My question again: Is a good man/guy that hard to find?
No, I’m not going to have a mid-life crisis.
I am asking because it seems that a number of women and gals I know (and who are perfectly OK in every sense) cannot seem to find the right guys to date or settle down with!
Over apple-flavoured tea and chocolate-covered-melt-in-your-mouth fluffy donuts a few days ago, my cousin and I were talking about how her colleagues, well meaning as they were, tried to pair her off with some guys.
Of course, this cousin of mine is not old at all…she’s only 26. But she doesn’t seem to be making any leeway in terms of the dating game. She’d rather hang out with her gal pals.
She’s a girl with brains so maybe, just maybe, guys are afraid of girls who can speak their minds. So I ask her, well, what do you want in a boyfriend?
She doesn’t hesitate at all.
“He must speak English. Otherwise he won’t get the punchline!”
I know that her work as a graphic designer brings her in contact with lots of guys but they’re Chinese-educated guys. Which for her, an MGS gal, is like total opposites.
Can try but can break a vein trying!
For one, have I not told you that the English speaking among us can try to be friends with the Mandarin speaking among us but it’s like Martians and Venusians trying to get along?
It’s not very pleasant – maybe it’s the sort of thinking that English speaking Malaysians have. The Mandarin speakers think we are the actsy sort just because we speak English! Bah. They think we’re snotty.
So I tell her, go where the English speaking sorts are… how about the British Council. Try hanging about where your prospects are (that’s Marketing 101 for you). Sign up for a class at the British Council and see if you don’t meet likeminded men who speak English and can get jokes without going ‘huh’?
I told her she ought to get out of the house more. This anime-loving, Korean drama fan and PC nerd of my cousin loves nothing better than lounging about at home in front of her PC when she’s not working. She loves playing online games and getting her laughs from Korean comedies. She’s also a big fan of Terry Pratchett and would rather spend her money buying books than buying this season’s clothes.
So I start thinking, is a good guy that hard to find? She tells me that every other guy she knows is either gay or totally not her cup of Starbucks. I find that guys these days are so androgenous that gals are a lot more ‘tough’ by comparison.
Where are the guys of my time? Guys who looked like guys? Guys who didn’t swipe their girl friends’ lip balm? Guys whom you didn’t have to play the guessing game if they’re gay or straight.
It’s not my dear cousin’s dilemma either. Her sister’s friend, who was paired up with a guy, didn’t make it past 2 months of dating. They split after 60 days!
Another friend of mine who is pretty and independent cannot find a man. There’s nothing wrong with her at all. Another friend of mine who is in politics tell me that she also cannot find the right guy despite always being in touch with the local community with her work.
“How about the men in your political meetings? Don’t you all go out for drinks or makan?” I ask. You see, I’m curious.
Really, where have all the good men gone?
“Ya, when we go out for teh tarik, we still talk politics! Where got time to talk about other stuff?” Plus she says they’re all old and grumpy.
More and more, I am hearing the same stories.
Cannot meet the right men but they keep meeting the wrong ones, gays, men not interested in women, men interested in politics but not women or meeting men who just want to shag!
Yes, darlings, there are crappy men like that. They want you to get into the sack with them and then, so long ma’am. It’s just fun baby. Don’t take it too seriously ya.
So I am left wondering – are the right men all married? Are the right men in the places where women aren’t looking (under a rock perhaps)?
I also ask myself this: if I weren’t married, would I have a hard time finding the right man? In my time, it was easier to find men. They actually looked like men! These days, just because you think it walks like a man and shaped like a man may NOT be a man at all!
Like my cousin says, she doesn’t need to go hang about clubs and pubs to reel in a man. That’s not her style and she’s right.
I told her to go hang around Borders (especially the shelves with Terry Pratchett books!) and see if she can’t find a guy who loves to read like her.
Many years ago, a guy infiltrated our group of women bookworms and got himself a wife! I am not joking. He came to our book meets and fell in love with one of my friends. Everyone got invited for their wedding a few years back but we couldn’t help but think, wow, the audacity yet it worked. It was like a movie plot but it was real. They’re still happily married to each other so yes, finding a partner who loves the stuff you love can be a turn-on and attractor factor.
