Top Ten Things Overheard During the 12th Malaysian General Election Campaign

The 12th Malaysian General election is here again, i’m definitely casting my vote. Hope there won’t be a repeat of the fiasco the last time around, when all of us had to wait for 4 hours in the blazing sun only to find our names were NOT on the electoral list. I only got to vote (at 4pm in the afternoon) when i followed a rumor that they had changed my polling station to another school at the last mnute.

Anyway, come March 8, please go and vote. After that, you can join me at the coffeeshop for a mid-morning break.

Top Ten Things Heard During the 12th Malaysian General Election Campaign

• “No, sir, this is a polling station, NOT a condo sales launch.”
• “Yang Berhormat, how come you haven’t updated your blog for so long? And have you ever considered doing a political ceramah podcast? Youtube campaign?”
• “Screamyx is gonna be super-crawling slow right until March 8. It’s all a secret conspiracy…mumble-mumble…Anwar’s facebook…whisper-whisper…youtube video…mumble-mumble…party’s election fund…”
• “OMG, that ‘Yang Berharap Johan’ cartoon series in the papers is SO UN-funny. Or is it suppose to be a lame attempt at satire? Give me Lat anyday.”
• “I’m sorry, Datuk YB. Yes, I have a question. Which party are you from, again?”
• “Sori ah boss? These month cannot deliver your order of plastic bags ah? Got national shortage ah, everybody printing election poster… Call back April la.”
• “The Malaysian Elections is a bit like American Idol. But with less good looking people. And no Simon Cowell.”
• “How come Karpal Singh never come and contest in my here in Kundang Remis Darat? I’m dying to vote for him since the 80’s!”
• “Have you SEEN the new party campaign video with YB breakdancing to the Pussycat Dolls’ “Dontcha” on Youtube? I have GOT to send it to you!”
• “So which parliamentary constituency is that Mohd Barack bin Obama running in? Lembah Pantai?”

Top Ten Things I Learnt This Chinese New Year

You know what I do when I don’t have mood to blog long strories? I do top ten lists!

Top Ten Things I Learnt This Chinese New Year

• I can eat 4 mandarin oranges in a row before my pee starts to smell orange-y.
• Malaysia’s best tasting snack food, nga ku chips, is called ‘arrowhead root’ in English.
• Jackie Chan’s last few HK movies are getting progressively worse to embarassing (I watched 3 of his movies over the holidays).
• There’s normal yee sang, then there’s good yee sang. Then there’s yee sang where you can’t even find the salmon with a magnifying glass.
• There are A LOT more foreign workers in Malaysia you think. Just go to the shopping mall on the first 2 days of New Year and you’ll see what i mean.
• When someone gives my company a CNY hamper, the bottle of liquor at the top will be the first item to mysteriously disappear after the first day. Next is the box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates.
• Mickey mouse is Chinese.
• US subprime market and recession crisis has also affected the going rate for Malaysian ang pows for children.
• I finally got to see who how my MP looks like - There’s a huge CNY poster of him along the LDP. Too bad he put up the poster BEFORE he found out he was dropped from contesting…
• i also learnt who the hell Edison Chen is.

New Year Travels

Gong Xi Fa Cai, everyone!

It’s been a good Chinese New Year holidays, for me. I travelled a lot, as usual, but this year, thank God, i managed to avoid all the traffic jams. I heard for those travelling at peak hours it was pretty bad, but at least most of the construction works have been cleared, except for that Tanjong Malim killer stretch.

First things first - on Wednesday, the day before Chinese New Year, we took off from home early in the morning and headed back to my hometown in Johor. Travelling south has always been far easier than north, and we made it back before noon. When we first got married, my wife onced commented that going south on the highways was very different from the north (she’s from Ipoh) in that:

1. There are no mountains, so boring one. Well, like, the Banjaran Titiwangsa has already ended, y’know? But she sleeps all the way, anyway.
2. Why got so much palm oil and rubber plantation one? Ipoh people have never seen a rubber ‘estet‘, it seems.

Anyway. Home was the same. At least this year it wasn’t so hot.

Didn’t really take many pictures, was too busy spending my two days there doing important stuff, like eating, sleeping and reading my awesome Lat collection (i have his complete set at home).

But this is a good picture. My kids and nephew doing Bible study.

(2ann - can you see your book?! So thick!!!)

A trip back home is never complete without a visit the (in)famous monkey park. This year there seem to be MORE monkeys, and MORE aggressive.

