March 27, 2005

khit teung....

2 of e photos from Qiyan in e mail today:

qy02

with Genevie, Thanchanok & other Ban Apa kids, sitting on precast concrete pillars at e empty site facing A-gong's house; e kids on e left are playing with a puppy; to e right is a storage barn full of maize cobs, & e path leading to e home of Linnan & Ivy's host family; to KE7 wushu people, am wearing e year 2000 KE7 wushu T-shirt, which has been part of my overseas fieldwork/trekking 'wardrobe' since 2001 - Thais all think that e dragon is a 'naga' serpent =P

qy01

[211204] research team with A-gong's dad, Ban Apa

miss this place so much....

[ filed under: thewanderingstraycat + chiangrai_2004 + thai1 ]

humans are coloured by bias....

"....those who are not criminals...."

said by a lady, when asked about her opinion of Normal Technical stream students. before this she had said that she associated e Normal Technical stream with criminals....

I almost *burst*

this is from a rerun of an episode of Get Rea! that was showing on TVMobile on e bus home after wushu on Monday, synopsis below:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/video/archive_getreal2.htm
Episode 20 - First telecast: 15 September 2004
I Really Not Stupid

They are in the last stream in school. They are labeled hopeless, rebellious. But is the Normal Technical stream really the end of the road for these students?

Diana Ser gets real with a group of Normal Tech students to find out if they are all they are made out to be. And if you are a parent, how would you feel if your child is sent to the Normal Tech stream ? Perhaps if more, and not less, were expected of them, more Normal Tech students can make something of themselves.


we live in pigeonholes built by e pigeonHole Development Board, & we make pigeonholes our way of life too. we sort people based on standard criteria into various catergories labelled with their respective associated stereotypes, imprisoning them in their designated pigeonholes within our minds.

not to say that all Normal Technical stream students are angels, & that none are criminals, but why condemn all of them like this?

************

this show also reminded me of e files that I've seen in one of my dad's previous offices in a secondary school - files for copies of police reports, for letters of parental consent to allow their kids to drop out of school, for letters from parents explaining their kids' absence or tardiness, for letters of expulsion etc. have read some of e parents' letters before, some on foolscap paper, some on scraps of wrinkled paper, mostly written in English, some in Chinese, some that were probably painstakingly written by parents who are barely literate, some that were written by e students themselves or with e help of relatives & signed by their parents....sad that in this day there are still parents who see no reason for their kids to be in school.

also brought to mind e countless times I had to answer calls from e police/security company/teachers who lived near e school/schoolbus operator asking for my dad in e middle of e night because there had been a police case involving one of e students/school alarm had gone off/person holding onto school gate keys couldn't be contacted/etc....& also e times when:

an ex-student seeking revenge for being expelled set fire to e school & burnt down an entire block including e computer labs (nope this is not e Rangoon Secondary School case)....

a student attacked his mother with a chopper & then tried to jump down to his death after she caught him in bed with a girl....

teachers went knocking on a student's door after he'd failed to show up for school for a few days, only to find him alone at home & lying in bed weak from hunger, after his parents had disappeared suddenly without a trace....

& countless other 'The New Paper headline' type of incidents that I've come across while spending time in 3 of my dad's schools, starting from e early '80s - in e days when he had to hold separate sessions in Mandarin, Teochew, Hokkien & Bahasa Melayu while briefing parents who came from various kampungs & even Pulau Ubin.

[ filed under: thewonderingstraycat ]

March 24, 2005

red light district

P3230294

snapped in a hurry before my train arrived at e platform of Buona Vista MRT station....on my way home from work, realised that I've been working in a red light district, built & owned by JTC. tonight e Biopolis buildings are lit up in red - on other nights e lighting is neon pink, not unlike e 'soaplands' of Japan =P

[ filed under: 9_lives_2005 ]

March 23, 2005

7 things that I jumped into - 04

04. going on e Trans-Pacific Exchange on American Business & Society when I knew nuts about American Business

somehow became part of e 1999 batch of e Trans-Pacific Exchange on American Business & Society, a 2-week programme in e Silicon Valley organised by Volunteers in Asia. plenty of emails flew about as e 15 NUS participants & e 8 Payson Treat Fellows (Stanford students who would be our hosts) introduced ourselves to one another. in e process, H|u|a Y|i|n|g, e Biology major from Stanford, got to know H|u|a Y|i|n|g, e Biology major from NUS =P mad rush to pack & get to e airport at 6am e morning after my last paper, only to meet my primary school best friend there with her parents to see off her brother who was going on e same trip!