So tell me, I have no answers why a good man is that hard to find. I have on the other hand a few eligible men friends who seem to have it tough finding the women they want to marry! A friend of mine is wealthy and good-looking but no one wants to be his girl friend! So maybe it’s not the looks or the money then.
Another guy I know is sweet and thoughtful yet he can’t seem to find the right women to date!
Tell me, is a good man/ woman that hard to find?
How did you find your husband/boyfriend/wife/girlfriend?
Mine was easy. I found him when I was studying in USM, in my first year. He was introduced to me by a good friend and we’ve been dating since 1994 and married since 2001. I guess I got lucky!
I wonder if I would be lucky if I were single again in today’s relationship market?
A Special Children's Sunday
I was invited for the Handicapped Children Centre’s Open Day and Concert a few days ago (Sunday morning) by Josephine.
She’s volunteering with the centre and told me that the children, all 63 of them, had put so much heart and soul into this open day.
I dragged Nic along that morning, knowing that yes, we could laze about on a weekend but we could also lend some support to these special children.
The Handicapped Children’s Centre is on Grove Road, just behind the State Mosque [The Handicapped Children Centre is on 24B, Grove Road, 11400 Penang]. I had been here before in my corporate comm days as my ex-company was also doing some CSR for this organisation. It is in this peaceful residential area and away from the main road. Started in 1964, the centre helps school children who are disabled, children with Down’s and children considered in need of special teaching and special teachers (such as those with autism).
You know we take things for granted? At this centre, you will be reminded that you DON’T take things for granted at all. Some of the children have difficulty concentrating, holding a colour pencil is really a challenge due to limited motor skills and limited coordination. Other children cannot communicate well and are painfully shy.
Being able to remember is a cognitive skill we always take for granted.
Not so here.
For many here, counting up to 20 or stringing 3 words in a sentence are accomplishments to be really supportive and proud of.
Besides classroom lessons, these special children are also taken out on field trips to the bank, post office and shopping malls so that they get used to people and learn how to carry out simple tasks like banking, taking a bus and shopping.
The classroom walls are decorated with paper cut-outs of birds which the children coloured and I am surprised to learn that some of these children are not children anymore (most are teens but they are just acquiring essential skills to help them adjust to society). In fact, one of the boys, Julian Au, came up to shake my hand as I was looking at their artwork. He was shy but courageous enough to extend his hand in friendship!
Having this Open Day then is a major challenge yet achievement for both teachers and students given that the students do not function like you and me. Repetition movements are difficult because they forget so easily. Being in front of a crowd of parents, well-wishers and VIP guests and making eye contact is not something these children are used to.
As I looked at the proud parents and teachers, I was deeply moved by their enthusiasm and cheers. They never gave up on their children, no matter what disability or problems they were born with.
One particularly moving performance was a Mandarin song sung by an Indian-Muslim teenager in a wheelchair. The crowd came to a hushed silence as Mohammad Yassin began singing in perfect Mandarin. He had memorised the whole song and sung with confidence! It was an emotional moment as many parents started wiping away tears.
Another girl (also in a wheelchair) came out to recite a poem “Aku Menjadi Lebih Berani”. She surprised everyone by reciting it without referring to any scribbled notes!
We sat through the 2 hours and saw the concert from start to finish. It was after all the least we could do after these children/teens had practised for 6 months to get their moves right. The dances and singing may not have been one hundred percent perfect but it was their spirit that gladdened many a heart!
When you know that memorizing a dance step or a line of a song takes so much effort and time, you begin to realize that perfection is in the motivation to accomplish for these beautiful children.
The concert was graced by the patron of the centre, the Penang Governer’s wife, Toh Puan Hajah Majimor who was accompanied by the wife of the Penang Chief Minister, Betty Chew.
It was fitting that the concert ended on a high note where each child sang Whitney Houston’s ‘The Greatest Love of All’. The lyrics were especially thought-provoking in their context.
I spoke to one teacher as I was looking at a row of meticulously hand drawn and coloured pictures of wild birds by an autistic 18 year old boy who studied at this centre. She said that once they reach 18 years of age, the children would go to Joblink, a centre that adjoins this Handicapped Children’s Centre. They are then paid to do small and easy tasks to earn a living. Most of the tasks were given by factories – inserting or packing products.
