tossed from a roof, float everywhere and cannot be gathered back. How simple it would be to travel back in time and undo what I had done.

Or we may also be laden with the ‘save the world’ responsibility where we could stop evil from happening. I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up very tired with all the travelling into the past to repair the errors of world history - to stop despots and bad emperors from ruining the lives of their subjects.

What if we travelled into the past and befriended some cave men and they decided to follow us back to real time? Imagine the amount of adaptation they would have to undergo.  

But then again comes the trap of not being accountable for our deeds. We make mistakes and hopefully, in so doing we learn, grow and change for the better. If we could always go back and make good what went wrong, then it would be like a short cut to life. What we learn would be getting into a machine, fixing the problem and then coming back to the present in the machine. Imagine the chaos if time machines were easily available to all and sundry! Then there would certainly be great congestion in space, maybe some kind of space-jam.

 Like everything else, time travel has its repercussions. Changing the time line is a paradox. The elimination of your ancestor for example would mean you no longer exist.  We might even accidentally disrupt the normal course of various events, setting off a chain reaction that turns the future into a dystopian society – the horror of it all.

The whole element of the antithesis will be absent if we could time travel. We cannot see light without darkness. We cannot appreciate good unless we have seen the bad. We cannot hope if we are always fixing the past. Then we cheat ourselves of the joy when we see expectation realised and anticipation fulfilled. With time travel, we are in control and we sit and watch how we would like things to be. That certainly deprives us of the element called spontaneity.

Opting for the alternative – which is living in real time might not be such a  bad idea after all. By living in the here and now we learn to notice. Noticing imbues each moment with a new, fresh quality. This is called the ‘beginner’s mind.’ By acquiring the habit of noticing new things, we recognize that the world is actually changing constantly. And that is fun.

This is the last Sunday for 2013 and we will embrace the next Sunday in a new year. Where did all the time go? So, for the moment, I will just be content with Uber Morlock’s statement in H.G. Wells  The Time Machine.

“We all have our time machines, don’t we?  Those that take us back are memories…And those that carry us forward, are dreams.”

Source: The New Straits Times, http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/the-present-moment-is-always-enough-for-now-1.380330

A Partner Need Not Suffer without End

I WAS at a wedding recently and as with most weddings, the atmosphere was enough to move one's heart to bits. So I listened with interest as the newlyweds exchanged their vows.

Interestingly enough, the list of vows the bride made to her groom was twice as long as that of the groom's.

I do not know whether they wrote the vows themselves or whether they lifted them from a book.

I am not a feminist, but I thought it strange that while the groom promised to honour vows one to seven, the bride promised to honour vows one to 14.

This included honouring his dreams, his vision, his hopes and his forever while nothing was mentioned about honouring hers.

I could not help feeling that there would be a long road of sacrifice ahead for her.

She would have to give up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy, sometimes even negating her own dreams and desires.

Here, I would like to borrow Yeats' line in the poem Easter 1916: "Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart."

The poem was written in the context of the long, turbulent history of British colonialism in Ireland as well as alluding to the great psychological cost of the long struggle for independence.

May I be so bold as to stretch this concept to that of domestic bliss?

The question I pose is: who determines when the suffering will end and when the sacrifices are considered sufficient?

Some will smile to make it seem easier. They will put on a front because admitting it is hard. It can be seen as a weakness and many spouses feel they need to be strong for their children or be regarded as a stigma in society.

There are great husbands and wonderful husbands out there, but a cursory glance at the role of mothers and wives across cultures shows that responsibilities are certainly not shouldered equally.

I am not talking about instances where a calamity strikes the household or a spouse suffers a tragic event and is left incapable of taking care of himself.

In some societies, we see the women walking miles to the wells early in the morning to carry water in vats for their households. They then return home to cook and clean and take care of their babies while their husbands are idling away.

We are familiar with countries that "export" wives and mothers to work as domestic helpers while their own children are being cared for by some other relatives.