over e 2 weeks, visited places like Ken Soohoo's Planetweb start-up(haha it's still around today unlike many other dotcom 'hanged-up's =P), 'ex-start-up's (e infamous 'HP way' that put us all to sleep), New United Motor Manufacturing (first time in a car factory wandering around e production lines), San Jose Mercury News (where meeting e editor of VietMerc impressed upon us e sheer strength of numbers of e Asian community), Ideo, Howler products (ice cream from rainforest ingredients), Harrel Remodeling (gender in business), JUSTACT (Youth ACTion for Global JUSTice) etc.

fell in love with e beautiful Stanford campus where every undergrad is entitled to campus accomodation, bunked over on e floor of H|u|a Y|i|n|g's room, took e BART to e not as beautiful but just slightly less energetic (everyone was in e exam halls) Berkeley campus, met with e Stanford GLBSS (now e transgendered are included so it has become LGBT), soaked in & celebrated e incredible energy & diversity in opinion, ethnicity, orientation, religion, political leanings etc, learnt how Stanford deals with students who cheat during exams, made my first Hispanic & bisexual friends, made e night trek up to e Dish to stargaze, & found physical & mental/intellectual space to think & stretch my mind.

in San Francisco, attended service at e Glide Memorial Church in e Tenderloin neighbourhood, got attacked in broad daylight while waiting to cross e street in e Civic Center, walked through Union Square, Fisherman's Wharf & Nob Hill safely at night, took e MUNI Metro to e Castro station with e rainbow flag flying high above to visit e gay neighbourhood of Castro & a gay church, met e homeless on e streets, took bus rides & met a different side of San Francisco, spoke to a Filipino security guard at e Martin Luther King Jr memorial waterfall at Yerba Buena, went up Twin Peaks for e freezing night view of San Francisco, got overwhelmed by Gu Wenda's works & Mario Botta's architecture at SFMOMA & pleasantly surprised by e fact that I could go in for free just because it was e last 45 minutes before closing time.

got heartened by e fact that there are still people & societies that can believe in 'for e greater good of all' & accept people for what they are & recognise their differences as 'strength in diversity' rather than as points of contention, instead of treating them as nails to be hammered down flat into place, that being in e majority in no way justifies e absolute right to impose one's values on others....think this is e time when I picked up e phrase 'agree to disagree'.

haas

while on e Stanford campus, spent quite a bit of time at e Volunteers in Asia office in e Haas Center for Public Service, tucked away in a corner among eucalyptus trees along Salvetierra Walk. one afternoon, a white-haired gentleman on his way out of e building came up to Sze Meng & me, shook our hands, & introduced himself as John Glenn. just John Glenn, visitor. not NASA astronaut, oldest man in space, colonel, senator, or whatever. didn't seem like he'd just landed back on earth ~6 months ago =P he was setting up e John Glenn Institute for Public Service & Public Policy at Ohio State University & was visiting e Haas Center, where a previous director, Tim Stanton, is one of e pioneers of 'service learning':

Service-learning advocates differentiated their practice from volunteer service in an additional way, questioning the nature of the service act itself, and evoking the concept of reciprocity between server and served. Such an exchange "avoids the traditionally paternalistic, one-way approach to service in which one group or person has resources which they share 'charitably'...with a person or group that lacks resources" (Kendall, 1990, p.22). In service-learning the needs of the community, rather than of the academy, determine the nature of the service provided. This view is summarized by the slogan we often use at Stanford, "I serve you in order that I may learn from you. You accept my service in order that you may teach me" (Stanton, 1992).

source: 2003 conference paper presented by Stanton at e Singapore International Foundation's Center for International Service-Learning

as_singapore

e second 'unofficial' half of e Trans-Pacific Exchange was when e Stanford students came to Singapore =) both e American & Singaporean sides were on a budget, hence e 'cheapo college student' itinerary that included e former Seng Poh Road market & hawker center, e Night Safari with newspaper discount coupons, Telok Blangah Hill (instead of Mount Faber) for a free view of Singapore without having to mentally 'photoshop out' e ugly Sentosa Merlion, NUS Arts canteen, East Coast Park (cheaper than 'political prisoner island', just as artificial, & NO ugly merlion =P), Lau Pa Sat, Singapore History Museum, public transport & e ERP system, Killiney kopitiam, gatecrashing classes at NUS, Far East Square's Fu Tak Chi museum & Good Chances popiah (first 'some self-assembly required' meal they'd ever had), HDB estate & town central (showcase of social engineering =P), after-dinner walk through Raffles Place past e Teochew Yuen Hai Ching temple (where souls of e dead can be 'married' with e help of mediums) with hanging incense 'spirals' in e courtyard + Boat Quay + Chijmes, Sim Lim, Changi airport staff canteen, & even a photo-op outside e US Embassy with them brandishing their passports, more than proud to be American.

