Sunday, November 13, 2011
I'm happy
Monday, November 7, 2011
Our generation is fucked up
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Strength of genetics... or just influence?
Sunday, October 23, 2011
I almost blinded a friend.
Probably not the best look.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
We don't joke about this shit.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Me, the fashionista.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Hey guys, I found the perfect job for anti-social people.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Today is...
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Google Dabai. "Did you mean Dubai?"
“You’ve never seen it before?”
“But you’re Sarawakkian, you should know of it.”
I know, I know, you’re not from Sarawak and your ignorance makes sense. Shut up.
So... Dabai is a fruit.
I googled dabai and there were less than five relevant results for it, which was to be expected. I could plagiarise and sound all smart and shit, but you know, as I usually confess easily;
Too lazy.
So go have a read here.
The dabai, having been seasoned with salt, was overpowering in its saltiness, but when I shoved another spoonful of fried rice into my mouth, it tasted just right. The dabai tasted... unique, different. It was full, rich, the texture was smooth and it had a strongly distinct flavour. I don’t think anything else could replicate the taste, neither can I exactly describe it. It’s nothing like any other salted variety of fried rice, like Nasi Goreng Ikan Masin or I don’t know, Nasi Goreng Garam or something.
But I would definitely have it again.
Anyway, as it turns out, I did know of Dabai, it was a fruit I did have as a kid, I just didn’t know its name or that it was native to only Borneo. Ten years later, it’s only natural that I forget. It’s hard to come by, since the other name for it is Sibu olive. It’s not as easy to get in Kuching as hawkers selling it at the weekly market would have to bring it all the way from Sibu, the only place where it’s harvested. Oh, and it’s seasonal.
Sibu, like most of the small cities in Sarawak could hardly be called a city. A few modern buildings, official looking establishments and widely-sparse residential areas restricted within a small circumference hardly fitting to be deemed a “city”. Sometimes there’s a small airport, but most of the time a short drive, meaning several house (like, ten), is the only means to get to places.
Oh, and helicopters.
But that’s how most cities in Sarawak are. Sarawak is huge, mostly underdeveloped, proudly rural, jungles spewing forth everywhere and cities are several miles apart. Roads are not always accessible. I drove three hours to another nearby city from Kuching for a “day-trip”.
On the way there though, you could find several small creeks, untouched rivers, hot springs or beautiful landscapes of nature where you could literally park by the roadside, take out the picnic basket you packed and have one hell of a breakfast, lunch, or evening tea by the crystal clear waters set in pebbled stones and shaded by wild trees.
It’s breathtaking.
It is definitely fitting to be called “Borneo” or the “Rainforest”.
So travellers, if you visit Sarawak, while you’re having the Kolo Mee, Laksa Sarawak and Teh C Peng Special, don’t forget Nasi Goreng Dabai as well. It’s rare and a only few places sell it though, so good luck.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Three Layers of Pure Awesomeness
“Dik, Teh C Peng Special sigek!”
It’s been awhile since I came home, but for the eight days that I stayed in my hometown, every meal eaten outside was accompanied by this novelty drink.
Before I take a sip, I would note the beads of condensation on the ice cold glass of drink that could only be described as inviting as the sun continues to beat down relentlessly on the Land of the Hornbill. Even the crinkle of ice against each other was music to my ears.
There’s a trick to taking the first few sips of this local drink, which is what I never fail to look forward to. With the straw held firmly in your fingers, start sipping from the bottom and quickly work your way up.
It comes in stages. The refreshing taste of pandan hits you first, then comes the slight hint of brown sugar which would later be overpowered by the sweetness of the condensed milk, before your taste buds settles on the slight bitterness and unique taste of the red tea.
Pure. Ecstasy.
After the first three or five times though, you get a bit self conscious when you notice the nine year old sitting next to you drinking it exactly the same way. Then, you clear your throat and stir the triple mixture like the adult you try to appear to be, coalescing it into the boring brown colour of a normal Teh Tarik. Then you remind yourself not to repeat the act of drinking like an idiot again.
But then, at the next stall and with the same order, you conveniently forget to remember.
Teh C Peng is also called Three Layer Tea, and I think the name was given by West Malaysians when the drink was brought over from the East, from Borneo. Try as I may though, I have never, ever found a glass of Teh C Peng as refreshing, inviting and perfect as the ones from Sarawak, where it originated. The best I had for this trip was probably the one at J&J Corner, the one I had on my last day, as pictured above.
I love my hometown.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Oh, I'm just heading to Hell. You?
“People don’t have the guts to kill the rats they’d just caught by hand. What do you think they do?”
“Um... leave it outside until it starves to death?”
“Exactly... especially if the sun’s scorching hot outside. Kills them faster.”
That’s when a wave of guilt hit me. Hard. I must have repressed this memory for a while, but it all came back during this conversation.
There was a whole family of them, from the size of a grizzly sun bear to a sea plankton.
We had to hide all our food in little containers, but when they started eating through the containers and even ate our lotion, moisturisers and some of my friends’ make-up, that’s when we got down to business.
Our home-pest-control aspiring little senior set up traps using the rat glue bought from pound stores, which worked surprisingly well. We’d wake up to the sound of thrashing and squealing, sometimes from two separate sources. One from the bathroom, and one from the kitchen cabinet.