There is even one country that sees it as the norm for married and single men alike to have a "free Friday" where they can go to town and have non-committal sexual relationships and then return to their households for the rest of the week as if nothing has happened.

I welcome the blogging era because I find that many (women and men) can pour out their thoughts and inner feelings when before they were trapped.

I was reading a blog that went: "I'm wondering lately when enough is enough? There comes a point when you've been sacrificing for a little too long.

"I don't mean it in the general sense, because we all have to make sacrifices, but a specific situation where you give, and give, and give with nothing in return.

"I think we've passed the 'appreciation', sensitivity, compassion, beautiful point and have become desensitised, bitter, frustrated and exhausted.

"I don't think this is a permanent state of mind, or unusual, but we all have a limit."

We are human, lest we forget. There is this innate cry for some normalcy, love, companionship and a co-parent to absorb the never-ending stress of holding a home together.

To this end, I believe that every marriage should start on an equal footing, of love and respect, of bearing responsibilities together, of honouring mutual dreams and of working towards a common goal where no one is expected to shoulder more than she should.

Certainly, a good start would be to let the number of vows made on both sides be equal.

A Blessed Christmas to all Christians.

Source - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/a-partner-need-not-suffer-without-end-1.432848#ixzz2nZKgSYwD

The Spirit of Thanksgiving

November 28 was Thanksgiving Day and I celebrated it with my American friends over a nice meal at an Italian restaurant.

My earliest recollection of the mention of Thanksgiving Day was when I was a child. There was this Looney Tunes cartoon clip which showed a flock of assorted fowls sitting down for a Thanksgiving dinner.  Sitting at the head of the table was the chieftain, who was a turkey. All the birds bowed their heads as the chieftain gave thanks for the food and he ended it by saying, ‘Thank you for the turkey that is before us’ only to realise that he himself was a turkey. I thought that was hilarious.

So amidst all the images of the pumpkin, the cornucopia, corn,  beans, cranberry and of course the turkey, what is Thanksgiving day all about?

The legendary pilgrims, crossed the Atlantic in the year 1620 in Mayflower- a 17th Century sailing vessel. About 102 people travelled for nearly two months with extreme difficulty as they were kept in the cargo space of the sailing vessel. No one was allowed to go on the deck due to terrible storms. When the pilgrims reached Plymouth rock on December 11th 1620, after a sea journey of 66 days, they faced hostility from the natives. So they moved on to Cape Cod coast where the Wampanoag Indians taught them how to cultivate corn and other crops. This led to a bountiful harvest the following year and they commemorated that with a feast. That was how the first Thanksgiving dinner was born.

Even though Thanksgiving comes only once a year, I think that we should make a conscious effort to be thankful for both good and bleak days. If we sit ourselves down and count the  many things to be thankful for, the list is endless. But, alas, we are a forgetful people.

I like to watch documentaries on animals and out of curiosity I compared the gestation period of different types of animals. Hamsters are born after a gestation period of 16 to 23 days while  the gestation period for cats runs from 60 to 67 days. A human baby takes nine months to form and it amazes me that within that nine months, all the intricate sinews and cells are developed. Yet we forget to be thankful for our senses, our intellect, our capacity for emotions and our ability to communicate in a coded language.

We forget to be thankful for our safety. If we can recall how many near accidents we have had, or how many times we have cheated death, we are then reminded of how fragile life is.

On a greater scale, we only have to look at the carnage left behind by typhoon Haiyan to realise that life is not to be taken for granted. In a blink of an eye, an estimated 10,000 people were killed and more than 600,000 were displaced in the central Philippines.

We forget to be thankful for the people around us especially those who love us and care for us. There is this group of people who have played key roles in our transition from childhood to adulthood. There are people who helped mould us, who encouraged innate talent, who believed in us, who showed us how to draw the line in the sand.

