A strange thing...memories

Memories. This is a strange thing that our brain possess.

For some reason or another, you can remember things 30 40 years ago and not something last week. Age?? Maybe. My mum had asked me quite a few times over the years if I could find an old school buddy of mine. I had gotten into an accident and got hospitalized with compression fracture of the lumbar and this schoolmate of mine had to go to the house I was staying in to inform my mum that I had been admitted to hospital. Over the years, I had heard that YNC had gone to Singapore and then later became a lawyer. I had made half hearted attempts to locate him but to no avail.

Then last week, my in laws in China (my wife's half brothers and their family) started sending many emails over. They had discovered the internet!!! As I setup an email for my wife as well as a facebook account for her, I thought I would try to google for some of my school mates or 35 years ago when I was in Secondary 5. First name that popped into mind was YNC. And the search returned success!!

Called him and found he actually had 2 practices - one in Singapore and one in KL. As he said, lawyers needs a lot of practice because they can't get it right! And from this, I now find a whole bunch of old school buddies on FB today. Many I remember their names and some their faces.

This is turning out to be an interesting interaction. One of them is even a grandfather and he's my age! The power of social networks!

Shanghai !! Oh Shanghai!!

I was in Shanghai during the last week of November - for work, not pleasure. On the day I was supposed to leave, I heard that Elaine C's brother was tested positive for H1N1 and he was just back from Shanghai!! Not wanting to take any chances of disrupting my plans for the end of the year, I wore a mask all the way from Kuala Lumpur to Shanghai. I only removed the mask after dinner and when I was back in my hotel room. Call me paranoid, but better to be safe than sorry. I had enough masks to last me 2 weeks!

The trip was a training trip to learn up a new instruments that we were introducing. I was on a train-the-trainer as I had committed to deliver the training in March next year. There was this girl that I have known since she was knee high to a grasshopper (okay okay - since she was a baby). She is married now and stays in Shanghai with her mum and 2 kids. Charmaine's hubby works in another province and is home only on weekends (i.e. a weekend husband). The reason they stay in Shanghai is because that province does not have an International school for the kids.

Life is not too bad for Charmaine. She got her driver to pick me up from the hotel, went to her apartment for dinner and then had the driver send me back. 2 weeks before my visit, her Malaysian cousins visited her too and spruced up the place with a lot of live flowers and plants.

It must have been at least 2 years since my last visit to the factory in Shanghai. There were some new faces and a whole bunch of old ones. I am glad they still remembered me. At one time, there were 4 of my previous reports in the same room. It just goes to show that organizational relationships can and will change with time. I also managed to FINALLY meet up with another lady who helps me in my work. Pham - if you are reading this and you want to know who is Helen Sun and what she looks like - tah dah!!!

And Mark P. was in Shanghai a few days earlier than me - conducting interviews for Khoo WK's replacement.

Last but not least - I managed to meet up with my "niang" on the first day before she disappeared to Beijing. Niang means mum in Chinese. How did this lady become my niang? It happened about 2.5 years ago when both of us were on a high achiever trip sponsored by the company. She had brought her daughter along for the cruise from Singapore to Phuket and back and her daughter just took an instant liking to me and stuck to me throughout the trip..

That's how I got a "niang" much younger than me!!

One last comment - Shanghai is not a destination you want to go to now. Most of the tourist spots are under going renovations in preparations for EXPO 2010 which will happen from May 2010. The bund is a mess!! The old temple complex next to the Yu Yuan gardens has half the shops closed for renovations. Even the famous Nanxiang Xiao Loong Bao has half it's capacity as they work on upgrading the restaurant.

Be fore-warned!

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!

Singapore 27th Oct to 7th Nov 2008

Finally had time to get my photos cropped and compressed and now to blog about the latest 2 weeks in Singapore.

