Downtown

Saturday, March 17. 2012

I can die happy now

Friday, March 16, 2012

Home Again!

Thursday, March 15, 2012

It is so good to be home, to be my mother's son.

I get up at 4 AM every day, and mom gets up around 5.  Every morning, she makes the coffee, and toasts, and we enjoy a conversation over coffee and toasts.  Around noon, she force me to eat lunch, and demands I bring her all my dirty cloth for her to wash.

Today, I have a dinner date with my friends.  She made coffee and toast at 4 and make it eat it so I won't be too hungry waiting for dinner at 7.  It feels so great to be pampered.

I spend most of the day reading and sleeping.  I actually attended a work conference call this morning.  Over Skype, the voice was a bit choppy, but good enough. I caught up on all my work e-mails, but was careful not to answer everyone, because I want to remain "out of office", and not allow a flood of requests to come in while I am on vacation.  I only replied to Joe, who is my friend at work. He needs help at work, so I will go in next Tuesday to help out.


(..tbc .)

Homebody

Wednesday March 14, 2012


After Seng and Ann left for work in the morning, I went out for a walk.  The road behind the house leads to the top of the hill, and is a good exercise path because that part of the area is not developed.  The roads are there, but no traffic or houses on those streets.  The entire path is uphill, until you get to almost the top at the water tank, then you have to turn back and walk downhill.

I remember when I first took this path a few years back, it was somewhat of a struggle to get uphill.  Nowadays, since I have been bicycling at home, I am able to walk up the hill easily.  Yay for the exercises at home.  I would make sure I continue to bicycle.

I pretty much spent the rest of the day at home, sleeping most of the time after lunch.  Mom complained that I slept from noon to 4.  I guess I must have been tired.  You must listen to your body.  If the body says you are tired, then you must rest.

For supper, we went out to a choo-char place.  (choo - cook, char - stir fry.  Choo-char places are hawker stalls that cook dinners, instead of noodles, cakes, etc.)  The waiter who took our orders is a very good salesman.  The way he described the dishes made us mouth-water and wanted to order every dish he described.  As it was, we over ordered.


Here is Theng2 playing games on the cell phone.  She is very much into dancing and in particular Ballet. She takes ballet dancing a few days a week.

Here is KL - Kian Loong. He is in Form Four (high school junior year) and takes Advanced Math. Good boy!  He likes gaming, and plays on the computer as much as he can get away without getting punished. There are strict rules set by his parents for him to follow, one of which is "no gaming after midnight."  He is doing very well in school.













Ann is still working at Fairchild Semiconductor, managing a team of computer professionals.

Seng manages at Agilent Technologies.

Both of them part time as taxi drivers for the children.

This is bitter melon omelette with soy sauce. It is a very good dish.  I like the soy sauce on my rice, and the fluffy sweetness of the eggs with the bitter melon on the rice.  Very delicious.

This pork dish is to die for.  In fact, I think Siew Kai will love this. The pork is not as overcooked as it should be.  Don't get me wrong, it is cooked, but this type of pork should be cooked until it literally falls apart when you try to pick it up.  The sauce of made of salted shrimps, with a couple of hot chills thrown in for good measures.  The gravy was excellent to go with white rice.


The Tom Yum shrimp is very similar to what we had at CRC on Sunday, except they are smaller.  The dish is called "Four Chin Kung", or the four Buddhist gods.  It is fried with four different kinds of vegetables, although as you can see in the picture, there were not too many vegetables in it.  I can find ogra in it, for I cannot remember the other three.

The stir-fried beans on the right is fried with ground pork. Strange! but tasted pretty good.  I tend to like dishes with gravy, so I can pour the gravy on my rice, so this one is okay, but not my favorite.


The sweet and spicy chicken is my least favorite.  Chicken pieces were deep fried, then stirred fried with some beans and onions. The sauce and the vegetables are nice, but the chicken is a bit tough and hard to handle.

Seng cut open a pomelo fruit at home after dinner. This is very much like a graphfruit, but is sweet and not bitter. The fruit is big, about two pounds in weight.  The inside is like a regular citrus fruit, in sections, and containing little juicy pieces. The rind is thick, and we saved that for mom to cook the next day.
Mom cuts out the green outer skin of the rind, soaks the white meat of the rind in water for a few hours, then cut them into pieces and cook with a paste of preserved shrimps. The resulting dish is very tasty.

