A tale of Singapore food

We listened to the sweet young thing tell us of her business trips to various cities in China. What she loved about the place, what she hated, what she missed.

Food, she declared. I miss Singapore food! Everything in China came in huge portions and were too oily and too salty.

Yes, we thought! She's one of us! She loves her food. She knows her food!

So, we asked, you headed straight for food the minute you touched down?

Yes! came her gleeful reply, I headed straight to Newton Circus for macaroni!

Newton Circus? Macaroni?

She's supposed to say mee pok dry, char kway tiao, Hainanese chicken rice, something like that. And at any of the many old name hawker centres!

Not macaroni at Newton Circus!

She may love her food, but there is definitely a huge gulf between her idea of real and worthy Singapore food and ours.

ps I never clarified what she meant by macaroni, because what came to mind immediately was macaroni and cheese a la Kraft. It was later that I thought she must mean bak chor macaroni soup. So maybe she is half way to qualifying as a foodie of Singapore food.

Happiness is ...

After reading his very deep discourse on man, materialism and happiness, am I to conclude that:

Early early say so lah!

Wedding entrance

I like their style :)

Live well

I am still reeling from the sobering news that a school mate has had a heart attack. She survived the sneaky episode. But it sends a chilling jolt of reality through my mind, body and soul as I ponder the ravages that the passing years inflict upon us.

Life is far far too short to wait for dreams to come true.

I think of the women I know who are still waiting to slim down before they would get into a swim suit. The women who put off leisure activities because of domestic demands on their time. The women who put off self-development because...of what?

I think of the women who took control of their lives, starting around age 40. They laid to rest their long-dead relationships to start anew. They got married for the first time, or got remarried to someone they really deserve. They traded dead-end jobs for a career with a future. They started their own businesses. They bought their own homes. They became single mothers. Whatever. But the important thing is, they started living for themselves. They live self-fulfilled lives.

In my 40th year, I climbed Mt Shasta. Not life-changing. Not news breaking. But personally satisfying to have done it when I did. For I would not have the physical and mental endurance to do it in later years.

Life is for living. Life is transient. Life is worth living for yourself. Live it well.

Hokey Logic

I know it's hokey, but I love the syllogism involved.

If A then B.
Not B, then not A.

Yes, Woman! Tell'em

The friends were trading war stories over dinner.

The guy friend enjoys buying and selling F&B businesses. So he tells of this one particular venture when he and the wife ended up having to work in the kitchen on Christmas Eve. How it was one of the most horrible and stressful things he ever encountered in his life. Whereupon his wife cut in with, "Don't listen to him. I did all the work in the kitchen that night. He was just a stressed out basket case."

And I looked at the woman with renewed respect.

Yes Woman! Speak up, Woman. Tell'em who really takes care of things when the going gets tough.

Waiting for a lost friend

We first met almost 30 years ago. We were at our first jobs. She was a vivacious vain pot with a quick wit and great sense of theatrics. She was a delightful and fun companion to have at all times.

We went our separate ways for many long years - got married, lived abroad, raised families, got caught up with the demands of work, home, motherhood.

We both got back to Singapore and got back together for coffees and dinners. But this is no longer the same woman I knew from those early years.

She still has the demands of home and motherhood. And she tackles them admirably if not somewhat irrationally and maniacally. But gone is the delightful and the fun person I knew.

Instead, she is ill-at-ease around unfamiliar company. She is constantly distracted by phone calls and sms'es from her sons. She is always involved with parent-teacher meetings, school plays, school sports - this list is endless.

I am shocked that she put off a knee surgery for a year and half now. The quadriceps on the injured leg has atrophied to half its original size. The good leg started giving problems from overcompensation, and most days, she uses an umbrella as a walking stick to get around. She has days when she is practically crippled by pain.

And yet, she persists with her manic lifestyle, all centered around the family of two near-grown boys and a long-suffering husband.

The latest insane act is to take the family to Bali for three weeks of annual summer vacation. I don't think the teenaged boys even wanted to do that - be stuck in Bali with the parents for a sizeable chunk of their school holidays.