The group of engineers that I had to train varied from absolute ZERO knowledge and experience to one who had already been working in the same field for quite some time. This made the class slow going as I had to ensure that everyone at the very least learn and understand the basics. So instead of me torturing them, I got a headache re-arranging the class schedule to ensure continuity in the training.

I also took the time to visit Carolyn at her apartment. She had given birth 2 months ago (in fact during my last visit in August) and at that time, I did not have the time to visit her. She gave me absolutely perfect instructions on how to get to her apartment by bus. The bus terminal can even be seen from her unit!

On thing struck me during the bus journey from City Hall to Bukit Panjang. I was riding upstairs in a double decker and you can see that the town planners had the foresight to ensure that overhead bridges and traffic lights were suitably high so as to allow the double deckers to pass through comfortably. Why can't KL town planners do the same and then introduce these double decker people movers?

And one can also see that many old building facades are preserved. This one has the L'Oreal office near Niu Cher Sui (Kreta Air Lembu??). The facade still looks good and nice.

On another day, I also visited my brother's Mum and step Dad in Red Hill Close. Everytime I write on my family, I realize how complicated I must seem. Kit's my half brother (different Mum) and he has half brothers and sisters (different Dad and last name). So that also makes them my brothers and sisters! Add 3 Grandma and 3 Grandpa on my Mother's side to the mix and we are truly complicated!

As I had wrote in the previous blog - Swiss Hotel Stamford put me in the 63rd floor. It gives a nice view of the Singapore skyline. There was a clear sunny day on the weekend and I took a number of shots of the skyline. Concrete jungle with a dash of green everywhere!

2 weeks zipped by and I am back in town. Happiness!!

Another unexpected death

There was this news item on the Saturday papers - Toddler dies after falling seven floors
KUALA LUMPUR: A two-year-old boy fell to his death from the seventh floor of his apartment block in Taman Desa here.
Mathew Athan Lariche had just finished playing with his mother and five-year-old sister when the mishap occurred at 7.10pm.
The victim and his sister were running up to their apartment unit on the 12th floor when his mother noticed he had gone missing on the seventh floor.
She found her son’s body sprawled on the pavement.
At the time of reading this, it was just another news item to me. All it evoked in me was - Poor kid! What happened?
Then my colleague KK SMSed me and told me that was her nephew! That release a flood of emotions and memories for me!
- of the death of another colleague's son more than 20 years ago. JT's son died due to overmedication from a malarial infection. There was not a dry eye in the room during his wake.
- Of another colleague LKH whose son similarly plunged to his death from the upper floors of their apartment. All of us who had attended that wake felt for the family
- Not forgetting my nephew Andrew who died from cot death at 6 months. The hurt is still there when I think about it. I was worried for my mum then as she had spent 6 months in London looking after Andrew and this happened a few weeks after she got back to KL.
- But it is not just the young ones. I am sure as LS reads this, she would remember the day her mum died under similarly circumstances. And she was only in her secondary school then! I took time off from work to help LS and her siblings cope with the funeral and arrange for their lives thereafter
- Although I don't know Dave, his battle with cancer was a long drawn out affair and I am not sure if it was because I was there for ECEL that we were close at that time. Dave's family were prepared for his demise but even then ECEL was hit hard for a long time over the death of her father.

So what is it about the death of people who are related to people you know? In me, they evoke strong emotional feelings. But I don't have such feelings during the death of my grandparents and my biological father. Is it because of the stronger bonds that I have with them, i.e. the weaker or non existent bond with my grandparents and father?

I'll need to ask my e-friend Steph on this. She is studying psychology. Maybe she can tell me.

Matthew - rest in peace young man.

Meeting of body parts and reminiscing

Yesterday, there was a meeting of body parts at the Curve. There were also honorary guests present.These body parts had known each other for coming to 27 years!!