I had a great Sunday outing! And three cheers to these children too for their heartfelt performances.
Full Moon Celebration with the Colonel
Nic passed me a rather large looking angpow last night.
A message stuck on the back of it – “Thanks for celebrating the full moon with me, mummy and daddy!”
Inside the angpow were 2 KFC vouchers!
Nic’s friend had just given birth to a baby boy and like all friends, we had chipped in to buy something nice for the baby.
As is customary, the favour is received with thanks and when the baby reaches 1 month old, his parents would return the favour by sending out gifts.
In those days, parents would order nasi kunyit, chicken curry, red eggs and ang koo to be given out to friends and relatives, announcing the 1 month celebration of their baby. Parents would most likely drive about and spread the good news to everyone, face to face. Friends and relatives would then catch up with the newborn’s news and chat a bit about how the new mom is doing etc.
Oh how times have changed! In such a short time, so many traditions have come and gone.
I felt quite wistful about this as I saw the 2 KFC vouchers.
Nowadays, it’s too much of a hassle giving out packs of Full Moon Goodies (nasi kunyit and the like). First you have to drive to your friends’ homes, make sure they are at home and pass the goodies to them. (By the way, I helped my sister do this when my nephew was 1 month old. It was tedious, yes, but it is tradition. As you can sense, I am a great stickler for traditions. The older I get, the more I want to preserve the unique aspects of life as I used to know it.)
Nowadays, you just go to KFC and buy a bunch of KFC vouchers and put them into ang pows and post them along to your friends! The Colonel does great business this way but I don’t have my nasi kunyit or curry chicken any more. Which is quite sad in a way.
We’re modern creatures now and we think of faster ways to get our message across. But I think that sometimes the old ways aren’t so bad either.
Think of it – if you were to go house to house and pass out boxes of nasi kunyit and curry chicken, you had a chance to ‘sembang’ with your friends and neighbours. It was true communication. It wasn’t so much about the full moon goodies but it was the face to face contact which people enjoyed.
Now, the only people you get to ‘sembang’ with was the KFC staff behind the counter asking if you want Original or Hot and Spicy!
It’s the same with mooncakes. I don’t fancy those newfangled flavour combinations, creative and interesting though they may be. Give me good old lotus paste mooncake any day and I will die a happy woman. Give me the kind of food I used to eat when I was a child.
You see, the more choices we have, the more we tend to fall back on the tried and tested. Choices just serve to confuse people. Variety is good if you don’t need to make a choice. If you have 2,374 types of ice cream flavours, chances are you will choose the simplest and most basic flavour of all and I bet you it would be chocolate!
I don’t have children yet but when I do, I hope to have real full moon goodies to pass out to friends instead of getting them to make a date with the Colonel!
Diamonds Over Tea
This whole week has been work, work and more work so I was quite happy to let go of all that and go do my other stuff – you know, my WomenBizSense stuff.
[By the way, Kristine announced that WomenBizSense will be given a spotlight at next year’s Business Card Festival that her company is organising (media profile, talk session and the works). Yay and thanks, Kristine!]
I thrive on things like this. I know I can be called mad but I’m the kind of person who likes organising events (eh, maybe I should be an event planner, hor!), getting people together and being the Mother Hen. I said Mother Hen, not Mamasan, OK.
Our meetings are now on a monthly basis to accommodate ladies who said they really want to meet up more often. So we now have Quarterly Meetings, Lunch Bunch meetings and Networking Teas. All for women who own and run their own businesses.
Yesterday we had our Quarterly Meeting at Joyce’s shop, Hundredfold, at Penang Plaza. Joyce is an artist and art teacher while her husband, John, is a certified gemologist. (I found out he is also a Sining, an offshoot of Cantonese, like me so we were happily talking away in our soon-to-be-obsolete dialect much to Joyce’s amusement!)
At this meeting, we met 2 new women business owners, Hannah who owns a telemarketing business called Hanacom and Shan Shan who owns an electrical item shop. Hannah was patient enough to tell us the difference between telemarketing and telesales because our eyes grew big as plates and our jaws momentarily dropped. “Telemarketing? Like credit cards and banks?”