We forget to be thankful for basic amenities; what we already have because we are always looking for more or comparing ourselves with others. We only need to look at children sleeping on the streets to be thankful for the roof over our heads. It is said that while we are too busy pursuing dreams, we miss out on living life.

But what about being thankful for life’s challenges, for heart break and for failures?

We are what we are because of what we have been through. We can either let bad experiences break and embitter us or we can break free from them and evolve into better people. Don’t let it be said that we have become what we most despise.

In one of the ice breakers that I experienced recently in a group, I was asked to share with the others what my bucket list is. After thinking for some time, I told them I once had a bucket list but as of now, I have crossed out every one of them. I am content.

Being content is the result of being thankful or is it the other way round where being thankful leads to contentment? Which ever way, giving thanks does so much more for the mind and the soul then griping and grumbling incessantly over what we do not have.

So after the thanksgiving dinner, I gave my friends each a handmade pumpkin pin-cushion.

That was my way of saying, ‘I am thankful for your company’.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/the-spirit-of-thanksgiving-1.417461?cache=03%253fpage%253d0%253fpage%253d0%253fpage%253d0%252f7.192560%253fpage%253d0%2F7.319715%2F7.494333%2F7.494333%2F7.494333%2F7.490557%2F7.490557%2F7.490557%2F7.490557%2F7.490557%2F7.575117%2F7.575117

At peace by yourself but not lonely

Pascal Whelan lives alone in a mobile home on Omey Island, a tidal island off the coast of Connemara, County Galway. A former wrestler and stuntman, his family history on the island dates back 300 years. He has lived in Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and has even doubled for Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee. Although Whelan enjoys the company of others, he enjoys his own company as well.

Like Whelan, I am happy with my own company although I love meeting new people, travelling, going for the movies with others – the whole works. But having said that,  I can also stay indoors for days and not leave the house because I find myself so many interesting things to do especially catching up on my hobbies and journalling which can run into hours until something necessary like replenishing the refrigerator bids me open the front door to walk to the grocery store.

There are many different groups or clubs that people can join here. For many, this is the focal point of their lives where they have someone to talk to. Sometimes they will just go on talking about the very personal and yet trivial things about themselves and expect everyone else to be interested. Maybe they do not have anyone to talk to for the whole week. Maybe they are very lonely people.

We sometimes confuse being alone and being lonely. You can be in a busy city and yet feel lonely. You can be in a room of people and yet feel lonely. Loneliness is defined as an emotional state where a person feels empty and isolated. There is this desire of wanting company. It is a feeling of being cut off, disconnected and separated from others. While short term solitude is a joy, loneliness is a pain. Contrary to many beliefs, the young and not the elderly are not the most  lonely among us. Maybe it is because as we grow older, we learn to accept ourselves better and our status quo is that of calmness.

So to me, being alone is not being lonely. It is just being very comfortable in your own skin and very happy with your own company. Yet some people find it terribly uncomfortable to sit at a restaurant to dine alone, to go to the movies alone  or to travel alone– all of which I have no qualms doing, probably because of a spirit of self-sufficiency and independence that I  have honed from young.  Being comfortable alone is a healthy emotion.

Short term solitude has its advantages.

It is a decision by choice to set aside some hours or days or even weeks to be alone. The creative person craves time alone. In 1994, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi found that adolescents who cannot bear to be alone often fall short of enhancing creative talents.

But solitude is definitely not a time to be introspective in a negative way or to watch too much television. It is the freedom to do what we want and to be whatever we feel like, without someone else holding you down or holding you back.  We have come to a point where we do not have to do things for the sake of pleasing others or answer the question ‘what will others think?’

Put it this way, if my neighbour never liked me in the first place, he still would not have any good thoughts about me at all, whatever I do. So, if I dyed my hair the most glorious purple, he would still tell the whole town about it in a disapproving voice. It will not bother me because it is my hair and as long as I do not go out on a killing or stealing spree, I am quite content to make my own choices.