At the top is Khoo TL, who does not seem to have aged!! Now, how can a Khoo be a body part. Well... in Cantonese, Khoo is part of the male anatomy - as in ku ku jiao! Khoo interviewed me for a position in HP in 1981 as a Customer Engineer. I must have exceeded his expectations when I was posted in Singapore for a month, one month after I had joined HP. I was there to back up the CE there who was on national Service (reservist training). With no training (and often no initial understanding of the instruments), I managed to attend to a majority of service calls and installations for both Medical and Analytical products. On my third month with HP, Khoo gave me a 25% pay increment - that was RM300 extra!!

Lip WT was the Sales Engineer for Analytical products. How appropriate - he pays LIP service to customers to get them to purchase our products. His hair is silvery grey now and thinning. He used to say that a sign of success of a man is that he either lose his hair by 30 or have his hair turn grey.

Toh HK was my senior in Support. He used to be a sanitation engineer when he was studying in the UK. Over here, we call them the rubbish collector la!! Toh uses his TOE to prod customers. Kicks them if they don't behave. And he has very strong political views. Here is a classic shot of the TOE and THUMB

and I am the THUMB who gives the thumbs up whenever I complete my assignments.

And hence we were parts of the body!!!

Honorary guests for the night were Kong PH, Tai Hooi Lin (I guess he also qualifies as the THIGH - though I am not sure how that fits into operations) and a long time customer Jaya from PORIM.

We had dinner at the Bavarian Bierhaus at the Curve - ordered a couple of pork knuckles (delicious but pricey), a bunch of sausages and I lost count of the number of jugs of beer that flowed till 11pm.

Picture above was taken in Oct 1984 when yours truly was only 26 years young! We had the Sales Engineer for medical products (Goh), the admin (Siti), the Medical Support CE (James) and the 2 parts of the body.

There is talk of a arranging a major gathering of all ex HP staff in mid October!. Sure like to see that happen. The photo above is just about ALL of HP Sales Malaysia in early 80s!! Only 2 of those people are still in Agilent - Khor AK (in black standing behind me) and of course me!. The next photo was taken on a company outing to Fraser's Hill. Nobody believes that I was ever THIN in my life!!

And this next visual here has Siti (the one in Yellow)- our admin for a number of years. She was from Penang and spoke Mandarin Chinese, English and Malaylast but not least is the Far East management team for Analytical back in the 80s!! Back then Dick Aal had mgmt responsibilities for the Intercon region (which was Latin Americas, Canada, Japan and Far East Asia).

I can't for the life of me remember the names of those 3 at the back row!!

Hawaii Five Oh

Last Sunday, another milestone in my life just went by. I am now officially, chronologically half a century young!! To me age is just a number. Live life to the fullest and enjoy the scenery along the way.

Sunday was a quiet day. My family had already celebrated for me on Father's day, which was a couple of weeks ago. And with Madeline's wedding happening in my house, the respite was welcomed.

By some strange coincidence, 7 of my friends decided to SMS me birthday greetings within a space of 5 minutes. This was not like in the early part of the day or even in the afternoon. There was a flurry of SMS in the early morning as expected. This was close to 10pm. I had just finished watching the news, switched off the idiot box, switched off the room lights when my phone buzzed with the first message. And so I spent the next 5 minutes going back and forth between the bed and the cupboard where I kept my phone. Thank you to my colleague from India, the colleagues from Singapore and one ex-colleague who had left us maybe 4 years ago and still remembered to send me a birthday greeting every year.

Elaine got so caught up in her work that she did not get a chance to give me my present until Tuesday. She brought me along to purchase the gift, supposedly for her boyfriend. I believed her!! And then she gave it to me in the evening. Thankee thankee thankee.

I also won RM1000 GAP vouchers from HSBC from a promotion they had in Mid valley some weeks ago. Nice surprise.

Last but not least, EPF paid ALL of my money from account 2 into my bank account. That was prompt!!. It happened on Monday 30th,just one day after the day i was eligible. Another property just got paid off!!