I am amazed sometimes how people get into the business they get into.
Like Hannah’s.
It is a tough business.
It is cold-calling.
Now, hands up… who likes cold-calling? Cold-calling is an art and one has to be thick-skinned enough to withstand not only rude folks on the phone but people slamming their phones on you! Rejection, disappointment, craziness.
I salute Hannah’s persistence as she started on her own, at home, by calling up to 120 people a day! Nowadays she doesn’t do it on her own anymore – she has a team of people do that but I believe she is involved in a lot of training too.
Of course, no WomenBizSENSE meeting is complete without some form of sustenance.
Everyone brought food for tea – Muzlifah cooked a rich chicken curry, Lee Min brought her special oyster mushroom fried with tempura batter, Kristine brought the piece de resistance of the day – this beautiful dessert of layers upon layers of French crepes interspersed with cream! There was not a slice left of this dessert at the end of the day! She promised to email us the person who made this sinfully rich dessert! Apparently the ‘baker’ in question is someone who enjoys baking and cooking so this is really a work of art!
We even had a free jewellery cleaning service when John, Joyce’s husband, gave us ladies a few pointers on taking care of our gemstones and pearls. Our rings shone a little brighter when we left John’s shop yesterday evening!
We were privileged to talk to John as he is a certified gemologist who can determine if your gems are real or (gasp) fake. His lab is the one and only gem-testing laboratory in Penang so your gems are in good hands.
He can set stones, he can design whatever ring or necklace you fancy with your favourite gems based on your budget. The biggest problem, he says, is that most clients don’t name a budget. Without a budget, it’s hard to say how much a diamond ring, designed to your specifications, would cost!
I love gemstones especially amethyst so his shop was like paradise – all types of expensive gems winking away at me.
As his shop is not the type you can walk into any time of the day (he sees clients by appointments only), I felt quite fortunate to be able to look at the gemstones at such close range and be able to ask him all sorts of questions. I am sure I would be calling John again, if only to let him check out this amethyst Nic bought me a few years ago and see what I could do with it!
If you’re interested in John’s service, you can find Hundredfold on the 2nd Floor of Penang Plaza, next to Nutrimetics or call him (ask for John Ng) at 04 899 8469.
My Favourite Chinese Foods Which I Won't Ever Eat
If you are 30 years and above and Malaysian Chinese, you probably will know what I am talking about.
I started off responding to Marsha’s comment on this blog post about made in China ice cream. Then I realized that hey, it could be a blog post on its own.
You know why?
If you are Malaysian Chinese and have lived long enough in this world, you will know that even before the awful melamine milk scandal, we’ve been eating Chinese products for a long time already. From the time of my grandfather in fact. Maybe even longer!
I suspect we’ve been ingesting enough chemicals to blow ourselves up.
And it’s not just the White Rabbit sweets either.
Here’s a list of my favourite Chinese foods which I am not eating anymore. I’m not scared of dying. I’m just scared of being poisoned and die an unnatural death.
1. Ma Ling Luncheon Meat
I can tell you that THIS is my favourite of all. I can tell you that throughout my growing up years, this has been a family favourite too. Whenever Mom had no time to cook, we’d open up a can of Ma Ling Luncheon Meat, slice the round slab of meat, fry them and god, did they taste heavenly on rice and with bread. The luncheon meat was oily and porky and salty. If you slice it real thin before you fried it, the meat would be crispy and salty! Heaven was in that slice of meat!
But I stopped buying this about 8 or 9 years ago due to one bad incident. I opened up a can of luncheon meat and saw the meat had some greenish mould! Yucks. I don’t know what it was but I was sure I wasn’t going to eat that gross stuff.
Then I started thinking – what do the Chinese put in this can? Is it really pork? Could it be that they ground up other types of meat e.g. roadkill? I still don’t know. I have sworn myself, ok, ok more like weaned myself OFF this Chinese product. I know I could buy the European luncheon meat (which costs a bomb) but nothing tastes like the Chinese version.
Did you know that there’s another version with ham bits? Nic says I’ve been living under a rock as I have never eaten this ham version (I think it’s a premium version). The ham version has a green and white label with a white pig on the label.
