Mr and Mrs Kong - the updates

Finally!!! The official photos have been released for public consumption. The whole lot took up 4.3GBytes. I managed to compress the whole lot down to 250MB. I'll just post up the photos here that have Agilent people in them, so they can see themselves in all their finery of that day. As Godfather, close friend and colleague, I get to be in many of the group photos. Like the saying goes - a picture paints a thousand words.

Farewells - internationally and locally

Woke up to the news of the passing of Farrah Fawcett - one of the original Charlie's Angels on primetime TV. She died of cancer. Her death was expected. She had the last rites administered to her a day before.

What was unexpected was the passing of Michael Jackson, at age 50 - he is only 2 months younger than me!! Cause as yet unknown and speculated to be cardiac arrest. A brilliant entertainer and performer, if not a little unorthodox and unconventional at times. His life has influenced many and affected many. We are the world.

On the local scene, it is Jayson's last day in Agilent. Oi Chan follows suit in a week's time. Jayson leaves for personal reasons and Oi Chan due to a better offer.

To bid farewell to our soon to be ex colleagues, we had a dinner at Brussels located in Jaya ONE. 18 of us managed to attend, including the guests of honor. Brussels is termed a beer cafe. The prime offering is BEER!!. Entrees numbers about 5 or 6. As usual, it's the malaise of Malaysians - LATE!! We reserved the place for 6.30 and did not show up till about 7pm. The rest of the crowd came in by 7.30pm.

Most of use ordered pork lion, salmon fillet or lamb. The ones who arrived earlier (yours truly included) started off with a hoegarden. The waitress serving us recommended that we give Timmermans a try. Too fruity and sweet for my liking. But I still ended up with 2 glasses of beer in front of me. Ken was kind of interested in of the sweeter looking waitress that night but dare not ask her for anything. He was just hoping that she would serve us. I got him her name and even managed to get her to pose for a photo. Later that night, we realized why Ken was so reluctant to make a move. His girlfriend showed up to take him home!! Ken - Hui Min can still be a reason to come to that place again!!

Everyone wanted to give Oi Chan a farewell hug. Hmm... I wonder why? Nobody "volunteered" to give Jayson a hug. So he hugged his only glass of beer for the night.

And then, there were some who I am sure would have loved to hug Oi Chan, but dared not, so they hugged each other.

Beer- a drink that can make people make strange faces. In Kah Weng's case, it was guava juice that probably fermented in his stomach to cause this.

We also had 3 committed couple that night. At least one will be having wedding bells (or in the local context - yum seng) by the end of the year.No twosomes? No problem - we also have threesomes!

Great night, good company. Only thing that could have been better - clean the lens of my camera!! Sorry about the snow spots on the photos guys and gals!

When Miss Wong became Mrs Kong

17 years ago, when I first shifted to my current house in Taman Midah, I saw a strange sight. I saw a girl, 9 years old, running around the neighbourhood with a Corgi dog on a leash and a bunch of house keys jangling in her hand. I saw her go to the slide in the playground next to my house and slide down with the dog behind her. I had 2 other dogs then and this little girl cameover to befriend my dogs and in the process, I ended up with my first God Daughter -Elaine W.

On 3rd June 2009, she became legally married through the registration of her marriage to Julian K at Charis Church in Cheras. And on 6th June, they had

- their traditional tea ceremony (which started around 4pm)

- the wedding ceremony. This is the Church ceremony to formalize the spiritual unity of the marriage

- the wedding dinner at Equatorial hotel in KL.

Yours truly was involved in almost every stage. As Godfather, I get to partake in the tea ceremony. In the photography sessions, I joined the family grouping, the Agilent's grouping and friends of the family groupings. Heh heh heh. I also did the video for the tea ceremony and the wedding ceremony.

And for the dinner I was also the Master of Ceremony (MC). Very long and tiring day.

The photos that I have taken can be viewed at my facebook http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=80882&id=754289412&l=0a6b377aae

More updates to follow once I get my hands on the official photos.

Congratulations Julian and Elaine

May your union be blessed with health, merriment and longetivity.

The passage of time

I was doing a spot of spring cleaning to rearrange some of my stuff and came across a scrap book that I had kept when I was in China in 1992. Quite a few of the people in the photos have already passed away but the story of how we got back together as family is worth repeating.

In 1991, the Malaysian Government finally allowed it's citizens to visit China unconditionally. In the past, such visits could only be made by those over 55 years old and even then, they had to be vetted by the Police Special Branch to ensure no affiliation's with the Communist Party of Malaya.

I took my mum, her brother (my uncle) and my wife to Guangzhou in September 1991. We spent 1 week in a very remote, rural farm where my maternal Grandfather was born and bred. It was more than 100km from Guangzhou (go westward past Foshan to the county of Gaoming, to Hup Sui Jen and onto the little farming village of Pin Hung Chuen). That's where at least one branch of the Lee family in Malaysia originated from.