Solitude allows me to explore my own mind and self, to test my limitations and this leads to self awareness. It allows me to get back into the position of driving my own life, instead of having it run by schedules, demands and the expectations of societal mores.

Interestingly enough for Whelan too, driving his own life is exactly what he wants. 71 year old Whelan who has been diagnosed with cancer lives the Steve Jobs’ maxim of ‘treating every day as your last’ in order to enjoy the fullness of life. According to Whelan, ironically in summer (when the days are long) there aren’t enough hours in the day on the island. He is certainly neither  a hermit nor a recluse, but a man at peace with himself.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/at-peace-by-yourself-but-not-lonely-1.403002

Hidden gems in the Algarve

I was looking at this lady who was busy journaling. Her male companion was staring at an insect that rested on his pen. He was probably someone with the national geographic and  she a travel writer or they may be just tourists with nothing better to do in the Algarve.

Travelling is always fun but digressing from the usual group tour whereby we trail behind a tour guide who holds a plastic bottle up high is certainly better - given that we know the routes of the strange country or better still if we have a friend who is nice enough to bring us around the strange country.

When I first learnt that we were going to the Algarve for a holiday, images of beer guzzing youth, crowded beaches and noisy nights flashed by – not exactly what I would make a beeline for. Known for its good weather and beaches, the usual tourist heading for the Algarve  would check into a hotel usually in Albufeira, go to the beach, sunbathe and return to the hotel. He will do this every day until it is time to catch the next plane home in his new tanned skin. Nothing wrong with that, except that I would prefer to experience more.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find out that a wonderful friend, Michael Henchy was there to collect us at Faro airport and unknown to us he had drawn up a meticulous plan to bring us to scenic sites in the many towns in the Algarve: Alcantarilha, Gaio, Monchique, Lagos.  To add icing to the cake, he was extremely punctual and manoeuvred the narrow and often steep lanes of the towns with such dexterity.

To me some things make a wonderful trip:  a comfortable bed, elements of culture, great food and friendly people.

I am easily pleased and a clean place to stay with basic amenities will make me happy. Imagine driving through high and ornately decorated cast iron gates into the rambling grounds of a beautiful hotel in Alcantarilha. The added bonus of us being the only guests there made me very happy indeed.

Portuguese architecture is beautiful.  Archways and textured walls bathed in bright yellows, reds and blues reflect the vibrancy of Mediterranean life. Hand painted tiles with asymmetrical designs or pictorial images in colours not unlike that of Holland’s Delft blue never fail to win my approval.  Flat roofs remind me of lazy days when idle kings would walk and view his subjects. Such was the flat roof that King David of old walked and saw his future wife Bathsheba.

 There is this chapel in Alcantarilha   that is decorated with human skulls and bones because the grounds that the chapel was built on was a graveyard once. Strangely, there is nothing spooky about looking at the skulls adorning the walls  in Capela Dos Ossos unlike the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Kampuchea where looking at the skulls left me with sleepless nights. But then again, the circumstances were different as the skulls in the museum were those of tortured victims under the Pol Pot regime.

I saw the cork tree, the eucalyptus tree, the pepper tree and even myrrh shrubs on the way up to Foia (Monchique) which is the highest point in Algarve.  I learnt that you can actually peel cork from the tree trunk just like a sheep being shorn. I saw little mounds of stones carefully stacked for good luck, similar to that along the Camino Walk.

Walking on cobbled stone streets conjure scenes of horse drawn carriages or wagons scuttling away in the dark.  I tasted trickling spring water, home-made butter lemon buns, fruity yoghurt in glass jars and juicy pomegranates fresh from the tree. Deliciously prepared cataplana or Portuguese seafood stew and bacalhau com natas (creamy cod) will whet any seafood lover’s appetite. Incidentally, Sir Cliff Richard has a vineyard in Guia and the piri piri chicken originates from this part of the world as well.