2. Pearl Bridge Fried Dace with Black Beans
Who hasn’t eaten this with porridge? The fish is hard, oily and salty. (Hey, it seems all Chinese canned products are salty! In fact, sometimes overly so!). The black beans have an acquired taste but goes so well with the fried fish. Nowadays there are some rip-offs of the original brand. One is in a deep blue tin sold under the Gulong brand. I don’t want to eat this fish anymore because again, like the luncheon meat above, I cannot trust the Chinese manufacturers. I don’t know what chemicals they use to preserve the fish! It is likely to be illegal! On days when I crave something like this, I run out and buy Yeo’s brand Fried Mackeral with Black Beans. Of course it tastes completely different but what to do?
3. White Rabbit milk sweets
Oh, I loved this when I was a kid. I still have a packet in my fridge as I type this. I gave it away to friends as gifts last year during Chinese New Year. It brought back lots of good memories of Chinese New Years past when I would peel off the rice paper wrapping and let it melt slowly, deliciously on my tongue! That would be the best sort of feeling in the world. I loved the creaminess of this milk sweet! I could eat a bunch in one sitting. And now we realize that it contains 50 times the permitted level of melamine!
4. Chinese wax sausages and all types of waxed products
Convenience is the word when I talk about chinese wax sausages or ‘larp cheong’. I’m Cantonese and I grew up eating tons of this precisely because it’s so convenient to prepare. Just throw a pair or two of this into your rice cooker when you are cooking rice. Once the rice is done, so’s the sausage. Take it out and slice it and you have instant food! The oil would have absorbed into the rice, turning the rice into the Chinese version of nasi minyak with a fragrance of pork sausages! Yummy. But what scares me is this: what is the sausage wrapping made of? What is the wax made of?
Then there’s waxed duck thighs which is another gorgeous meat, to be found usually during Chinese New Year. Waxed duck thighs can be cooked like waxed sausages. But you can glamorise it a bit and cook it the way my Grandma did – braised with button mushrooms and chicken meat. This rendered the waxed duck thighs – also extremely salty – to a five-star dish status! Salty and oily – a bad combination for your heart and cholesterol but oh-so-damn-good with rice on the first day of Chinese New Year.
5. Braised pork in a tin
This is one pork dish which can kill your heart. Nic calls it ‘wobbly pork’ because really it wobbles so much due to the fat ratio of the meat. Braised pork in a tin (don’t ask me what the brand is – you don’t need to know the brand but you can see it on supermarket shelves, the non-halal section, of course) is actually chunks of fatty pork immersed in oil! It’s every cardiologist’s nightmare! My Aunt uses this braised pork to stirfry with beehoon, even the oil. Nothing is wasted. Not one drop of oil even. I don’t buy this anymore as I think I’m now 34 years old and I should be kinder to my waist line and heart.
All the above are my fave stuff but I don’t eat them anymore. I am not sure what goes into these food products from China but I really don’t want to know. I might keel over if I find out. But this is not all there is. There’s dried red dates, there’s snow fungus, there’s all sorts of dried herbs from China which I can tell horror stories about. I now go for Eu Yan Sang herbs as I feel safer if there’s a brand behind it.
Speaking of which, I still haven’t dared to eat the Walls’ Moo ice cream even though it’s been cleared of melamine.
How about you?
Tell me if you’re as guilty as I am of ingesting poisons and chemicals, no thanks to unscrupulous Chinese folks in mainland China.
And what’s your favourite canned food of all? 😉
What 30 Not So Desperate Housewives Did
Tell me, will YOU be free on 2 November?
Will you be in Penang on this date?
If you want to do good and pay it forward, please spread the word that the Buddhist Tzu Chi organisation will be having their annual charity sale at the Pesta Sungai Nibong site from 9am to 3pm.
The sale revenue will be used to help those who are under the Tzu Chi welfare care and support such as kidney patients, those who are poor and to fund international relief work.
Meet the Angels in Blue…
I’ve always had the utmost respect for this organisation and you probably recognise their volunteers/members by their dark blue shirts and white pants. In some places they are known as Blue Angels.