The wedding - Epilogue

From the free online dictionary:-
epilogue

1. the final section of a literary work, often added by way of explanation, comment, etc.
2. a closing speech in a play, often delivered after the completion of the main action. — epilogistic, adj.

It seems a few of you have become addicted to reading this blog especially on the continuing saga of Madeline and Vincent. So here is a little something to tide you over just before I start gallivanting all over the world again. I already have India (Gurgaon and Bangalore) and Germany (Frankfurt/ Waldbron) lined up for July and Singapore for August.

It seems that according to Cantonese practice, it is customary for the mother-in-law (wife's mother) to treat the new groom and his family to a dinner BEFORE the birthday of the groom in the first year of marriage. As Vincent's birthday was in early July,my mum, the surrogate mother-in-law, decided to have the dinner today 27th June. In addition, it is also my birthday this weekend. So we essentially killed 2 birds with one stone!

The usual suspects were there. On Vincent's side, there were his parents, his brothers, Edmund and Lawrence. On Madeline side, there was my mum, wife, son and my mother-in-law (who stays with me ).

We had the dinner at Restaurant Jun Kee in Taman Midah. This restaurant used to be fronting the main Cheras road and had expanded to three shop lots at the back of their previous location. They still maintain the restaurant in the old location, while operating the new air conditioned restaurant. I had always been partial to the fish head curry that they served. If anyone want to give this place a try, their address is
31,33,35, Jalan Midah 3,
Taman Midah
56000 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-091335142

The dishes ordered for the night was Kampung herbal chicken. Kampung chicken being free range chickens, which is supposedly better than the ones reared in battery. Less Fat and less oily! It seems like every major restaurant in town serves this dish today. The one served in Jun Kee was tender and steamed just right!. Cost was RM56 per chicken. We had 2 as the chicken was rather small sized. Too bad that by the time I got to photograph it, the waiter had already "dissected" it.

Then there was the Fish Head curry. Wonderful!! Even Alex, who normally do not take much rice for meals managed to down a whole bowl of rice because of the fish head curry. The curry was not too spicy and the fish does not have that fishy smell/odor. There was also long beans, brinjals and okra in the pot. Madeline says that was one of her favorite that night. This dish came to RM28.

Next, we had the 2 styled kailan. Again, it seems that every restaurant of some worth serves this too. The kailan that night was okay. Acceptable, but not something worth shouting about. This dish was RM25.00

We also had Ku Lo Yoke - pork that was smothered with batter and fried with capsicum, pineapple and large onions. Alex favorite. Rm25 for this dish.

We had another fish, but this time it was assam steamed fish. It is served with lady's fingers (okra) and brinjals. This dish was more expensive RM35. Maybe it was because the fish was freshwater and also still swimming before being prepared for the table.

Another vegetable dish was asparagus fried with prawns. The prawns were the large prawns, not the shrimp like prawns that many other restaurants uses. For that we had to pay RM60!!

And as this was supposed to be a sort of a birthday dinner, there was also the requisite longevity noodles - which I forgot to photograph!!That dish was Rm30.

Vincent and Madeline also presented to my wife, Alex and myself 3 adorable cuddly bears. I think they intentional picked the 3 different sizes to portray the father bear, the mama bear and the baby bear. What does that make Madeline? GOLDILOCKS!!

We were all stuffed up to you know where by the time we finished. I thought the bill was reasonable.

Burpp!!!!!!

Madeline’s wedding – part 5 – 21st nite – Dinner @ Oriental Pavilion

Someone keeping count ah?? Did someone ask where is part 4? Cannot label part 4 lah – it was called part 3b. Kapisch??

My family and I arrived at 6.30pm because someone said the cheemuis would be there by 6pm to help get the place organized. Sure – Yee Ling was there looking a little flabbergasted!! So was Celia and Sam Yap and partner, the official photographer. But……. No guests list!! No sign in book!! Some guests started arriving and we had no idea where to seat them!! Yikes!!!!

