January

was the month
- I did very little of anything pertaining to the Chinese New Year; it has been a very pleasant month. In particular, I successfully avoided having to deal with mother after a pre new year lunch. She is more unhappy with me than usual, but that's another story for another post.

- I was back in Katong more times in one month than the entire previous year.

- I love the pockets of old Katong that I still recognize - old style homes and shops that stayed the same as if in defiance of aggressive encroachment fueled by crass modernization of the area.

- I finally got together with my favourite group of pig-out friends for a long-promised evening at the veritable grand dame of peranakan food - Guan Hoe Soon.

- I am happy that the new kid on the block - Haven's Grill (191 Joo Chiat Road, tel 63487368) across the narrow street from Guan Hoe Soon - finally got their liquor license. They are set to welcome diners looking for great western food on a street long dominated by zhi char stalls and pubs.

You were right from the beginning

I am still in the catch-up-with-friends mode. Mostly it has been great fun updating each other.

Then there are the ones who are at a cross-road in their lives. How to know which path to take? If wrong path then how? Aiyoh, let me tell you these folks can analyze and agonize till the cows come home and still not make a decision. And the more they think through the puzzle, the more off-course they become as they get mired in their own over-analysis.

It made me think of Blink: the power of thinking without thinking in which Malcolm Gladwell made the convincing case that thin-slicing is a neat cognitive trick that involves taking a narrow slice of data, just what you can capture in the blink of an eye, and letting your intuition do the work.

Rapid cognition is really a powerful decision making tool if we understand how the brain is capable of processing a life-time of experience and knowledge in the first 2 seconds that we encounter a person or situation. Our first impressions are more accurate than we usually allow ourselves to believe.

So to those of you who are still wringing your hands, pacing the floor and cannot make up your mind, I say, "Come on man. Trust yourself. You were right from the beginning."

So now either go for it, or junk it.

Houseful of Children

There is this rare breed of people who loves babies and young children. I have an aunt and uncle who are just like that.

They raised their own two children - a son and a daughter - in the 1970s. Then they helped looked after my sister's son in the 80s. My aunt also gives home tutoring to school children who often stay throughout the day until they are picked up by their parents at the end of the long work day. Theirs is a house always filled with the laughter of young children.

I truly admire this couple for the unconditional love they have for babies, infants and young children. Theirs is the only relative's home I go for a visit during the Chinese New Year season.

The aunt and uncle now have 3 grandchildren - aged 3 years, 5 months, 3 weeks. I am truly happy that they have their children's children to care for now.They are kept busy with looking after the young ones.

Very busy. And very happy.

JiaoZi - at last

I really really want to be able to fold jiaozi that is recognizable.

I studied this move by hitting the replay button many many times.

It looked easy enough. Then I put it to practice. I made many many strangely shaped things.

Until - finally - voila - jiaozi-shaped jiaozi's. Yes!

san nin fai lock to you too

For most of my adult life, I have little to do with the observances and traditions of the Chinese New Year season.

I successfully broke from having to do dinners with the family or going to various households.

I have the friends over for dinners on the non-significant days so as to avoid having to rush with everyone else at the markets and stores. In all, CNY is not all that stressful for me.

Which leaves me time to nit-pick at my ang moh chek friends who try to be fashionably Chinese during this season when they really do not know the usage of the language.

I don't know if it's just me, or it's the way the CNY days fall this time that is creating a lot of confusion with the dates. For example, when the friends say 'let's get together on the 3rd', I do not know if they mean the third day of the CNY or the 3rd of February.

Worse when they use the term gor nin loosely as in 'let's get together for gor nin fan' and they do not mean eve of CNY.

I cope by clarifying everything in standard English and using the ang moh calendar; no code-switching between Chinese dialects and Singapore accented English on something as important as dinner dates.

Hey, I managed to debunk unsavoury traditions, I certainly can overcome quirks.

San Nin Fai Lock to you too.

Shi Wang

Shi Wang on display at Central Mall till February 9.
He is an impressive fella.

The new guy

I so want some of my girlfriends to get this

An old fashioned cake

I loved this steamed sponge cake as a child. I remembered the amah whisking eggs and sugar to a froth; then something about adding fizzy soda pop to make the cake rise; then carefully folding in the flour; then holding our collective breath as the cake steamed. Happiness was when the cake came out right - it must not "open" (this is not huat kueh), it must not sink, and it must not be full of holes.

The cake isn't particularly sophisticated in texture or taste; it just has nostalgic appeal. I decided that this will be my dessert contribution at the Chinese New Year dinners.

I tried several of the versions available online.Results ranged from spectacular failure to near-success. I finally approached an old style amah I knew from long ago. She ran the recipe and method by me, which I promptly put to the test.

This is the most successful one todate. The friends will have this old fashioned dessert over CNY. I add either dates or citrus peel to make the cake more celebratory.

Footnote : the online recipes are missing two vital "secrets" in their list of ingredients so the cake, if it doesn't burst open or sink, will just taste plain. I think their cooking (steaming) time is also too short.

p.s. Yes I will share recipe with those who are interested.