Ah Goo

Day 4 - March 13, 2012

Mom made sausage rice yesterday.  They were incredible!  Pieces of sweet Chinese sausages, chopped preserved ducks and cured pork cooked in white rice.  When cooked, the rice is full of the fragrant of the meat the the rice.  Mom made me eat two plates of it. I did not resist either.

Loon called up at 11 and invited me to Beef noodles soup.  Lilian and Sui Fun joined us at the Beach Street eatery.  We ordered a bowl of the beef soup each, plus an extra bowl of meat only soup for sharing -- a tradition started by Siew Kai.  On the side, we also have a plate of char kuay teow, which we shared and quickly devoured.

Soo Har had made plans last night to take me for seafood tonight.  We met up with Kong Chan, Kah Wah and his wife at the restaurant. It took a good 40 minutes to get to the restaurant, which is across the Channel.  On the way, we discussed education in the States.  Siew Hee (Soo Har's wife) is a retired school principal as well, so she was very interested in the primary education in the U.S.  We talked about Becky's school, and progressive education.  I thought what Becky has done was really valuable for the children and told them so. I described some of the projects Becky did with the children and Siew Hee was very impressed.

(not done)

Day 3 - The study of Thick and Black

March 12, 2012

I had made plans to meet Kong Chan at ComTar building this morning.  He drove up with Soo Har.  I was surprised to see him. It was years (seven or nine) since I last saw him. We were in the Sixth Forms in High School, but were not friends until towards the end, when we formed the "Boys Club" at Aw Bah's house.
Through University days, we were friends, but less so with Soo Har, and more so with Kong Chan.

Both Kong Chan and Soo Har became teachers, and they both taught tuition classes after school, and made good money (under the table.)  Soo Har taught at various schools, became a high school principal eventually, and resigned or was sacked six or sevens later. So when we got together, the conversations turned to education and teaching.  Soo Har did most of the talking.  He vented his opinions of the (lack of ) standard in education, and the oppression they faced as Chinese teachers and educators.

We had curry noodles, char kuay teow, and stuffed tofus at a coffee shop in Penang Road, then drove to Penang Hill road, intending to take the funicular railroad to the top of the hill.  This week being the school holidays (vacation), the railroad station was filled with young people lining up for tickets, so we decided to go elsewhere instead.

We drove to Tanjong Bunga (beach), and along the coast, up to Telok Pahang, and onto the road that goes around the island.  At Balik Pulau, we stopped for Laksa, then dropped off Kong Chan and drove back to mother's house around 1:30 PM.  The whole trip took about 2 to 3 hours.

Throughout the trip, Soo Har talked.  He talked about teachers from the old days, and he talked about his teaching days.  He talked about the time he worked at Chung Lung High School, our alma mata high school, and how he was tricked to resigned from the high school.  He talked.  When we arrived home, I invited him in to have a beer and he talked.

Most of what he talked about is the Chinese theory of Thick & Black.  Thick face (shameless) and Black heart - one must be shameless and ruthless when dealing with the enemies.

The essence of the Thick and Black is based on human psychology.  Most man crave fame and fortune.  Therein lies their weaknesses from which you can start your attack.  An example:

Lam is the high school discipline officer.  Under his control, the high school enjoys a high reputation of good, polite students, punctual to class, keeps the campus clean and neat, etc.  Lam always brag in front of the Principal without him the school will fall apart. After a while, the principal Mr Yap was sick of Lam and plotted to oust him from the school.  Now Lam is a long time employee, so Yap will need to be careful how he handle this so as not to cause administrative issues and receive repercussions from the government.

One chapter of the Thick Black Theory is call:
"Loan a man a ladder, Make him feel elevated,
 Take away the ladder, See him helpless."
The meaning of the theory will become obvious when you examine how Mr Yap carried out his mission using the theory in this chapter.

