Experiencing an amount of inertia when it comes to blogging. The notes in my phone are piling up from the random things I want to blog about, and I don’t know how else I should put them down other than yet another post about random things. (Not the 25 random things about me ok don’t worry)

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On Thursday I went for my debut Shanghai/overseas job interview. On a rainy winter day. Once I entered the interview room (it was a large meeting room), I wasn’t sure where to place the jacket I just took off.  Should I just dump it in the chair next to the one I’m supposed to sit on? In the end I wrapped it on the chair, and then realized I didn’t know what to do with my scarf. With the lack of winter garment placement practice, I hid my scarf in my bag. On departure, I wasn’t sure whether it was alright to make the interviewer wait while I put my jacket back on, so I just carried the whole damn thing all the way to the entrance.

I believe it was also my first interview with a Caucasian, a co-founder of the company. Standing at 1.9m or taller, I did not feel intimidated because I kinda grew up with a brother almost as tall as him. In fact, I liked the interview with him because 1) he laughed at almost all my attempts at jokes 2) his questions were asked in a friendly way 3) when he sits down he doesn’t tower over me.

For instance, instead of asking, what are your strengths? as many of the interviewers in Singapore would read from a script that has been photocopied since 1999, he asked, “If your best friends were right here, how do you think they’d describe you?”

I’m not sure if I want to do what I do a little in my leisure time as work.

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My mother and I have different travelling habits. I want to save as many pennies as possible while she would pay pounds to save the trouble. To her, it is always better to pay more now for the ease (e.g. taking taxis instead of trains/buses) than to pay more later for hospital bills in the event that due to lugging luggages you break your fingers.

But she would walk to three different supermarkets in different shopping malls to compare the prices of a particular product and then walk back to the first mall because it was 10 cents cheaper.

And she’d rather use a plastic bag to shelter herself from the rain than buy an umbrella or poncho.

I don’t get my mother.

But I admit we’re getting more alike than I’m comfortable with.

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Malaysia toilets always have that hose for washing down under. Japanese toilets have one or two bidets (toilets that have warmed seats and washing tubes with squirting functions, complete with power choices, buttoned) and always with disposable toilet seat covers. Seoul toilets also have limited bidets. In Bangkok the hooks for bags are placed really high, I don’t know why. Singapore toilets have a sitting : squatting cubicles on a ratio of 8:2. Chinese city toilets, if not the drain system, then sitting : squatting is 2:8, sometimes 0:10.

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Singapore MRT stations have escalators or lifts at every station, at any necessary point of elevation or depression. This convenience you cannot find in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Bangkok. I have lugged around 10kg of goods in certain Hong Kong MTR Stations with the frustration of staircases where escalators or lifts would have helped. Ditto Seoul when I carried my luggages.

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S$30 on my Singapore EZ-link card can barely last me two weeks.

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Riding with the new SBS Transit buses in Singapore made me carsick a lot. All the adjusting of suspension did not work well with my stomach.

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Ironic how people ask me if I’m Korean, and ask MissY if she’s from Singapore. Many times.

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When I told MissY about how our Skype conversations are being scanned by the Chinese, she got angry and said let’s do a Skype call, where she’d say: Chinese governent SUCKS! I meant SOCKS! S-O-C-K-S SOCKS!

She wanted to test their scanning system I guess.

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I can’t read much on the Shanghai subway, even though I’m seated. The salient feature of all Chinese dialects is that it’s loud, and I don’t know why Chinese people like to talk on their cell phones as if they were in the club with blasting music. People sitting next to me somehow like to nudge me with their elbows as well.

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I don’t like the Korean strong sense of hierarchy, but appreciate being bowed to when the young Koreans bow to her (I’m almost always next to her).

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After living overseas for long periods of time, consuming different sorts of food has done wild things to my stomach. I’ve realized that the most important thing in life is not having lots of money/status/power, but the ability to move your bowels comfortably everyday.

The main concerns when living abroad are not visa applications, internet connections, the packing/unpacking or moving of houses, but they are: what to eat for the daily 3 meals. If in China, what is the least harmful food, or what food will only be damaging many years later?

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MissY just tried to teach me the meaning of  the Korean word “assa”. “Like yay! Like when you move on to the next level in Mario you go ASSA! Like I found coconuts for Tracy (in The Sims 2) I go ASSA!”

These days, I see her occasionally blowing into her Nintendo DS Lite. She’s building a fire for her The Sims character to cook fish or something. -_-

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Just shut my luggage.

Wondering if the mess in my room will be untouched for the rest of this year.

Heading to KL tomorrow morning for a mother-daughter thing (?!) before proceeding to Shanghai for what we all hope to be my last semester in that university. As to what happens after, your guess is as good as mine.

On a more optimistic note, I went to watch a bit of the Thaipusam festival today in Little India! Great stuff! But I don’t have time to upload the pictures and all now, so I guess you’ll hear from me in Shanghai!

Writing this at half-past three in the morning is automatically forgiven for sappiness, or fruitless whining.