Evolution of Dance

Come on - you just gotta like this.



Comedy without saying a word!

I love the guy.

And for comparison, here's his earlier act.

And they wed

A short courtship. Spending just enough time to know just enough about each other.

An elegant wedding party for a small gathering of colleagues, friends and family. With just enough of the people who are meaningful to them.

The days and years ahead are theirs to make into memories.
I am truly happy for them.

That's what friends are for

The old schoolmates came in from London.

It has been many years since we last saw each other. Dinner conversation was lively, even raucous. We brought up names of others we have not seen or heard from in forever.

The ones who were - at least according to us - strange, weird, annoying, quiet, talkative.

The ones who fought and clawed their way into the pages of Tatler, Prestige, Peak.

The ones who rose spectacularly in their careers and fell just as spectacularly.

All brought up in good fun, never with malice. We have all been through our own battles in life and know better than to pass judgment on anyone else.

Most important of all, we are grateful we have yet another occasion to get together, to talk of the good old times we had, to share the ups and downs we lived through, to know that we are living our lives the best we know how.

We will each go back to our own worlds in a few short days.

Until then, we will share the dreams we dare to dream, the darkest fears our hearts have known, and the happiest of moments we have lived. And know that, as always, all that's been said among us will always stay only with us.

That's what friends are for.

The sale I've been waiting for

That Paul Ropp sale is on again.

But for the first time in three years, I will give this a miss.

It is just too close to the Chinese New Year - I have too much to take care of at the home front.

I am sure just because I can't make it, it will just happen to be really the best ever sale in the history of Paul Ropp sales.

I have already forgotten that after the last time, I said I was going to skip the next Paul Ropp sale. Sigh. You see, I am like that when it comes to Paul Ropp.

Oh well, there is the next one to look forward to.

Fashionably Indian with Stephie@Potpourri

(click on image for larger view)

January is turning out to be a very hafla kind of month.

January hafla by Belinda

(click on image for larger view)

The first hafla of the year by Belinda. It's whatever you want to make of it - so join us!

Hair to stay

The imp's post about body hair reminded me of an incident some time ago when I was working in a medical aesthetics clinic.

One of the services the clinic offered was permanent hair removal by laser.

This mainland Chinese woman came in for a consultation about underarm hair removal by laser. I went through the spiel on how the laser works, the number of sessions required, the fee etc etc. Throughout the consult, she kept asking what I meant by permanent. She first looked perplexed then was positively alarmed when I repeated over and over that the end point of hair removal by laser was that hair will never grow again.

When the fact finally sank in, she gasped and said to me, "You mean NEVER grow again? No hair? Oh no, like that cannot do. When it is winter then how?"

Yes, it was my turn to be perplexed and then alarmed.

Apparently the culture there is to let underarm hair grow in the winter!

Yes, imp, they want the full 2-inch long axilla hair in its full luxuriant glory. Heh.

She danced?

I debated long and hard before deciding I need to air my grouse regarding this programme :

Genre:	Variety
Duration:	30mins
No. of Episodes:	13
Cast:	Belinda Lee 李心钰.
Synopsis:	Our host, Belinda Lee now travels to these world capitals of modern and cultural dances to get a crash course on dancing. At the end of the journey, Belinda will either show off her dance steps she has learned or in fact, put through a real performance on stage! "Come Dance With Me" is the ultimate travel experience that mixes a dose of reality-TV, exoticism and adventure. *This series expire on 31 March 2009

I saw the repeat telecast of three of them - Flamenco, Bellydance and Ballroom.

I have issues aplenty with the whole concept - that anybody can master a dance form after a crash course (four days, to be exact) and be good enough to show off what was learned, or better yet, put in a real performance.

On a personal level, I think she showed nothing but arrogance at the end of 4 days of intense training.

On a larger scale, I think it is unmitigated disrespect to presume that one has even begun to grasp the basics of any dance just because one has put in some hard hours with master teachers, never mind trying to do any justice to the dance form.

She mimicked the different dances, doing a better job with some than others. But she made a mockery out of dance as a discipline that would take years of dedicated training to master.

Come dance with me? I don't think so.

December

was the month
- of many one-more-time-before-the-new-year get-togethers. I loved every one of them.

- my sanity and sense of equilibrium stayed intact thanks to the fact that many of my dance classes went on uninterrupted. I am truly grateful to the instructors and dance mates who kept the classes going. I needed these me-times in December more than another other time in the year.

- I got back to making Christmas sweets - mainly chocolate fudge and brownies. There was one happy kid out there - the one we nicknamed "the Brain" - who got a full tray of brownies to himself for the holidays.

- I considered eliminating from pillow talk friends the blogs that have been inactive for close to a year now. I still will, quietly and with of tinge of regret, later in the new year. I need to convince myself that the owner had really abandoned the blog, and, reluctantly, so should I.

- my favourite aunt got her third grandchild (girl), making her a very busy but happy woman

- when a lot more things went my way than not, making it a good festive month.