To become a principal in Malaysia, one must possess certain qualifications, the least of which is a university degree.  It turns out that Lam was a Form five (high school) graduate and had worked his way up to be the discipline officer of the high school.  Mr Yap called Lam into the office and offered to help Lam .  He said he has connections at the Ministry, and can recommend Lam to take an upcoming post of the principal of another high school.  Lam thought Mr Yap was being so nice to him, and also, who wouldn't want to have a promotion, and the glory of being the boss of a high school?  He eagerly accepted the invitation.

Now the high school he took over was at the time a small high school, with only a few hundred students.  Lam qualified to run the high school, even though without a university degree, because regulations state that a degree is only needed for schools with more than a thousand students. Lam was elevated to principal, and because to enjoy the live and glory.  Mr Yap had known for a while that the high school is situated in a high population growth area, and in three years, will see student population grow to more than a thousand students.  He kept that information from Lam.

In due time, when the school population grew to a thousand, Lam was still in high spirit, thinking it was his administration that attracted the students, and not thinking of the degree requirement.  Secretly, Mr Yap sent a note to a Ministry official, exposing Lam's lack of qualification.  Lam was unceremoniously removed as the principal.

So, as you can see, to get rid of Lam, Mr. Yap gave him a ladder (the recommendation of a promotion.)  The ladder elevated Lam to a high position.  Yap knew Lam will take the bait, because it is human propensity for fame and fortune.  Once Lam is promoted, and danger befell on him for not having the degree, Yap can withdraw his help, with the excuse that he did not anticipate the high school will rise in population, and that he did not know Lam did not have a university degree.  This is taking the ladder away from Lam, so Lam is left hanging in the cloud, from which he must fall.  The Thick Black Theory struck his opponent in such a way that Lam has no way of accusing Yap of any wrong-doing. At the same time, Yap accomplished his goal of ridding Lam from his staff.


Another chapter of the Thick Black Theory:  "Getting to Yes"

(to be continued)

Yet another chapter of the Thick Black Theory is "Thank you for hurting me, Sir"

Four days after Soo Har became the Deputy Principal of the high school, he was faced with a problem. As Deputy Principal, he was automatically the Discipline Officer.  There were reports of missing bicycles and bicycle helmets. Soo Har was not sure if this was the act of one person or a gang, but he decided to make an example of one.  He was mindful that in the past, when students were accused of wrong-doings, the parents would side with the students, making it ineffective for the school administrators to punish the violators.

To carry out his plans, he immediately made an announcement: Anyone caught





(to be continued)

Day 2- sunday March 11

We had planned on Dim Sum at 7 this morning.  By 7:30, it was obvious the children are not going to get up early just for Dim Sum, so Seng, Ann and myself started out.  Unlike the old time restaurant, this place, which is probably a converted coffee shop, and also serves dinner, is more like a self-serve dim sum restaurant.  You pick a table, get your tea and utensils ready.  The food counter is toward the back of the dinning hall.  You grab your score card, pick a tray, check out what is available on display, and point at it. The servers will pick up you want and put it on your tray, noting down on the score card how many items you have taken.  At the end of the meal, you pay the cashier.  Even the tea is sort of self service.  The first pot of tea is delivered to you.  When you run out of tea, you can refill the pot with hot water at a hot water tap situated somewhere in the middle of the restaurant.  All very efficient and labour saving,.

Well, the eyes are bigger than the stomach, as they say.  We picked up a goodly amount of the normal suspects. The pork dumplings, shrimp dumplings, spare ribs, fried yam dumplings.  One thing that is new to me is this one at the top right.  At first, I thought it is some kind of yam cake stewed in a broth.  I asked the lady what it was, and she said something that sounded like "woo".  It turns out to be fish.  Now I have had Dim Sum almost all over, but I have never seen this dish before.  Seng mentioned that he has never had fish before either. This turned out to be quite good.  A lot of ginger and garlic, very nice broth, and small pieces of fish that appeared to be thinly breaded and deep fried, then stewed in the liquid.  It was tasty, juicy, and the meat is sweet. It was quite an enjoyable dish.  Here, at the right, is a close up of the dish.