in short, show them a side of Singapore & Asia that hardly filters through their local media ;)

sis ended up in e 2000 batch of e Trans-Pacific Exchange, & a year or two later, together with a bunch of her social work classmates, we helped Dwight Clark (e founder of Volunteers in Asia) to host a group of 60-odd students from Tokyo's Keio University. somewhere in between bringing them to e Night Safari & having drinks with 2 of e Keio guys & z.d. at Boat Quay, a Keio girl & a NUS girl found time for an aikido session, exchanging moves at e corner of e SGX Centre building nearest to our tables at Lau Pa Sat =P

back then, sis & I were just so absorbed in e fun & exchange of ideas, opinions & cultures. in time to come, international understanding & service learning would pop up again in our lives as we eventually became involved with e 'Singapore equivalent' of Volunteers in Asia - SIF.

[ filed under: thewanderingstraycat + thewonderingstraycat + 7_things_i_jumped_into ]

March 22, 2005

singaporean crabs

in order to get ahead, you must step on others;
when you can't get ahead, you must pull others down with you


someone once likened this to a bunch of crabs trying to escape from a pail.

is it me, or does this society have more than her fair share of such people? this 'smallness of mind', e inability to be happy for others & to celebrate their achievements, jealousy & e vicious intent to sabotage others - why do e homes & schools here turn out such people? how happy can they be?

maybe that's why e tourism board's food guide for tourists lists chilli crab as e national dish? ;)

in e rat race, I'd like to be e bemused cat who watches e silly rats trying to outrun one another, while picking out a few of them for teabreak =P

[ filed under: thewonderingstraycat ]

March 21, 2005

e ultimate whitening solution....

is to be a stuffed toy! =P

no expensive cosmetics or whitening lotion, whitening cream, whitening serum (why on earth are so many cosmetic products called serum? thought serum is what you get when you minus off blood cells & clotting factors from whole blood?), whitening powder, whitening essence, whitening milk, whitening soap, whitening emulsion, whitening face pack, whitening gel, whitening moisturiser, sunblock, hats or umbrellas involved.

all you need to do is to be a diabetically cute stuffed toy, & sit back & relax in a vehicle & bask in e glorious sun. over time all spots will fade away, like what happened to e toy leopard sitting on e dashboard of SDEXXXXW. for faster results, daytime parking under any tree or other source of shade should be minimised. leaning against a tissue box is optional. no gimmicks involved - e bleaching effect of UV rays has been scientifically proven. there is only one sun available for our planet, so no worries about having to compare different brands or be harassed by pushy salesgirls & confused by misleading advertisements claiming to do everything under e sun except what e sun does. & to top it all off, sunshine is FREE =)

[ filed under: thewonderingstraycat ]

reminiscing e moon

reminder, since will definitely forget about this by September:

Reminiscing The Moon
1-3 Sept 2005 @ Esplanade Theatre 8pm
direction & choreography: Boi Sakti, Indonesia

watched Boi Sakti's The Lost Space twice - once at Kallang Theatre, & again at one of e BUTS performances - but missed Reminiscing The Moon when it was staged for e opening of e Esplanade.

[ filed under: art1 ]

March 17, 2005

你要穿吗?

when a guy says that a girl's skirt is nice, & she replies, '你要穿吗?' (do you want to wear it?), e look of shock on his face can be priceless....

changing people's definition of 'stunning' can be hilarious =P

heading up e escalator to Books Kinokuniya in Ngee Ann City, someone pointed out to me e male mannequin dressed in a shirt & sarong in e shop window of Bin House, saying that he couldn't imagine any guy walking in there & buying a sarong for himself & wearing it on e streets.