1) It sucks that I can’t eat on trains and buses in Singapore. When I’m hungry and rushing off for an appointment, I have to choose between time and food, so I usually just go hungry. Which may have been a contributing factor to my current gastric problems. A plus point for Shanghai, for not being so particular about cleanliness or technical problems caused by food/drinks.

2) The body odour on buses and trains in Singapore are really really different from those in Shanghai. Let’s just say that here in Singapore, we have a variety of people with different diets, so sometimes there’s a blend of the different BOs of the different diet groups, though some are stronger than others. In Shanghai, since diet does not vary much, the communal BO of the showerless can overwhelm, but still not as pungent as certain diet groups here.

3) Plastic bags are given free in Singapore as opposed to the chargeable ones in China. However, when I decline a plastic bag in Singapore, I receive looks that imply I’m such an environmentalist snob.

4) Photocopying is really expensive here. I visited the National Library to photocopy some parts of reference books, and it was a hefty sum to pay. That amount of money would have let me photocopy 5 whole books in Shanghai.

5) If the fact that smokers are only allowed to smoke in designated areas such as the “yellow box” is sad, limiting final alcohol purchase at midnight is depression. No more alcohol after midnight! Even my curfew was never so cruel. Too many restrictions, this place. But well, considering that in Vancouver one can only lay hands on alcohol at liquor stores or pubs/clubs, the 7-11s and any other liquor-licensed establishment is heaven in Singapore (but only BEFORE MIDNIGHT).

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It’s that time again. I hate leaving at this time of the year because I know all that awaits is the cold. Hostile and merciless. i can’t go there with an open heart/mind anymore because I know what I will face: people who will push, deceive, and engage in verbal warfare; students who make friends with you for ulterior motives, who will cheat, who will pay money for papers, and who will take all the As; teachers who are too easy to negotiate, who are too hard to, who like to “do taichi”…

A handful of years ago I was the sort who had to voice my feelings of injustice, pour my heart out to buddies and friends alike just so I can sleep at night. I think I’ve grown reticent over the years, kept more to myself, just so that i can let them sleep at night.

But, who am I to be forlorn, since to most at home, I’m the lucky one to stay abroad, always bringing goodies home to share, telling everyone how life is good, things are much cheaper and that they should come visit me? Then even when they visit they see the concrete, they see the glitter, they see everything that doesn’t matter.

I even suggest the possibility I’ll stay there. Even though I have no fucking idea what I’d do. I envy my friends right now, for having that nine to five job, in the comfort of home, hanging out with friends when they choose to, I could even get used to squeezing on the train during morning rush hour. I want to soak in all these things homely (of course, including being able to eat prata at any hour of the day) and be with people who can understand me in all my singlishness and singaporeaness. Yet, I choose to run far away and starve myself from all this comfort. WHY? Why do we press harder on the remote control when the problem lies with weak batteries?

For a step-by-step of the Great Singapore Workout, look here.

In an attempt to kickstart some exercise in this freezer we’re in, I let MissY take a look at the long-unheard-of Great Singapore Workout, and she loves it! But well, she loves all the National Day Parade songs I youtubed for her to watch too haha. Was it some minister’s attempt at fitness fun for Singaporeans which later simply fizzled out? I don’t think anybody did it again after those few years, not even in schools. Think it was overtaken by a supposedly New Great Singapore Workout, then there was the We Will Get There dance, and then there was the eye exercise (rub everywhere around your eyes)…

Hmm, I miss those school days.

If my mother saw the state of this hair (which has since been cut, though not much), she would most definitely utter “like ah lian (female hooligan)”. A few years back she was always breathing down my neck for everything I did. The ear piercing looks “like ah lian“, that pair of shoes “like ah lian“, talk also “like ah lian“,… you get the drift. And I hated it. She wouldn’t let things go at that. i was always criticized for doing this or that, for not doing that or this.

But. Now.

She is not making noise when I suggested my not-homecoming this Chinese New Year. Such oversight is unheard of. Have money to go Seoul, no money to go home? How can that perpetually-menopausal woman who wouldn’t let me go house-visiting in half-shoes-half-slippers allow this to happen, and without blasting through my mobile phone speakers? Wow.

Maybe it’s ‘coz the son is finally going home and nothing else matters. But hey! No hanging of dirty linen here.

Anyway, I found a cheap way home and back, so I’m going to show her my “like ah lian” hair afterall.

Finally, flying China Eastern these three years is paying off. I get a free flight from Shanghai to Singapore with my 25000 points, paying only 668RMB tax, and then flying back to Shanghai from Kuala Lumpur on a MYR572 (S$237) Malaysia Airlines ticket. A trip that would usually cost around S$800 is costing me around S$350 this time. Kudos to loyalty programmes.

Brother has suggested buying a Wii set for the parents. Hmm, ok. But if my mother says my hair is “like ah lian” then I’m so gonna confiscate it.

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What is this post about? My hair? My mother? Or about my cheapest way from Shanghai-Singapore-Shanghai? Exams coming, shit. Brain has to overwork after inactivity for 4 months. So I guess this is what happens.

Disclaimer: I know my hair is not “like ah lian“. It’s worse. Ah lians don’t have such bad hair I think.

Thanks Joanne and Winni! Really cheered me up on a rainy gloomy PMSy hurtful day!