The fried yam is the usual fried goodness.  I can never eat this without feeling guilty.  This dish must contain a gazillion calories, but it is a light crunchy fried, sweet goodness that is so irresistible.  I bit into it, feeling the dry crunchy skin, and the gooey soft mashed yam in the skin, and tasting the salty pork fillings.  The person who invented this has to be a genius to be able to think of this combination.




We were so full after the breakfast that we didn't make plans for lunch.  I headed to my room to catch a few winks.  This is the life - eat and sleep.

Loon dropped in around noon.  Seng brought out Chinese lettuce and turnips.  The Chinese turnips are julienne sliced and cooked with pork until soft.  To eat this, you wrap the turnips in a lettuce leaf, roll it as best as you can, and eat it by hand.  This has always been my favourite dish since childhood. Mother used to only cook this on the big occasions like New Years and festivals.  Sometimes we will have Hoi Sin sauce and hot sauce on the side to spread on the lettuce.  I remember when I was in primary school, I used to walk to a store on Chulia Street, near and across from Love Lane, close to the Campbell (market) street.  I would go there with two bowls and buy the hot sauce and Hoi Sin sauce at five cents each.  The store keeper would give me a quarter bowl of each of the sauces, and that was enough for a meal.

Loon had brought some Kentucky (fried) chicken as well.  This is not the KFC we are used to, but a reasonably good imitation.  There were fried chicken pieces, and also some deep fried hot dogs.  I have never seen the hot dogs deep fried, but I tried not to eat it.  The picture here shows a single, lonely piece of fried chicken.  It is as good as the KFC, and goes very well with beer.  One might say there are not too many things that do not go well with beer.




At night, Ann had planned a big get-together party with everyone in the family. The venue is the CRC club or was it called the Hoi Tin Restaurant(?).  Hoi Tin is Sea and Sky in Cantonese.  I know for sure that it is near the CRC (Chinese Recreation Club).  When I  was in high school, I used to bicycle to school, and go home by the longest circuitous route.  One of those routes will bring me by the CRC.  Nowadays, I am not so sure if I can still find my way around, but once in a while, I can still recognize some landmarks in Penang.

We left in two cars at 5:30.  I went with Siew Kai in his still-new Mitsubishi Lancer. After we reached Green Lane, I begin to recognize some of the streets and buildings. As we get closer to downtown, I started to recognize more and more of the old landmarks.

At the restaurant, Loon had already arrived with his family.  Here we have William, who is partially cut off at the right side of the picture (sorry William), Loon, Lilian, May Ling, and her husband (sorry, please someone furnish his name. I am very sorry I don't remember his name off the top of my head for now.)

Here we have Peter, Sui Fun, and Mother.

This is William, in almost full view.

Siew Kai, speaking to Ann and Seng.  Next to Ann is Ann's niece and nephew from Kuala Lumpur. They are very nice children.  Kian Loong brings up the rear.







The food came shortly after 6.  This has been a very busy night at the restaurant.  There was to be a wedding reception, that took up most of the restaurant, so we were warned to start promptly at 6, and urged to leave promptly at 8.

The first course was four dishes of appetizers.
They were beautifully presented, but frankly, I am not sure I can tell you what they were.  I can only guess at it.
To the right, two bird's nests (made of deep fried rice noodles) contain stirred fried scallops with walnuts, water chestnuts, green and red peppers.  The two nests rested on pedestals on a large round dish, lined with orange slices.

The second dish, in the back, appears to be something stewed and wrapped in Chinese cabbage. Not sure what that was.

This appeared to be fried crab claws.  Or it could be shrimps stuffed with crab meat, breaded and deep fried.  It was good, I recall, but it was gone before I had a chance to sample it again. Oh well, let us say it is stuffed shrimps.

This interesting looking dish, lined in very thinly sliced tomatos, are oddly shaped fried balls.  At first I thought it is fried mushrooms.  Upon opening it, I can see it is made of mashed yam, and contained crab meat fillings.  I think that is what they were.

All four appetizers were very well presented and tasty. It was a very fine start for a great meal.

Birds Nest soup was next.
Birds Nest is actually made from, hmm, wait a minute.  Maybe I should not describe where they came from.  Let's just say they came from Southern Thailand, in the rocky islands off the shores.