told him that Burmese guys in their longyis, Indonesian guys in their sarongs, Thai guys in their phaa chongkraben & Cambodian guys in their sampot hol chong kaben plus krama combi look just fine to me, & there went his eyeballs bouncing down e steps of e escalator =P

don't see what's e big fat deal about guys wearing 'skirts', but then again, was born in a country where kilts are part of e traditional dress for guys & e ceremonial military uniforms of e Scottish regiments of e British Army (no wonder e Highlanders Regiment soldiers are known as 'The Ladies From Hell') =P

wonder if any of my Chinese guy friends would dare try wearing a 'skirt' ;)

[ filed under: thewonderingstraycat ]

March 14, 2005

chocolate maths cookie & memory failure

strange nightmarish dream during an evening nap: that I was desperately trying to commmit to memory some method for solving some type of Maths problem that involved writing out e calculations in a sequence that would fill out a circle, such that e answers would form a pattern similar to that of e Mercedes Benz logo. & just as I was about to give up trying to remember it for some test/exam e next day, I flipped open a rectangular box (it was a strange hinged box much like those used to keep mahjong tile sets) of cookies. there were rectangular cookies & round ones, chocolate- & strawberry-coated & sticky chewy & ginger & coconut ones, & one type that was coated in brown (upper half) & reddish (bottom half) chocolate in e same exact pattern as e method for solving e Maths problem. & on seeing that cookie, ta-da! I could remember e method liao & started to discard my notes, some of which were written on foolscap paper with my secondary school's crest at e top & filed in e bright green version of my primary school file with e school crest on e front cover....

scary to revisit that kinda desperation I used to face before Maths & Physics JC common tests when I knew how to solve e problems but simply couldn't remember any of e formulae. & ended up failing everything. think I never scored beyond 28% (lower limit) or 41% (upper limit) for Physics, & was always ranked 600+ out of e 700+ Physics students in my batch on VJC's infamous long2 hu2 bang3, with many of those ranked below me having scored an 'X' grade for being absent from e common test or on MC =P there was one killer common test where plenty of e Physics S paper people also scored in e 40s together with me, & it was a big fat shock for both e students & e tutor who were used to me scoring at least 40% below e rest *grin*

still wonder how I managed to rush between Maths C & Physics remedial classes & Bio & Chem S paper classes on Thursday & Friday afternoons without being 'discovered' by my tattle tale civics tutor & forced to drop subjects by LPM. think I slipped through e cracks somehow. during those remedial classes that e tutors realised that I understood everything fine but could only solve e problems iff I was given a formula sheet. perhaps e tutors realised that there wasn't anything much that they could do &/or gave up on me, so I was told 'exam time just use formula sheet' & released from having to attend remedial classes some time before e study break =)

[ filed under: thewonderingstraycat ]

March 13, 2005

7 things that I jumped into - 03

03. taking up an animal behaviour project on silvered leaf monkeys

silverleaf

2 seniors asked for someone to join their project studying a bunch of free-ranging silvered leaf monkeys in e zoo, which involved observing & recording their behaviour & tracking their ranging patterns. I could watch animals & draw maps all day so why not? though it meant waking up early to get to e zoo at dawn & spending 11 hours a day in rain & shine getting a neckache, tracking e animals by foot as they moved around e entire zoo, & if one were not careful, getting peed & pooped on by e monkeys, enjoyed it enough to join an expedition 5 years later to study orang utans in jungles of Sepilok, Sabah.

however circumstances (including SARS) made more than half e original expedition team pull out, including those with e relevant technical experience. we left them with most of e admin work & pre-expedition stuff taken care of, & also left with e resolve to find another expedition where we could contribute whatever expertise we had & be useful to e partnering community.

[ filed under: 7_things_i_jumped_into + nature1 ]

7 things that I jumped into - 02

02. doing a level 2000 Geography module in e first semester of my first year in university

those who matriculated in July 1998 were e first to be required to read cross-faculty modules. we were also e first guinea pigs of e 'online' module registration system - where 'online' meant that you could not register online from anywhere else apart from your own faculty's CBLC (computer-based learning centre) =P

& so you queued at e CBLC to get a queue number, so that you could return e next time e computer system wasn't down to queue again for a terminal to register for your modules. only to discover that e system wasn't designed to allow freshmen with Advanced Placement credits to register for second year modules. & be told to obtain signatures from lecturers for every single module that you wanted to take. & then join e 'special queue' to get to e Science Dean's Office. & at e Dean's Office, pray that unlike e brains of e admin clerks there, e computer system was finally in working order. & from there, get sent down to CITA, where e IT guys would give up trying to force your registration down e 'online' registration system's throat, & decide that they should stop using e word 'online' & ask you to register manually at your department's office =P

in e midst of all e hello kitty-queueing & autograph-hunting & plenty of yellow forms, found that it was much easier to register for a Geography module in e Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences than for any of my Biology major modules in my own faculty. hence e twice a week mile-long morning walk from KE7 Hall to AS2 for GE2220 Environmental Processes: Terrestrial & Coastal....guess in NASA & perhaps certain universities overseas you can actually study extra-terrestrial environments?