A trip is never complete without some shopping. After hours of walking around the Faro old town, there are benches to lie down under a shady tree and let the Peruvian playing ‘Time to say goodbye’ on his musical instrument caress the weary tourist to sleep.

Finally, friendly people make  all the difference – people who make you feel at home and at ease. It sounds odd but to me, language is not a barrier if I do not make it a barrier.

Sitting in a restaurant and having the waiter explain to you in animated gestures, halting English and fluent Portuguese what the name of the restaurant ‘ A Cisterana – Casa da Pasto’ meant, was a lesson in itself. In another instance, a hotel worker tried to apologise profusely in Portuguese about the disruption of the internet service  in our room. Strangely enough I could make out what he was trying to say, the important bits anyway. This reminds me of another instance in Seville where a Spaniard explained to me in Spanish about the bull fight and I understood the gist of it.

I think I could sit for hours just sipping aromatic coffee and then suddenly getting shocked out of my wits when the bells pealed unfailingly. What made it more endearing was that the bells pealed twice every hour...once before the hour hand reached the designated hour and again when the hour hand reached the designated hour. This was certainly most beneficial to those who needed to be reminded of  the time. An enigma indeed.

So to all who love travelling, if at all possible, go down the road less travelled. Seek out the hidden gems in a new country and you will be amazed at what you will find. And in the words of Arnold Swarzenegger, I would say to the Algarve, ‘I’ll be back.’

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/hidden-gems-in-the-algarve-1.390520?cache=03%252F7.198169%3Fpage%3D0%3Fpage%3D0%2F7.72648%3Fkey%3DKuala+Lumpur%2F7.321287%2F7.323459

Rekindling Ties

When we talk about a gathering, we are talking about people coming together. Throughout 2013, as part of a tourist-led initiative, Ireland is opening its arms to friends and family across the globe, calling them home to ‘gatherings’ in villages, towns and cities.

The Irish diaspora is not unlike the Chinese diaspora whereby economic turmoil in generations past had forced the people to leave their homeland in search for survival and a better future. Over 70 million people worldwide claim Irish ancestry. 

                                                                A scene in Strokestown

Amidst a rich culture of song and stories, one of the gathering’s most poignant returns took place in Strokestown, Co.Roscommon in July. The scene whereby the descendants of an Irish Famine boy was welcomed home 167 years after his family had to emigrate was emotional and heart moving.

Daniel Tighe was 12 when his family was forced to leave Ireland in July 1847 when his  father died and his mother Mary Kelly, in an act of trying to hold the family together, left the country with her five children.

Famine monument in Sligo

She boarded a Famine ship for Quebec, never to reach there. She and three of her five children died on the journey and only Daniel and his sister Catherine (9) survived. When Canadian farmer Francois Coulombe needed a boy to help on his farm outside Quebec, he chose Daniel and Catherine became hysterical and clung on to her brother’s leg, sobbing. The Coulombes said, “We’ll take them both.” And they did. Daniel’s descendants still live on the farm today and the Canadian parents allowed the children to keep their surname. Daniel never forgot the image of corpses being thrown overboard before coming into Grosse Ile, one of the islands located in Gulf of St. Lawrence Quebec, in Canada.

                                                                                                                      

Families get separated all the time – usually for economic reasons, where one generation wishes another generation  a better life, a greater head start. My father came from China for the very same reason, and now I see many young Malaysians leaving the shores of the country they call home, never to return.

There is yet another type of separation which I feel is equally as  painful and costly – that is the separation by choice or because of bad blood. Family feuds have left members estranged from each other, with no resolution but only that of great remorse when one of the parties lies cold in the casket and there is no turning back in time and no more opportunities for apologies. 

We all know of at least one relative who is not speaking to another, one son who has left home with no forwarding address,  one aunt who has not seen her niece, one child who has never known she is adopted, one parent who has never met the child she gave up for adoption.  So there is a mushrooming of agencies trying to put families together, societies committed to tracing the family tree and lots of money spent along the way for that bit of essential information which could hopefully close the aching chasm within.