The clear threads of the birds nests were cooked with crab meat and egg drops.  This is a delicacy, and according to Kai, is getting   harder and harder to find.  It may already have been banned, in fact, according to Kai who is in the know.

more pictures:

Siew Kai, Seng and Ann, and niece.

The niece speaks to Ann, while her brother and Kian Loong played computer games on the cell phone.

Mom and I next to Sui Fun.  Mom is a careful, if not picky eater. Sui Fun said she sits next to mom at parties, because she can take what mom's does not want, so she can get more food.  I thought I was going to get the extra food!  Well, the competition is on. :-)

The next course is made from cabbage.  Not the Chinese cabbage, but the regular western golopki kind of cabbage.  It is stewed until soft, and arrange to look like a flower with four petals.  The center pod contains a treasure of mushroom, oysters, peanuts and what-nots.  It was a very clever dish.

Ah, Becky and Kelly will be sad they missed this one - Peking Duck!  Their favourite. The waiters worked on the side to wrap the duck skins in soft buns.  A mixture of stir-fried shrimps, water chestnuts and vegetables was scoped into a lettuce leaf bowl and put on the same plate.  Each of us is served a bowl with the shrimp mixture and two duck skin buns.  Very nicely presented.  The hoi sin sauce and scallion brush was already on the table, so you can brush the sauce on the duck skin to your liking.
This is one tasty dish.  We all heartily enjoyed it.  Mother enjoyed her share slowly, and so no extra for Sui Fun and me. :-(

Here is the cabbage dish, with the hidden treasures excavated.  It was eventually devoured.

Ah.. Tong Poh Pork.  A three-layer pork belly (bacon meat) was cooked until it is so soft and tender you can cut it with a fork.
Here the waiter snips it with a pair of scissors into small cubes.
Ann specially ordered this dish for Kai, knowing how much he loves pork.  Once, when there was swine fever in the country, pork dropped in price, because nobody dared to buy pork.  Kai went to the super market and bought 7 Kg of Pork (or was it 70 Kg?) and stuffed the freezer.

On the bottom of the picture is the menu for the meal.

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The waiter honing his craft, cutting the pork into cubes.

With the pork came the pows. Small white meatless steamed buns that are used to sop up the pork juice and eat with the pork.  The pork is cooked with plenty of fresh peanuts.
Come to think of it, peanuts is used very liberally in most of the dishes we have today.  I shudder to think of anyone who is allergic to peanuts. They will have a bad day after eating a meal here.

The pow is a perfect complement to the pork. By itself, it was good enough to eat.  It has a slight sweetness and yet is plain enough to bring out the tastiness of the pork.  We made sure we asked the waiter to bag the rest of the pows home.

Tom Yum shrimps are just Yum!
These large shrimps have roes in the head and thorax cavity.  They are cooked in a spicy Tom Yum sauce, with a little bit of sugar or honey added, so they are sweet and spicy.  I like to just bite off the head and squeeze out the flavours, and spit out the rest of the head, then bite off the body in chunks and roll off the meat.  Everyone eats it differently.  Most people like to use their utensils or fingers to peel off the skin (after licking off the sauce on the outside) to get at the meat.  I find it easier to just bite it off.



more pictures:

Here is a picture of Ronnie.  I missed introducing him earlier.  Ronnie is Peter and Sui Fun's son. He and William are cousins.

Stirred fried vegetables:

May Ling's husband was very nice.  He dish out food and served Loon, Lilian and May Ling.

Fried fish.  Mom did not want to try this fish, but it was very good.  The meat is sweet and lightly fried.

Close up of the fish.

We were served small bowls of kuay teow noodles.

The fish was a distant memory before long.

For dessert, (to add insult to injury to anyone allergic to peanuts), peanut soup is served.  This is a sweet, warm dessert, the consistency of peanut butter with water.  Sui Fun preferred Sesame soup, which is equally famous.  Siew Kai remembered that our Dad made peanut soup once, and took many hours of boiling and stirring to get it to the final stage.  Nowadays, we can probably just used the blender to grind up the peanuts, and have the soup made in no time.

Pan cakes.  We were served two kinds - Black (red) bean pan cakes and (what else?) peanut pan cakes.