it covered e usual geomorphology, fluvial & coastal processes that I loved, but without any A-level or level 1000 Geography background it wasn't easy keeping my head above e water as e only non-Arts freshie in e class. what probably saved me were e labs - tracing out maps from aerial photos for e aerial mapping exercise, some exercise on sedimentation, & fieldwork on Pulau Ubin, which was good training for going out into e big fat unknown & trying to figure out e kind of info that could be gathered that would be useful for our work, & where I could apply a scientific approach to studying Geography.

[ filed under: 7_things_i_jumped_into + nature1 ]

7 things that I jumped into - 01

so many things that I've jumped into headfirst, many a times just on impulse (whack lah!), without any inkling of how much they would impact my life & what they would lead on to in time to come....

01. trying to figure out e Thai alphabet in secondary school, from an Anthology of ASEAN Literatures book:

P3130285

interest in Thai language came from living with Thai students for 11 years, staying & helping out in their homes, factories & shops in Bangkok, & travelling to e provinces together with their families. e abovementioned book was Traibhumikatha, a 'gift' that my dad happened to bring home one day - think nobody wanted it as they were not interested &/or couldn't make any sense out of e esoteric content on Buddhist cosmology & e 'three planes of existence'. I could only make sense of parts of e English translation that ran alongside e Thai text - there were plenty of Pali terms littering e lengthy descriptions of e nether world, physical world & ethereal world.

till now e only thing I can recall of what I'd read is some definition of a unit of time (forgot e term), which was used to describe how long a person must spend in e nether world for some sin (forgot what), expressed in terms of e length of time needed to erode some mountain (forgot e name) if it is dusted with a feather once every kazillion (forgot how many) years. quite far removed from e definitions of SI units in Physics, but far more interesting =P

Traibhumikatha is believed to be e oldest existing Thai literary work, having been written by some 13th century king. but what fascinated me more was e table of Thai consonants & vowels & their romanised equivalents in e book, though I only managed to commit a few to memory (kor kai, nor nu, mor maa) & spent a long time puzzling over how thor thong should be written with a single continuous stroke of e pen =P approx 6-7 years later I chanced upon SE1315 (Basic Thai I) while looking through cross-faculty module options, & decided on a whim to pursue this interest. had so much fun & continued on with SE1316 (Basic Thai 2), where I finally got to learn e alphabet & realised that thor thong should be written in e opposite direction =)

[ filed under: 7_things_i_jumped_into + thai1 ]

March 11, 2005

Wang Xu's farewell

[090305] farewell lunch:

[aP3090274.jpg]

enjoy e mix of people at work: colleagues from France, Germany, London, Switzerland, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Mauritius & China (Inner Mongolia, Harbin, Hubei & a lot more other provinces). to date have worked for bosses from India, Hong Kong (survived 2 of them!!), Sarawak & United Kingdom.

in e process, have learnt to adjust to Cantonese-Texan & Cantonese-Canadian accented English, figured out French & German spellings of some lab items e.g. 'bechers', gotten used to discussing work with a boss in a mix of Malaysian accented Chinese + Hokkien, figured out Hunan-accented Chinese, & learnt to shake my head when saying no =P

though I still do 'wonder' why locals are always e lab techs & cleaners & admin & maintenance & mediaprep facility & glassware washing facility & lab supplies store staff & security guards i.e. filling all e non-academic roles....many foreign colleagues have asked if Singaporeans really have no brains =P my current lab bucks e trend with 1 local postdoc + 2 local postgrads!

[ filed under: labrat + 9_lives_2005 ]

do you shampoo a beard?

a question that I have wondering about for years....

do guys with beards wash them with shampoo? or just soap? or do they not wash their beards at all?

for all I know some might even go e whole hog & follow up with conditioner + hairdryer + careful combing to ensure that it doesn't get tangled up =P

but how on earth do you keep a beard clean when it can trap all sorts of stuff like dripping gravies & sauces when eating, soup when drinking, crumbs when munching, toothpaste 'foam' when brushing teeth, cigarette ash when smoking, saliva when drooling, vomit when puking, flying insects, dust in e wind, traffic fumes, raindrops from e sky etc? what if an ant crawls in there?