In fact both my parents were adopted so I never really knew who my biological grand parents were and even my surname is not my grand dad’s surname. If I had my ancestral roots documented, I can imagine the stories I could write about, the streets of the little village out in China somewhere where I could trod.  I can also know whether I inherited my artistic bent from any of my grand parents.

I do not want my children to go through that, so I have put together bits and pieces of trivia as well as significant information about who they are, who their parents are and who their grandparents are.

And they are all packed in 3 plastic files with their names on them, together with mittens, hand prints cast in plaster and the first lock of  shorn hair.

Source: Columnist, New Straits Times, 20 October 2013

Heaney's Verses More than just Poetry in Emotion

When I first read about the Stendhal syndrome I was intrigued. The illness is named after the famous 19th-century French author Stendhal (pseudonym of Henri-Marie Beyle), who described his experience with the experience during his 1817 visit to Florence in his book Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio. Apparently, it is a psychosomatic disorder that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations when a person is exposed to art, usually when the art is particularly beautiful or a large amount of art is in a single place. 

I therefore reason that if there are curious reactions to beautiful art , then certainly there must be a term to describe the condition of one who is overwhelmed by the writings of great literary geniuses and Ireland has no shortage of such.

The recent demise of the poet Seamus Heaney on 30 August 2013 is a real loss to Ireland. The nearest I got to knowing the poet was through his poems and also by walking past his house in Sandymount, Dublin.

The similarities we share are an eye for detail and a love for the written word.

My first introduction to analysing poetry was during my Form Six days when I did the English literature paper four. Granted, poetry is not everyone’s cup of tea. Having said that, a good teacher and an innate passion for poetry appreciation transcends the bumps along the way and the combination of both finally led me to pursue a degree in English literature.

At 18, in a hot classroom with fans whirling, we learned to make sense of cultural imagery that was so far removed from our daily existence as light is to day. 

How similar could tropical heat and broiler chickens be to Yeats’ trees in their autumn beauty and nine and fifty swans upon the brimming water’? How similar could hibiscus shrubs be to Wordsworth’s host of golden daffodils?

And yet, we all survived. Imagination is a strange thing. We can paint vivid images in our mind just the way we read about them and we can even feel the same emotions that the poet wants to portray if not more. Such is the power of the ‘squat pen that sits between the finger and the thumb’ that Seamus writes about.

It is all about familiarity.

When imagination meets reality and they both harmonise and agree, that is when the magnificence of the written word dawns.

In his poem ‘Digging’ Seamus wrote about two main activities – potato planting and turf cutting.  I have planted potatoes and understand how ‘the spade sinks into the gravelly ground’ and how ‘the rump stoops in rhythm through potato drills.’   

The last time we got some turf from the bog, it was exactly like how Seamus described his grand father ‘nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods, over his shoulder, going down and down for the good turf.’

It became very familiar again when he talked about appreciation and acceptance.

How did the people in his town react to him being awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1995? In his own words to a friend, initially, they ‘ignored’ it for the most part. Then after his passing, I waited for the national television stations to screen tribute after tribute to Ireland’s pride, only to find that the number of documentaries on Seamus screened by the BBC far exceeds that.

Then I thought about  our very own Tan Twan Eng who won the 2013 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction for his second novel The Garden of Evening Mists and  Tash Aw who won the 2005 Whitbread Book Awards First Novel Award as well as the 2005 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel (Asia Pacific region). How many Malaysians have actually heard of them or read their works?

I have recorded the televised tributes to Seamus and I will watch them again. I have audio recordings of his readings and I will listen to them again. I have his poems and I will read them again.

And then unlike Stendhall who wrote about being ‘absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty... I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations… I had palpitations of the heart… Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear of falling’, another kind of reaction could be born.