“So... how do we get rid of them? Release them outside?”
“Yeah, sure. It’s like this game we play with the rats. Let them find their way back and see how often we would catch the same ones repeatedly. Maybe put a little mark on it to see how many times we caught Whiskers or Jerry.”
“Then what? Just leave it to starve outside?”
“We can do that too, so it can start calling for help from other rodents. We just have to prepare the Welcome to your New Home! banner for the newcomers first.”
“Then what?”
And it was decided. We would just give them a quick death. Well, guess who got the honour of giving just that? That’s right, the person whose nails weren’t just done or who isn’t wearing a new top from Topshop.
They suggested drowning them in boiling water (Jeez, and I’m supposed to be the tough one?) but I didn’t have the heart for it. I wanted a quicker, less torturous death for these transporters of the black plague so this is how I killed several of them:
1. Wrap it in thick newspaper until I’m sure the ickiness wouldn’t seep through the layers, onto my skin and into my blood streams, killing me slowly with icky rat stuff.
2. Holding the rat firmly with both hands, one hand encircling the belly, fully rotund from ingesting all that coconut-scented hand lotion and No. 5 mascara and another hand wrapped around its head.
3. Twist.
4. Twist very hard.
Of course, such a deprived, vile act came with its own consequence. The rat problem went away after everyone adroitly handled the catching and I handled the killing. Though for weeks after that, I couldn't help but relive the moral agony.
...The trilling squeak that escalated in volume right before the sudden, cruel twist.
...
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Acid Man's Inspiration
Was combing through my backlog of unread Reddit posts, and came upon this interesting article.
"Since 1994, Ms. Bukhari has documented 7,800 cases of women who were deliberately burned, scalded or subjected to acid attacks, just in the Islamabad area. In only 2 percent of those cases was anyone convicted."
“I screamed,” Ms. Azar recalled. “The flesh of my cheeks was falling off. The bones on my face were showing, and all of my skin was falling off.”"
We're angry that the police force aren't aggressively hunting down the "Acid Man" (Though I'm not sure how most came to that conclusion), despite the fact that he probably hasn't been exactly eager to indulge in his perverse act when a baton-wielding policeman is traipsing along congested areas. At least we look upon this act as abhorrent and completely appalling, and the media coverage it has gotten thus far shows how unanimous we are in observing its treachery.
These women aren't so lucky;
"Because women usually don’t matter in this part of the world, their attackers are rarely prosecuted and acid sales are usually not controlled. It’s a kind of terrorism that becomes accepted as part of the background noise in the region."
Here are more pictures but honestly, for greater impact, just visit the site itself.
The backstory is that they got attacked simply for rejecting an offer for marriage, to settle a family dispute, because she tried to divorce her deadbeat husband, because her father didn't want another girl, was raped by three men and was later given an acid bath, etc.
I... don't know how to react to this.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
I cried.
“What’s up? How’s Australia?”
“It’s fine, winter is cold.”
“‘Kay. So watcha doing?”
“Watching Mao’s Last Dancer.”
“Any good?”
“I cried.”
O...kay.
One thing you have to learn about my eldest sister and I is that we’re not the crying type. The youngest of us three took all that gene, that cute cry baby. I think she’d even cry if a raven gets left behind in a storytelling of flying ravens.
Yes. You got that right, a storytelling of ravens. We all know a flock of birds but not an exaltation of larks. A wisdom of owls. A lamentation of swans. An ostentation of peacocks.
I only wish I was making this shit up.
Anyway, back to my eldest sister being an emotionless robot with impaired tear ducts. Other than events that would cause even the most hardened war veterans to have an out pour of bodily liquids out of their ocular orifices, I’d never seen her cry.
I myself cried watching a movie once, back when I was about 8 or 9 years old. Of course, the pain from rolling around the bed and falling down really hard on the floor was probably a contributing factor, but if my memory serves me right, the scene in the movie where the 5 Indian kids rode on magical bicycles into the setting sun was especially poignant too. (Again, I wish I was making this shit up).
So a movie that made her cry?
Totally.
Worth.
Watching.
But then again, there was the problem of...
So finally, after getting married and having two spoiled cildren, and two mid-life crises later, the downloading was finally done and I sat down to appreciate what I anticipated to be the most epic movie I’ve ever watched.
It was inspiring, suspenseful in some scenes, part tragic, part hopeful, it solicited the viewer’s empathy yada yada yada, but come on, cry-worthy? Sure it made me realise how we take life for granted at times but... Meh...
Two thirds into the movie and I was already conjuring up a torrent of insults directed to the person who cried at a movie that only made me feel almost enough emotion to not be such a take-everything-for-granted person. Almost.
Then this happened;
That one stupid sad scene totally snuck up on me. Totally. It came out of nowhere. I was hardly prepared.
UNFAIR!
But yeah, totally a movie worth watching. Was adapted from on an autobiography, written by the person who’s portrayed as the main character.
Tell me what you guys think of it. :D
P/S:
Can anyone find out about that movie with the flying Indian kids? I watched it when I was young, so it was probably made after... 1997? I’ll treat whomever that would solve this frustrating puzzle to Chilli’s or Carl’s Jr., I swear.