So that was home. Plus my garden is now something like a jungle, no thanks to my mom and her plants and flowers. I swear, one day, those plants are going to swallow up my dad’s car.

Day three of CNY we came back to KL for a short rest (some of you may have noticed the sudden burst of Facebook activity during that time), then off to Ipoh in the north. “See? Mountains! And no ladang kelapa sawit!”)

Small red lanterns seem to be the ‘in’ thing this year. And those pictures of mice holding Chinese words. I see them everywhere. Even at the mamak barbershop.

On Sunday morning, we went to old town for the famous white coffee. As you can see, we were NOT the only ones there.

It was packed! I couldn’t even get into the shop, let alone fight for a table. We went to the one opposite, only just slightly less packed, but at least i can still SEE the tables.

The object of our desire. White coffee. Eat your heart out, starbucks.

We also ate the hakka mee. Picture taken halfway through eating, forgot to snap photo BEFORE eating.

My wife loves this apam stall outside the coffeeshop. According to her, “can never find this in KL“. I’m not crazy about apam, so i passed. But like all the stalls around here, very teh popular one.

Actually the real reason for us coming down to old town and joining all these crazy food maniacs was to go this toy shop - one of the many lining the road. I just looo-ove this toy shop. They have fantastic stuff at dirt cheap prices. You can easily find toys that you played with 20 years ago here.

Later we went to buy a pack of yee sang for our lunch. Every year we go to this same restaurant in Pasir Pinji - Tuck Kee Restaurant. The place doesn’t look much, but if you’re in the area, you have got to try their food.

Anyway, i came back to KL on Tuesday.

*****

I opened up one of the hampers i got for CNY, and surprise, surprise, what did i find? Kickapoo! The best soft drink in the world! Any soft drink that is green in color has to be awesome. Like Green Fanta. Like Green Spot. Okay, that last one isn’t green.

I mean, just look at it. Two weird looking elves jumping into a burning tub! How delicious is that?!

*****

Valentine’s Day was on Thursday.

Instead of joining the mad throngs at TGIF, this was what we had for supper. Nothing says I love more than glazed donuts. Mmmm…

******

So that was my week. This morning i was counting the number of days to payday. And to the next public holiday. Argh.

Last Check Before Liftoff

okay, final check:

bags - packed
book for vacation reading - packed
jogging shoes - in car (i’m a jogging freak)
blogs - updated (i’ll still be online anyway)
petrol - full tank

Looks like all set for Chinese New Year exodus. Covering 1000km in the next few days, contributing to the massive jam on the North South highway.

Happy new year everyone, and enjoy yourselves.

‘Mickey’ and ‘Geraham’

There’s this contractor in our project, an old man with white hair called Chong. His name is Chong, his namecard is Chong, and everyone calls him Chong, although most of his underlings call him ‘lou sai’ (boss).

But not my colleague - he calls the old man something that sounds like ‘Mien Jee’. His Chinese name isn’t anything close to that, and besides, Mien Jee sounds like a girl’s name (in fact my wife has a friend with that name).

So after about a year, i tak boleh tahan already and asked my colleague why ‘Mien Jee’. This was the explanation - Back in the early 80’s when they were working in another project, everyone called Chong ‘Mickey Mouse’ because:

a) He was thin and small;
b) He had big ears like aforementioned celebrity mouse.

So ‘Mickey Mouse’ became ‘Mickey’ and then to ‘Maggi Mee’ and somehow later Hokkienified to ‘Mien Jee’.

Mystery solved.

My old friend Raymond once told me this other one from his schooling days. There’s guy called Ding in his school whom everyone calls ‘geraham’. For those of you who packed up their Bahasa Malaysia 101 years ago,

gigi geraham = molar teeth.

What’s the connection? Well, poor Mr. Ding’s name was forever made fun of, one of it was ‘Ding Dong Bell’, etc. Kids can be mean. But anyway, ‘Ding Dong Bell’ somehow became ‘Alexander Graham Bell’ and then Graham became ‘geraham’.

One day i might tell you the story of why the girls in my school called me ‘hot stuff’…

Don’t Play Games With Our Lives

Here’s something you should pause to read - please support Jolene and her petition for safer bus rides in Malaysia, in the wake of the Lee Nian Ning story.

There’s a blog set up here, so all details can be seen there.

Don’t Play Games With Our Lives and Future.