When I was helping to write up the report on the tsunami which happened in Penang in 2004, I was told that Tzu Chi members were the first people who arrived at Tanjung Tokong to help clear debris and find out what else was needed.
Incredibly, they are also the quietest – they do not shout about their good deeds nor boast.
It is precisely this sincerity to help that inspires many (me included – good work has its own volunteer PR team!). Their selfless help transcends all borders of race and religion.
Which is amazing considering that these days, everyone who does something good or noteworthy wants it shouted from the tops of mountains…or at least have some fishy PR mileage out of it.
A friend told me too of how Tzu Chi have been quietly helping people in her area of Sungai Ara. She spoke of this Malay couple who sells pisang goreng near her wet market – this was the only means of earning an income for the couple.
They were very poor and had 6 children to feed. But they also told her how they were grateful to Tzu Chi which came to their aid, giving them money monthly so that they could afford to raise their children. My friend started weeping when she heard this personal account from the Malay man who was in a wheel-chair.
The best thing about this Taiwanese-born organisation is its founder’s core philosophy. Master Cheng Yen advocated self-sustenance for the organisation.
I heard of Master Cheng Yen’s philosophy first hand when I visited the Jing Si Cafe & Bookstore on Beach Street a few years ago. A smiling volunteer came forward to tell us about the founder’s core philosophy. And Master Cheng Yen is a woman (don’t all the best ideas come from women? Yay to women power in changing the world!)
What 30 Not So Desperate Housewives Did…
Master Cheng Yen left home at 26 to be a Buddhist nun and thereafter set up the Buddhist Tzu Chi organisation. Today, this admirable organisation has grown to include 5 million supporters and 30,000 members on a global scale, from First World to Third World nations. And keep doing work that warms the heart and renews faith in the human race.
Particularly touching is the story of how Master Cheng Yen started the wheel of compassion in 1966 – she gathered 30 housewives of Hualien town to start saving 50 cents each day from their grocery money so they could help others. Never doubt what a group of determined women can do.
How You Can Help…
So if you can help the Penang Tzu Chi Annual Charity Sale, please do.
You can either:
* contribute ingredients for the food
* volunteer to man the stalls
* help cook agar-agar for the sale
* contribute old but usable items for the jumble sale
* make glutinous rice balls or ‘tang yuen’
* volunteer to wash dishes during the event (lots of hands needed for this)
* or if you cannot do any of the above, please come to support this event with your family and friends/ buy tickets in bulk – each ticket costs RM 10
* spread the word to your family and friends
If you are coming to buy food at the charity sale, bring along your own food containers or tiffin carriers. Tzu Chi abides by eco-friendly practices so they will not be giving you a chance to litter the earth with plastic or polystyrene.
If you can help in any way, please call Swee Yong at 012-423 8700.
I end with these beautiful words, taken from the Tzu Chi website:
In a rare meeting with Master Cheng Yen, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama stated, “Why should we help people who are in pain and in need of help? It has nothing to do with religion, race or nationality. It has to do with the fact that they are our fellow human beings…”
Giving Tummy A Holiday
Langkawi is always a good getaway from the busy-ness and business of Penang for a while. Even if I do visit clients when I’m on that little island.
But I’m back.
I got back on Sunday evening, just in time to catch the first night F1 race that was held in Singapore. Of course, the race was full of dramatic events, race cars crashing to the side, Ferrari running off with the petrol hose stuck to its behind, lollipop men not making appearances, strange stuff. I thought Singapore was jinxed. Much as I detest saying this (I’m Malaysian OK and most Malaysians have this love-hate relationship with Singapore), I think that little island state has created much success and anticipation for this night race.
Which means Sepang F1 has to really up its standard.
The whole of this week was really short – since yesterday and today are technically public holidays due to Hari Raya Aidilfitri. So there are just 3 days to the week.
But the moment I got back from Langkawi and the moment I got into the office, it’s like super speed work all the way. I’m sure most of my pals are sick and tired of me going “Busy” each time they IM me. Sorry la folks. This week’s been crazy. *embarrassed*
So I was mighty happy to have a bit of a rest with the Raya holidays. And catch my breath. I spent all of yesterday doing nothing remotely business-like.