Left my mum and uncle in Pin Hung Chuen for another week while my wife and I went to Meisan (on the border between Guangdong and Fujian province - pronounced as Moi Yen in Hakka) to visit her 2 brothers (her father left them there when the communist took over. Never went back as he was a landowner and during the cultural revolution, landowners had a tough time).Spent a week in Hakka county before meeting up with my mum and uncle in Guangzhou city. I had reserved us rooms in Equatorial Hotel in the city center.

But that is another story.

The story this time was about my Grandma (maternal) who had married in China, bore 3 children (that we know of - there was rumors of a 4th girl). Husband passed away and she went to Nanyang (as Malaya was called then), remarried, got my mum and uncle and passed away when my mum was 13 or 14 years old.

When we went back to China in September, another family of relatives also arranged to go back to the old village where my maternal grandma was from. Mum asked them to check if grandma left anyone around. When we met back in KL 2 weeks later - my mum was told that my mum still had a surviving brother and sister! A flurry of snail mail followed to confirm identities and expectations and we were back in Guangzhou in Jan 1992. Mum made sure uncle knew that if he accepts us as family he is fully cognizant of the fact that we were not rich (despite the expectations in China that Nanyang was paved with gold!)

As they say - a picture is worth a thousand words. And I would leave these photos here as memory to those days we reconciled as family in Jan 1992.

Here is a group photo of the bother and sisters with the sister-in-laws. Next one here is with my first cousin (he was a deputy director of land department in Guangdong province before he retired). The following photo is with my Uncle and 5 of his 7 children. 2 more were back in the village near PanyuAnd with cousin sister Sim and her family. Then there is my 3rd cousin and wife. They do not have any kids. And a bunch of nieces. Cousin sister Kiew and her family. Last but not least (on Uncle Hon Chung's side), cousin sister Ming and her family. And then there was the families from 2nd uncle who had passed away a few years before this trip.The next couple of shots are the families from my Aunt's side. By which time, I had problems remembering who was who!

The story did not end there. From the Shen family side - Uncle Hon Chung had addresses of his cousins in Malaya and we were tasked to find them. Find them we did and we ended up with another set of uncles and aunts in Serdang.

Sadly, Uncle Hon Chung and Aunty Yuet Ngan has now passed away. I managed to bring Mum back to Guangzhou for another visit 10 years after the first, i.e. in 2002. All the nephews and nieces have grown and many have their own families now.

That would be yet another story!

New addition to the family - my nephew Justin

Justin Timothy Hiew decided that 12th march 2009 was a good day to say hi to the world. He burst his mum's water early in the morning at around 2.15am. His happy Dad SMS quite a few people, including yours truly. I heard my SMS come in (one those who knows me knows how loud I set my messages alert), woke up, decided, it would take a while more before he arrived.

Morning, I called V - for a status update. No sign of Justin yet. 7.30am, doctor ordered a C-section as the vital signs were showing baby in distress. By 8.20am or so, Justin finally popped out. Doctor made the right decision as the umbilical cord was caught around Justin's neck.

Visited V and M in the evening after work. Justin was busily trying to suckle, but M was not ready, so Justin was wheeled off to the nursery for formula. By the next day, things started going downhill. Justin had not passed motion!. Extensive tests were done and it was found that section (s) of his small intestines were either not properly developed or were blocked.

Doctor says surgery was necessary.V and M were sad. M was getting depressed. Mad, it's not your fault. It is fated. Justin was transferred to HUKM as it is nearer to all of us (and cheaper too).

More tests are done to confirm the situation and surgery is scheduled for today 15th Mar.

Lord, I don't ask much of you but on this holy day, I pray that you will see Justin through this ordeal. Lord, you may have your reasons to make this little boy and his parents suffer and I don't claim to understand your reasons for this. All I ask is that you spare Justin and let V and M enjoy the experience of parenthood with their first born. In Jesus name. Amen

Vincent Wong n Siew Fong (3)

Dinner was at the Mines Beach and Spa Resort. It was meant to be a beach party. However, the skies were not cooperative and it drizzled causing a last minute change to a sit down table setting in the restaurant.

Yours truly was co-opted to be the MC for the night. Confusion reigned for the first hour or so as the hotel staff struggled to lay out the tables and numbered them so that guests could be properly seated. One of the people at my table added to the confusion by swapping the numbers around as he preferred a particular table that he was seated at. That table was reserved for Esther's brother and relatives!

The night started with an invitation to Pastor Michael to bless the couple and give thanks for the food. With that gorging began.

The Yam Seng toast was suppose to start at 8pm but got delayed as the groom had left the wine at home. Luckily that was nearby. So I spent some time to help collect all the ang pows (red packets) to count and collate. Lesson I learn from V and M's wedding, you need a lot of helpers in all the activities from front desk reception all the way to the end of the day. And Vincent's dinner could have done with more helpers!

When the wine arrived, I did my assigned job as MC, got the couple through the pouring of the wine and did just one round of Yam seng (as agreed with the groom) and went back happily to gorging myself.

As people started leaving, we decided to call it a day

Congratulations Vincent and Siew Fong! May your lives be white haired together.