The frightening reality is sinking in for me. After all the years of hand-rearing the sons, she is the one who is loathed to let go. In the process, she has lost herself.

I think it is a horrible mistake to make the children's lives her own. And I have no way of conveying this reality to her.

So, I will carry on meeting her for coffee chats, listen to her tell me of her life lived vicariously through her sons, and hopefully be there to help pick up the pieces of her life when the boys leave home in a couple more years.

Maybe then, the delightful and fun friend I once had will return.

Meanwhile, I will wait for return of the lost friend...

They don't read, they don't write

I sometimes stare at my Facebook profile and feel badly that it is pathetically empty of content. I don't fill the wall with pictures, I don't write one-line impulsive thoughts. It is still my blog I turn to for meaningful (to me) input.

I have done searches on names that come to mind. Names long buried in the furthest recesses of my mind. Names from schools, from vacations, from places I once lived in. The number of hits is surprisingly big. It includes people I least expect to have a FB account - especially people I remember who are irrational technophobes.

I hesitate about adding them to my list of friends for many reasons:

- They don't read and they don't write for the pure pleasure of reading or writing.

- They have exactly 2 "friends" in FB.

- They have thousands of "friends" in FB.

- They never tried to look for me in FB.

Of the list, I contacted exactly 2 of them. It had been rewarding. I feel like the blanks in the intervening years are now filled. And they, in turn, have tracked me to my blog, which I find immensely satisfying. One of them will even be coming to Singapore later in the year; I know we will make the time to catch up.

The rest I will leave to rest in my past. There doesn't seem any point in re-acquainting.

Especially since I know this about them - they don't read and they certainly do not write.

July Hafla @ Blu Jaz

Click on image for enlargement

Shameless freeloaders

I think the friends finally got tired of the one couple who only ever accepted hospitality and never gave anything in return.

I think the couple never thought of us as friends; I think we were always viewed only as potential customers.

I think we never thought of the couple as outright users and free loaders all this time because, well, we just want to think kindly of people.

At the last home dinner party, the woman free-loader made the usual pointless polite noises about it being such a lovely evening. The hostess said she could take the next turn hosting, to which the free-loader curtly said she is too busy.

Just recently, the man free-loader bumped into the host at their work building, and actually suggested we should all do dinner soon. The host bluntly and pointedly told the presumptuous boor that it is his turn. The lifelong committed free-loader had the audacity to say they can't because the wife doesn't cook. Well, who says anyone has to cook to show some appreciation for years of hospitality given to them?

I think there comes a time when the free flow of goodwill dries up because of non reciprocity. I think for this particularly shameless couple, the time is now.

I will not miss them.

Six years

Six years ago, the maid worked in a family of inconsiderate loonies and she was desperate to get out of her situation.

Six years ago, a couple had a terror for a maid and were desperate to get her out of their lives.

Six years ago, we matched the maid with the couple. It turned to be a very good arrangement for the parties.

Fast forward to present.

Six years later the maid makes the decision that she needs to leave this job and get on with her life. She will miss the household and the couple she worked for, but it has been six long years she has been away from her own home and family. She must have looked at herself, her future, and decided that she needed to make something more of herself.

We hate to see her leave. We have worries about what she will do for a living. But we understand her aspirations. Her plans are vague. Every idea is a maybe. But she knows now is the time to make her move.Before she loses her nerve.

Six years. It is a long enough time to have stayed in one place. It is time to move on.

And so, with some sadness but a lot more optimism, we reluctantly bade her farewell with lots of good wishes.

We will treasure having seen her make a happy home for our friends and we hope that her life will be good back in her home.

Can it all have been six years already?

The Newcomer

A newcomer to an on-going class is always subject to friendly curious interest. So it was that when the woman joined our hula class, we greeted her with the usual polite smiles and hello's.

But this woman's response to us is nothing short of jarring. She took one look at us, and asked, in a tone that came across as accusatory: Must we wear pareos to dance? Well, no, there is no strict requirement but we use pareos tied in some skirt fashion to help us focus on how we are moving...

Followed by another almost-cross question: Where do you buy your pareo? By this time the entire class shrank away from her physically and emotionally, with someone timidly muttering something about Arab Street or swimwear shops. We were too scared by now to mention that we even have leis to help us look the part and get more into the mood of the dance...