I took off for a long lunch with Vern at Island Red Cafe at Krystal Point. That place reminds me too much of Old Town Kopitiam. It’s awful to be a copycat of a more bustling eatery. The food was slow in reaching our table and we had to remind them that they still owed us our 2 chicken chops.
I heard from my sis that it’s a franchise. The place has sofas and PCs with Internet access. It attracted quite a crowd but again, it could be that Penangites love the kopi tiam concept. (My sis says the food is a lot cheaper than Old Town. Hence, it attracts frugal Penangites. Maybe.)
Later that evening, I popped by my Grandma’s to meet up with my parents and sis for some vegetarian dinner. My sis is observing the Nine Emperor God Festival (which is a major festival in Penang). This means absolute vegetarian fare for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She doesn’t really end it with prayers at the temple (that’s what most people do) but it’s a habit she can’t shake off. Good for her, really, as I think we often eat too much meat anyway. A week of vegetarian fare is kinder to the stomach and body (I went over to Than Hsiang Temple for lunch today. Even packed home their cottony-soft pau’s for tea.)
So yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing these few days. After the luxurious feasting in Langkawi (I was at The Loaf and at SunSutra, and if Wan Thai was open – it’s wasn’t – I would’ve had some Thai foo too), a little bit of vegetarianism does do me a lot of good.
Gives my tummy a rest.
Are you stuffing yourself with rendang and ketupat and lemang or are you giving your tummy a rest too?
The Right Reasons
I will be off to Langkawi for the weekend.
For work. For pleasure. For food. For leisure.
For all sorts of reasons.
It’s incredible to escape to an island where the cows stare at you as you drive past in your car. Rented of course. The car, not the cows.
And as such, I won’t be blogging till I get back on Sunday.
And I will miss the Freedom Film Festival at Wawasan University this weekend. I hope u-jean will give her running commentary on what went on. Well, at least Vern and I hope she will…. haha. We’re evil gerbils.
And Margaret will be home alone for the next two days. It means she will wallop all her cat biscuits the moment we leave the apartment. She’ll try to kill my growing serai plant, thinking it’s her cat grass.
And my parents are coming to Penang.
And there’s Hari Raya holidays coming up.
And new website projects from new clients.
And my 5 items a day gratitude journal.
(Did I tell you that at the end of each day, I will write down 5 things I’m absolutely grateful for? It’s amazing how warm and fuzzy you feel once you start this exercise. Small details are no longer insignificant.)
And I’m reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. It’s an intoxicating book about Elizabeth’s real journey to Italy, India and Indonesia to find herself. At it is, I’m one third through the book and I want to learn, no, speak Italian. I want to eat the best pizza in Naples. This book was given to me by Jana, my best pal. She knows I’m a sucker for these melodramatic, teary, infectious self journeys.
And I am now guiding and mentoring someone about blogging. We speak once a week and I am coming full circle. I am a teacher. The word sounds foreign to me. Yet that’s what I’m doing. And I am totally contented helping this young woman blog.
And I shall have lots to blog about when I get back.
You have a smashing weekend too.
As in Fabulous – as Kimora Lee Simmons always says. (I love this brash, mad, bling-frenzy woman. I love her show, KLS: Life in the Fab Lane. It’s a strange attraction!)
Bread & Ice Cream
I just managed to download some photos I took – a bit pleased at my bread baking adventure. This is coming from a person who has no baking skills whatsoever… except for my signature banana cake recipe.
Here’s how the bread turned out… from dough to bread.
Cleffairy, I’m going to try baking this bread again next week. To see if the recipe still holds true.
On another note, I’m so bummed that I have to throw away my Walls Moo Ice Cream. If you know me, I don’t really like ice cream that much but I finally found an ice cream I liked. And man, whaddayaknow, I flipped the package over and it’s made in China.
Damn. Damn. I now have to chuck the whole thing away.
But I had eaten another pack of it not too long ago.
Am I Melamined? Hell.
This is what happens when people cut corners and have no ethics in their lives! What I am super mad is, Walls didn’t make a peep. What bad crisis management.