This time it would be a positive reaction related to the written arts.


Source: http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/heaney-s-verses-more-than-just-poetry-in-emotion-1.374592?cache=03%252f7.198169%2F7.173253%2F7.480262%2F7.478218%2F7.478218%2F7.478218%2F7.490557%2F7.490557%2F7.490557%2F7.490557

Following the food trail

I like to cook and have always enjoyed the  Discovery Travel and Living Channel. My favourite hosts are Ian Wright, Samantha Brown, Anthony Bourdain and Bobby Chinn. These are the people who would show you the fun of travelling to exotic places and trying out new delectable morsels of food.

So imagine my surprise when I learnt that Peter Ward of Country Choice and American celebrity chef and World Café host Bobby Chinn were going to be at the North Tipperary Agricultural Show – a  place for cattle, poultry, horse and pony showing classes and show jumping as well as many other competitions including the best floral displays, photography, art, baking, cooking, needlework, fruit and vegetable produce.

Not one with great spatial intelligence, I surprised myself by getting to the destination without any hitches and I was early as well. Peter Ward, the friendly and charming man who together with his wife Mary, established Country Choice, an independent delicatessen, café and supply business,  told me that Bobby would only be on an hour later. So that gave me some time to walk around the fair, admiring prized four legged creatures: Hereford, Angus and Friesian amongst others. 

                                

What is it about food anyway?

I firmly believe that any true Malaysian is a great lover of food. Not any type of food, but a wide variety of food. The thing about us is that we are eager to try cooking and tasting new stuff. It is not uncommon for us to ask our hostess for the recipe of the most gorgeous lime pie. Most people will happily share the recipes but some will make us swear that we will only use the recipe for domestic purposes and not to start a business.

Then there are some who would just travel for miles to other towns just because the satay is superb in Kajang or the bean sprouts are crunchier in Ipoh. The travelling may be tedious but the food makes it all worthwhile.

So far, I have tried many recipes, some of which are successful and some not. But the greatest achievement for me is baking bread, something that I would have thought impossible. Nothing beats the warm loaf wrapped in a tea towel and sitting on the window sill. Somehow the smell of bread baking in a kitchen gives the home a totally different meaning altogether.

Most times I have also altered recipes to suit my guests’ taste buds.  Tofu and tamarind-based dishes can be as strange to my guests as cold tongue and kidney pie are to me. I find that the more well- travelled my guests are, the more ready they are to enjoy and taste a variety of food beyond the bangers and mash. I made some mango custard dessert for a pot-luck at a local gathering and no one touched it. Unfazed, I made the same dessert at an international gathering and it was zapped up immediately with compliments all round.

Initially I found the Chinese takeaway dishes very strange indeed, not at all like what I am used to. As they try to cater for their customers’ tastes, Chinese dishes have morphed into a blend of eastern spices and western portions, so I could never actually finish a meal all by myself at a Chinese restaurant.

Following the food trail like any endeavour is a journey and it all starts in someone’s kitchen, usually our mother’s. Although my mother used to chase me out of the kitchen because I was more of a pest than a help, I was determined to try out all sorts of recipes. Table manners are also very different where I come from. Those who are younger will make sure that the older ones are seated first out of respect. Then we will ‘invite’ our parents or elders to eat before we did.

At a Chinese restaurant in Dublin, my daughter ‘invited’ me to eat before she started tucking in. Then I heard a Chinese mother ‘chiding’ her own daughter (probably she was born and bred in Ireland), ‘See the girl is asking her mother to eat first, I never hear you saying that.’

Another wonderful custom that we have is we like to share our food. Whether we are at home, in school or in the office, we will readily share what we have with others so we could taste each other’s food, thus forging a kind of camaraderie.

So after an hour wandering around the fair and having scrutinised the cows and horses, I went back to the Country Choice stall and saw the back of a very familiar person sitting on a chair. Like an excited teenager, I went around the chair and asked,

‘Hi, Bobby could I take a photo of you?’