Started calling Madeline – where is her sister supposed to sit? Where was I supposed to sit. How about 7th aunt?, etc.etc.etc. Who is having the sign in book?? Coco? Who is Coco? By 7pm, a semblance of normalcy descended on us as cheemuis started showing up with the guest lists (color coded for the bride’s guests and the groom’s guest).

The cheemuis were resplendent in their Gold and White theme of the night!! Don’t believe?? See this photo!!
There was another wedding party going on in the same restaurant and occasionally we have people showing up who looked confused and wondered why their names was not on the list. Er.. which party are you attending?

My wife and I were doing our role as pseudo Tai Yee Loong (the illegal moneylenders lah). Every 15 or 20 minutes, we would walk up to the reception desk and ask for ALL the ang pows that had been collected. Sau soh sau soh!!!! Then it was off to a little room (where the bride and some of her support staff were hiding) to open the ang pows and count the collection. Once the counting was done, Coco (of the restaurant) was called in and the money was handed to her as prepayment for the cost of that night’s dinner. Within 2 Tai Yee Long’s collection, we managed to pay off RM17,400 to Coco.

I ended up missing the start and entry of the bride and groom and when I got to the table, it was already the third dish. That’s okay – I had been part to the food testing and tasting team before the actual event.

And of course, about mid way through the food servings, there is the customary Yum Seng!! Bride and Groom, Vincent’s mum and Dad, Madeline’s Dad and my mum were called on stage to toast the guests. 5th Uncle helped my mum on stage and then was unable to return to his seat. So he stayed on the stage to present the toast as well.

When the dinner was over, I looked for Coco, settled the outstanding, took some more photos with some chee muis and called it a day!!. I had to lead the Singapore cousin part ways to Cheras so that they could make their way to the hotel. Then Kit had to be sent to the Bukit Bintang area before we could all go home, clean up and finally ZZZZzzzzzz.

As in every movie, there is always the credits at the end of the show. For the making of the Mad wedding, the following deserves special mention
01. Janet Low –Maid of Honour – the one leg kick, the everything can do superwoman!
02. Make-up by Rebecca Lam – Despite all the stress of the occasion, Mad’s face looked unblemished!
03. Hair by Zayne Chow - I almost thought he could have teased a poodle out of Mad’s hair
04. Floral Design by Freddy Gan – The car, the 2 houses, the corsages, the restaurant. Wow!
05. Additional Wedding Cake by Martina Lee – yummy!!

Madeline's wedding - part 3b -21st morning @ Vincent's

The whole entourage had to be at Vincent's house at or before 11am. His mum must have consulted a geomancer (feng sui loh lah) to have decided on this auspicious time of arrival. We made it with quite a few minutes to spare. After all, it is only about 5km from my house to his.

Act 2 scene 1 - the yum cha session at Vincent's
As in the previous scene, the newly weds are NOT allowed to get out of the car on their own. A younger member of the family (in this case, Vincent's younger brother) should open the door for them upon receipt of a red packet. Whoops, the youngest brother was nowhere to be found. So after waiting a bit, the other younger brother opened the door. The sun was blazing down and the guests were starting to ooze sweat and oil. With the price of oil going up and up, maybe we can find a way to commercialize sweat as auto fuel!!

Then it is into Vincent's house (no ragging) for the tea ceremony with his kin. First they had to greet Grandma who is wheelchair bound due to a stroke. Then, the newly weds had to light some joss sticks to pray to Vincent's Grandpa (deceased) for blessings.

And then onto the business of yum cha!!

Some of the chee muis helped to prepare food for the guests. There was a cake with heavy icing which the ladies expertly carved up to be served to the guests. And then we had photo ops to while away the time. I was told some of the heng dai envied me coz I had so many photos taken with the chee muis while they were shy shy looking on.

Try harder next time guys!!