A Lesson To Learn…The Hard Way
At least tell consumers that you’re either recalling the products or something. There’s a big PR mistake here, especially in Malaysia. Fonterra was smart – well, not so smart since they partnered with the Sanlu Group but they were speedy enough to take out ads to reassure consumers that their milk is not tainted with melamine.
But look at the other milk companies! Either your PR people are sleeping on the job, or you feel guilty or embarrassed at admitting your milk products are made in China or there’s this “let’s keep quiet coz we don’t want our sales to suffer!” Either way, am I glad I don’t drink milk.
In crisis management (which in layman terms means, say sorry if you fouled up or at least be man or woman enough to admit your shortcomings), the first thing is reassurance. Don’t hide. Don’t hide because it makes you look awfully guilty. Even if you’re clean and innocent like a cherubim.
Next, come out and explain what happened. If you don’t, you risk looking like some damn creepy corporate type which means, the consumers won’t ever trust you or your brand again.
As it is, being big and corporate is quite a liability these days. Remember the days of Enron? If you’re a big company, people automatically think you have something to hide. Even if you don’t.
So I’m surprised Walls kept quiet. I trust Walls. It’s a brand I know from young and I’m not very young now (I’m 34).
So where’s the corporate communications people? Where’s the PR people? (I did Journalism before, I did Corp Comms before. I did Investor Relations too. So I’m not barking up the wrong tree.)
I suspect no one knew this was coming and it hit them right between the eyes. Of course, once you get hit, you get up and think, OK, what’s my next line of defense?
But I don’t see that happening – except that today, there was an ad taken out by Nestle Malaysia to clarify their position on this fiasco. But speed is essential. Don’t sit and wait too long or consumers think you’re apathetic and you don’t care.
Which is a pity because milk companies and ice cream companies can benefit from the goodwill (from consumers) if they did the right thing. They can turn the crisis to their benefit but nope, nothing’s beeping at all.
And I have to junk my Walls Moo ice cream. Adoi…
Pure Organic Munching
I realize it’s been suddenly a deluge of food posts.
I don’t know why. Maybe too many projects are happening. I just got a blog consulting project running for the next few months so that’s one more to-do in my long list of to-do’s (I kind of thrive on work and like I said to Vern, the more one has to juggle, the better one juggles!).
Anyway, back to food.
I love my ladies group. Well for one, we always aim to meet each other for lunch and talk about business.
Last Friday, Jo and I ended up at SEED Cafe (again) on Nagore Road which is just around the corner from Jo’s shop on Lorong Selamat. Jo and I often meet to talk about our activities and events for WomenBizSense, and we do our best planning over lunch!
SEED Cafe is one place which makes me feel good about myself. It’s a pure organic vegetarian cafe that’s quite a hit with health-conscious Penang people. I’ve been there 3 times already and each time it is packed with customers (even though parking is horrendous. Parking in Penang is mostly horrendous but don’t even think about finding a parking spot on Nagore Road unless you double park.) They also sell organic stuff – organic miso, organic sauces etc.
SEED can seat customers upstairs too so we opted to go the first floor (where it’s quieter). I usually order this drink, Vitamin King, a blend of vegetables and fruits. It’s a green concoction with a hint of tartness. I believe my body is absorbing chlorophyll when I slurp this down.
My favourite dish seems to be the spaghetti with pine nuts with a creamy pesto made from vegetables. The pesto is rich with the fragrance of Thai basil (you will either love this herb or hate it to bits…it’s pungent and it’s definitely a taste to be reckoned with). Jo enjoys this dish too. But I always get hungry almost immediately – perhaps due to its meatlessness! I wanted to try the vege ham burger but the cafe had run out of this the day we were there.
Their salad is not bad – a simple mix of vegetables (turnip, carrot, purple cabbage) with raisins and a creamy dressing. Again it comes with Thai basil so be forewarned.
I’ve also tried their pumpkin soup (available on certain days) which is really robust and filling.
This is a place I can be quite happy eating in. I always get a burst of satisfaction if I eat right. I know I’m nutty like that.
Expect to pay an average of RM 20 per person if you dine here. Not exactly cheap but hey, at least you’re not stuffing your face with greasy, fried stuff. This is organic and this is healthy. And you feel absolutely light unlike those heavy, sleep-inducing lunches (read: heavy on rice and meat).