Bobby grinned and said ‘Now why don’t we get someone to take a photo of us.’

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/following-the-food-trail-1.360807?cache=golhyfvvipwqzn%2F7.14219%2F7.14219%2F7.245988%3Fkey%3DKuala+Lumpur%2F7.478218%2F7.478218%2F7.478218

Strange thing about teenage years

SEVENTY thousand young people were screaming at Leicester Square, London,  on a Tuesday night. They had waited for hours; some were said to have camped out overnight on the street, and they were not disappointed. Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne and Niall Horan arrived in style.

Who?

The fact that I was not impressed by the names of the Great Foursome, a.k.a. One Direction, is because I had left my teenage years a long time ago. I am a parent the worst nightmare that a teenager could morph into.

The teenage years are the strangest ever. It is when everything is about I, me and myself.

If people talk, they are talking about me. If they do not talk, they are not talking about me. I speak in hyperboles. I write in hyperboles.

I even dream in hyberboles. If I fail in anything, the humiliation is magnified many times over. If I am successful, I believe everyone should know what I have achieved and if he does not, I wonder whether he is living on Earth or on an unknown meteor.

If I am committed to a viewpoint, I will defend it to death. If anyone has contrary ideas, I will have to sit down and have a very long discussion with the person ... no, not a discussion, but perhaps more like an argument. My energy is boundless and my dogged determination to get something that I like, usually a popular product that other teens have, is almost unshakable.

That is the teen in me, shouting from the mountain top.

The most common phrase a teen will use in a parent-teen argument is "You don't understand. During your time it was different". But then again, is there any difference? On the surface level, the setting may have changed.

Technology has advanced, toys have changed, holiday destinations are more exotic but underlying principles and teenage experiences, whether specific or general, have not changed much.

Now that I am a parent and am on the other end of the continuum, I can see that there is a great similarity between what I had experienced and gone through and what that young person is going through now. But, of course, when you are a teenager you do not realise that.

I was watching a documentary about the Bee Gees. I enjoyed their songs tremendously when I was a teen and there was this clip that jolted me back to my past. I saw Robin Gibb cupping his ear with his hand as he sang Massachusetts. I remember I was so engrossed in watching the very same performance over a black and white television, oh so many years ago. It was very rare in those days for national television to air a pop group singing and it must have been on one of the festive days.

So there I was watching Gibb cupping his ear, mesmerised until my mother said: "I think he has an ear ache."

I was aghast that my mother would even mention such a thing about this demi god and highly irritated that my precious time with the Bee Gees was interrupted.

I attempted to correct her by saying that he was trying to deaden the side noise so he could hear his own voice better.

Ignoring my reply, my mother contemplated and came up with another more ingenious suggestion.

"I think he must have a toothache."

My face reddened and if my mother had not gone to the kitchen to check on the rice boiling over the charcoal stove, I would not know what I could have done to her.

So now, many years later, when I see Gibb cupping his ear on a flat screen television, I laugh loudly to myself and wonder why I was so uptight over the cupping-ear incident once.

Whether it was a ear ache or a toothache or a sound technique, what did it matter?

Oscar Wilde said, "youth is wasted on the young" and there is a Chinese phrase that goes: "I eat salt more than you eat rice", meaning that the older person has gone through more experiences than the young person would credit him for.

Tell it to an adult and he will shake his head knowingly. Tell it to a teen and he cannot believe that the adult has gone through what he is going through.

I hear that in Dublin, patient parents queued for more than two hours with their excited children to get a good seat in one of the two cinemas that had premiere screening of the movie One Direction: This Is Us.

At a time like this, I am so glad my children have outgrown the phase of going in that direction.

Read more: Strange thing about teenage years - Columnist - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/strange-thing-about-teenage-years-1.351333#ixzz2eK4RZGhI