[ filed under: thewonderingstraycat ]

March 07, 2005

nus students are not spoonfed, they are handfed

this revolting NUSS advertisement has been seen on SBS bus services 10 & 95, proclaiming to e whole of Singapore that NUS graduates are not spoonfed....

handfed

rather, those who make up our nation's pool of talent are handfed their world class university education =P

makes me wonder if e designer is an alumnus of a rival institution ;)

& yes I do cringe & avert my eyes each time such a bus comes within sight, & yes I am not alone in doing so - even colleagues who graduated from other universities & polytechnics are disgusted. & we all wonder what NUS guys have to say about being represented by that model who floats on e back of e bus, reading a book....=P

[ filed under: thewonderingstraycat ]

March 06, 2005

mystery of e missing clothes hangers - solved

this happened before Dec 2003 since e photo was taken using e old Canon IXUS APS film camera....

clothes hangers started to disappear from our backyard, & e crows that plagued e neighbourhood were nailed as e culprits when we caught them diving down, landing on e laundry rack, & then flapping away, hangers in beaks. but why hangers, since food was what they usually helped themselves to?

one day my mum looked up as she walked below a bauhinia tree outside a neighbour's house & saw this:

hangernest

a closer look:

hangernest1

e most colourful crow's nest we've seen =)

unfortunately e neighbour didn't appreciate it as much as we did & got NParks to chop down e beautiful bauhinia tree.

[ filed under: nature1 ]

March 05, 2005

earthmovers

PA190116

used to take this shortcut across e KTM railway tracks from Tanglin Halt to Biopolis to get to work in e morning. walking along railways tracks reminds me of a trip to Nakhon Pathom & Kanchanaburi with Mee, Noi & their mother when I was in upper primary, where before we could pull in at Sai Yok station, e train driver had to shoo away a cow that decided to sit down in e middle of e tracks =P from there we visited e Erawan falls before rafting downriver to stay in some hut on e western bank of e Kwai river. also walked along e railway tracks clinging to e side of e cliffs above e river to visit some cave =)

what used to be on e Biopolis side of e railway....

PA190123 PA190118

now gone forever....

P3040252 P3040253

suddenly I seem to be surrounded by earthmovers, both at work & at home =|

view from e back of my house on 270205:

P2270241 P2270243 P2270239

what I saw when I woke up & looked out of my room window this morning:

P3050271 P3050272

since work goes on from morning to evening even on Sundays, no more peace & quiet + sleeping late + listening to music during e daytime + clean windows + opening windows (unless I want all e dust) + opening curtains (unless I want all e workers to stare in) until April 2006 or earlier. dread e start of piling works - they're going to build a 5-storey condo with a basement carpark & swimming pool. hope that my house remains structurally sound....

[ filed under: 9_lives_2005 ]

March 02, 2005

lost brains & fat cats

2 'quotes' that I thought of....

tak3 zhir1 kiang4 kiang3, tao3 nao4 mm3 giang3

useful for describing highly educated policymakers whose decisions affect everyone else except them =P

不管是黑猫或是白猫,能吃老鼠的猫就是肥猫

inspired by Botero's sculpture that once sat outside e Singapore Art Museum.

Y189

current boss once treated e lab to a dinner buffet at Goodwood Park Hotel, where I got addicted to e green tea mousse cake & polished off around 5 slices of it....eh wait did I stop counting after 5? =P sparked off e not exactly successful hunt for green tea mousse cake, but I found this at Meidi-Ya @ Liang Court basement.

100ml of hot water + a lot of stirring + 200ml of milk + a lot more whisking + hours in e fridge = a very satisfied cat =)

*********

[040305] update:

tak3 zhir1 kiang4 kiang3, sim1 gua mm3 giang3

my dad's version, used to describe highly educated policymakers who are disconnected from e masses & have forgetten how to feel for e people, especially when e changes they propose do not affect them e.g. those formulating public housing or transport or university education policies but have neither lived in a HDB flat nor taken e bus/MRT daily before & send their kids to overseas universities....

(N.B. no idea how to indicate e tone for 'gua' for 'sim gua' using e 4-tone Mandarin pinyin system as Teochew has 8 tones)


[ filed under: thewonderingstraycat + catfood + 9_lives_2005 ]