It would have been better if they were instant chicken rice, instant teriyaki chicken wings, instant bak kut teh and instant laksa though! hee hee.

Nevertheless, this package cheered me up so much I’m blogging right after opening the package! And I’m so going to cook chicken rice tonight (just the rice)!

Thank you thank you!

Many have observed how my family takes photos standing without touching each other (Winni describes it as the “sedia!” (at attention) position), which suggests the kind of family knit-ness in my home.

Family pic 2005, Family pic @ YEF 2005, Family pic 2007

(Hey there’s an improvement over the years, now both older members stand in the “senang diri” (at ease) position)

The two young members may have grown wider but that sure didn’t fill up the space between each other in the most recent family picture.

My father has been the underappreciated family glue all these years, maintaining the household by keeping it functional, and helping the other members stay civil to each other. He always encourages and never puts undue pressure on us for our studies or any other aspect (can’t say the same for my mother); and silently takes in our tempers and never raises his voice just to gain ground (can’t say the same for his wife).

He does what he does for the household uncomplainingly: the laundry, the ironing, the cooking, the cleaning, and even ringing every single button of my brother’s Catholic High School uniform during our conformity days. He prepared breakfast for us every morning before waking us, and even carried me from my bed to the kitchen chair during the good old days when I wasn’t so sizeable. He would then drive us to school, and return home to wake my mother, and placed oranges on the table to remind her to pray whenever it was the first or fifteenth day of the lunar calendar (even though he’s a Christian). Now he even leaves notes to make sure nobody gets locked out of the house by accident.

During those car rides to school, he would fill us up with Chinese proverbs, his philosophies of life, or interesting anecdotes of his life as a police officer. Sometimes he would try to teach us the facts of life but never prodded into our personal lives. Now in the very limited occasions we sit together in the car or over a meal he continues to fill our ignorant minds with current affairs.

My father never probes into my private life, other than to check on the fundamentals such as whether I have enough cholesterol and liver medication to last my semester abroad, hoping my diet agrees with my cholesterol level, and if my bowel movements are normal. He may ask a little here and a bit more there, but stops himself the moment he senses irritation.

We can always count on my father for help. I recall how he would help do my brother’s projects, and makes sure my brother fills the necessary forms for school applications, army, and permits. When he learnt of Reuben’s death, he scanned all related articles and emailed them to me — The Straits Times, The New Paper, lianhe zaobao. He can remember when my antivirus expires, and offers his credit card to renew it. He knows my IC number by heart, so he makes sure I receive my GST Offset Package in time.

Above all that he does for us he takes care of himself, always doing all he can to ensure his cholesterol and blood pressure level is lowered to a healthy level even if that means cooking chinese herbs every night and walking to and fro his work place for an hour every morning and evening. The moment he feels chest pain he rushes himself to the hospital. When my mom complained of his snoring he went to do sleep tests and was a willing experiment for doctors to curb snoring, even if that meant wearing some uncomfortable apparatus to sleep.

You know how sometimes we just have certain vivid memories attached to people? Well, I reminisce the times when my brother and I would wait our turns to let our father hold our ears toward the light and dig the wax with the golden ear digger; how he taught me to cycle by detaching the little wheels one by one; bought me Swenson’s yam ice-cream when he occasionally picked me from Yamaha electone classes; placed me on his neck when my family walked down orchard road to see Christmas lightings; accompanied me to the bathroom on high tide nights ‘coz I was too scared to go alone; carried me across the road every morning to get to PAP kindergarten because he was afraid that if he merely holds me I might let go of his hand…

He will continue to contribute significantly to the household in his silent ungrudging ways, but I won’t go on taking him for granted.

Happy Fathers’ Day!

How can I not blog about this: Connie the Crazy Canadian is likely to drop by Singapore this summer. Guess where she might be staying while she explores our sunny island?

The response from the owner of the intended accommodation wrote this in last year’s email when I first asked:

If you are around it would be Ok. But she and you can’t sleep on the same bed. Either one of you have to sleep on the floor. It is very unhealthy for both of you to sleep on a bed meant for one person. Remember this wherever you are. Your friend Sam also should not sleep together with you on your bed. Your bed is too small for two persons.

(Connie, I think I successfully shifted everyone’s attention to my mom’s erm… sense of humour and you’re no longer the star of this post. Hahahaha but yeah that’s the way I am so too bad, banana.

You’d better bring me plenty of Reese’s, maple cookies, some of your banana bread, and quesadilla haha.)

It’s the first time I’m on a one-way ticket to Shanghai, and it’s painful because I don’t know when I’ll be home. Previously I knew I’d be home within the coming 6 months because I held a 6-month ticket.

The views I long to see:

It’s home greeting me from the plane!

Or does having a one-way ticket entitle me to go back anytime in between 6 months?

Hahahahahahahaha.

I want to get the remaining 1.5 years over and done with quick, but maybe I’ll take that back when I’m finally graduating and hunting for a job. And I might miss the little things here. Might.

CG, I finished my mom’s pappadum already.

        It’s time to get moving and, at the very least, clear the path to the bed.