The woman was absent for the next class, and showed back up in the third week. A dance mate lent her a pareo and helped to dress her. She looked herself in the mirror and went: This style doesn't suit me. The rest of us busied ourselves with looking at our toes...

We danced through our routine at the end of which she turned to the dancer closest to her and asked, in an unmistakably annoyed tone: Did you learn that last week? Came the meekest reply in the weakest of voice: Yes...

Aiyoh...is she going to join us for real? And will she stop being so cross? Dare we hope...

Fools and chain mail

I cannot believe there are people who still mindlessly and indiscriminately forward chain mail! I am talking about people I know. People I have told off about it already!

For the most part I take one glance at the PLEASE READ! DO NOT DELETE! heading and hit the DELETE key and let it go at that.

But there is this one person who has been told time and again to stop forwarding chain mail. She'd stop for a while, then resume. (Doesn't she have anything better to do?) The latest is the silly one titled Slow Dance.

It arrived on a day I didn't feel kindly disposed to fools. So I wrote her a short message: Oh puhleeze. This has been circulating with update since 1998. Read here. And hit the Reply ALL button. Yes, to all 100 names or so on her hit list.

The fool wrote back: Thought it sounded familiar but didn't want to have a bad conscience so forwarded it anyway. And when are you coming to visit me?

See why I say I cannot spend lots of time cooped up with her and other like-minded people?

It's to0 much to expect I should suffer fools gladly. Especially when I don't have to.

Sweden in the autumn Part II

The spurt of excited chatter by email among the friends about going to Sweden started to slow down, then it quit altogether.

Understandably, we want to nail down some specific fun things to do and fun places to visit.

Suggestions included stopover in Tokyo/London, plus take in other major happening cities in Europe. Activities included lots of girl-chat, shopping, eating, clubbing with a night of bellydance.

Mentally, I ticked off excessive girl-chat. I don't have that much to chat with this particular group. These people haven't stepped into a club in their home countries for decades. We should now club in foreign cities? And we would be in the wrong continent for bellydance dinner shows.

The host is ominously quiet about these suggestions, only offering that we spend 10 days at her home where she has lovingly nurtured a beautiful garden, and drive 500 kms to see Oslo. I am told it is the boringest slow drive imaginable because the speed limit is 80kph.

The most touted tourist activity for Sweden in the fall - mushroom picking - never came up! I suspect the planners never even knew that's the only thing to do in that country that time of the year!

Anyway, the email exchange has stopped for 3 weeks now. I can presume that the trip will not happen after all.

I don't think I will have missed anything much.

June

was the month
- I officially joined the rank of senior citizen at the entry level. I know mail relating to active aging is going to pour in.

- I thought about a birthday bash. It never happened. The only birthday bash I ever threw was at age 21; I realised then I could not deal with the fuss. I did enjoy small fusses made by the friends who did know about the birthday, and I want to thank you girls for making the birthday deeply meaningful and memorable.

- I want to thank the girlfriend for her gift of leopard print tights. She saw those and thought it was so me; I am flattered that she remembered I love animal print accessories and that she thought I'd still be able to wear them tastefully. I do and I can; I will.

- I had dinner with the family. The dysfunctional dynamics are fully intact. Some things will never change. I learn to see it as a constant in my life; there is perverse comfort to be drawn from that.

- Three entertainment personalities passed away. I am not particularly interested in the lives of celebrities, but these three were special:

- RIP grasshopper aka David Carradine. While I never thought much of him as an actor, I wished he'd be remembered for more dignified reasons than the sensational circumstances surrounding this death.

- RIP Farah Fawcett, the beautiful woman with the famous hair that inspired my generation in the 70s.

- RIP Michael Jackson, whose tormented mind gave us 3 decades of unforgettable music. The coming-of-age song for me was I'll be there (1970) when MJ was still part of the Jackson 5.

- I became more aware than ever that I did the right thing by making the hard decisions I did. There were people I hurt badly for which I will forever be sorry, but I had to do what I did.

- After all that I've done and been through, I know who and where I am. I am grateful.