He was beautiful…

If you are a classical guitarist, you will definitely know the John Willaims’ song, “Cavatina” written by Stanley Myers and featured in the Oscar award-winning movie, “The Deer Hunter”.

Later, somebody decided to put words to the haunting theme song and I thought it was very well done. The lyrics are as beautiful as the melody itself…

He was beautiful,
beautiful to my eyes.
From the moment I saw him,
the sun filled the sky.
He was so, so beautiful,
beautiful just to hold.
In my dreams, he was springtime,
winter was cold.

How could I tell him
what I so clearly could see
Though I longed for him
another trusted me completely
so I never could be free

Ah, but it was beautiful
knowing now that he cared
I will always remember
times that we shared

Now it’s all over,
still the feeling lingers on
for my dream keeps returning
now that he’s gone
for it was beautiful
beautiful
beautiful to be loved

Now, what do you think of the lyrics? Beautiful, right? In the words of Tennyson: “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

I love the vocal version of the song by the Queen of Jazz, Cleo Lane where she sang the song unplugged – accompanied by John Williams on the classical guitar, but it’s not available on youtube. This is the video clip of the song that I’ve managed to link to, but I do not particularly like this version by Shirley Bassey. I just thought that those of you who love those Korean soaps may enjoy it. Let me know if you like it…

It never rains in Southern California…

It never rains here either! It pours…man, it pours!!! Sigh! Just when I thought that happy days are here again…with blue skies and everything nice, it has started to rain once more and on Wednesday night, it was like somebody up there pouring huge buckets of water down.

At around 9 something, I went out to have the look and everything seemed all right. The rain water was rushing down the drain around the house into the big one outside. There certainly was no indication that it was about to fill up soon. Some people had come round a few days ago to dig out whatever they could find in the drain by the road and carted it all away to some place else. But, back to the rain that night, after making sure that everything was fine, I went and had a night cap. After I was through, I popped out again to have a look. Horror of horrors! This was what I saw!!!

My whole car porch was submerged and the whole road flooded! That was within a matter of less than half an hour. I quickly moved the piano  and bits of furniture that I could manage to carry up the split level of the house and prayed… The water came up to the main door of the house and looked like it was going to come in, but thank God for small mercies! At around 11, the rain abated a little bit and the water subsided. Whew!!! That certainly was close!

It was the 1st on the Chinese lunar calendar, the beginning of the king tide. I am not going to blame anybody as it is all too clear to see what in fact is going on. We never had had that kind of heavy rain before.  For one thing, to say that it was extremely heavy would be an understatement. Everybody knows only too well that the environment is in pretty bad shape and global warming has given rise to such extreme weather conditions all over and unless everyone does something and makes an effort to change in their ways, however small it may be, we can expect the situation to get much worse.

Well, that was it…and I’m keeping my fingers crossed in the hope that the sky will hold…and we will be spared of any such torrential downfall  in the days ahead.

Moving on from the topic of rain and floods, it is Friday today and being the season of Lent, some may be fasting and abstaining from meat. I know some people who will even include Wednesdays as well. I will not go on a total fast but perhaps I will just reduce my food intake. I think I can just munch on some light snacks for breakfast and lunch and have ikan bakar (barbecued fish) for dinner…

…with some sambal buah kenundong which will go superbly with rice…

…and that’s it! Pretty light dinner for two, don’t you think?

The weekend’s here, so what have you all got up your sleeves? Hope you’ll all have a great one…

Don’t forget to remember…

Yesterday, I was rummaging through my cabinets and I came across this…

…and I could remember 36 years ago when I received it on my 21st birthday. It was 1973 in Singapore. I did not have a grand birthday bash, just a few people for dinner at an Indonesian restaurant located at the Golden Mile Shopping Complex along Beach Road.

That was a present from Gerry, who was in a way, remotely  related to my cousins on my mother’s side – Pollie and Stella but on their father’s side. Sounds complicated, doesn’t it? LOL!!! The last time I heard he married and eventually, got divorced. After that, he went to further his studies in the States and subsequently, stayed on to work there. We communicated for a while but eventually, lost touch. I guess he is still there right now.

Sometimes, after a long long time, we may stumble across something  – a present from someone, a souvenir or an old faded photograph perhaps, that reminds us of a friend we knew long ago, a place we had been to or some event in the past. The inscription engraved at the bottom reads:

That brings to mind the song – Don’t forget to remember, not the more recent one by Carrie Underwood but the one long ago by the Bee Gees. Does it bring back sweet memories to any of you? Or any other song perhaps?

Well, like it or not, songs too will bring flashbacks from the past to our minds. Where I am concerned, one that never fails to remind me of  wonderful times in years long gone by is Lionel Richie’s “Still“. I feel it’s a beautiful song with such melancholic lyrics, for instance:

Those memories,
Times I’m sure we’ll never forget
Those feelings…we can’t push aside
For what we had,
Sometimes I try to understand
But it’s so heavy on my mind
So many dreams that flew away
So many words we didn’t say
Two people lost in a storm
Where did we go, where’d we go
Lost what we both have found
You know we let each other down
But then most of all, I do love you
…still!

This verse was in the original version by the Commodores, Richie’s original band, but unfortunately, when he re-released the song in his greatest hits album “Back to front”, this part had been left out.

I was looking for a video clip of the song and came across this one that caught my attention. Here, I would like to share it with all of you. Do click on the link and let me know your reaction… LOL!!!

Dust in the wind (2)…

It’s Ash Wednesday today – the first day of Lent and it’s a day of fasting and abstinence.

On this day, ashes are blessed, mixed with either holy oil or water and imposed on the head with the sign of the cross. The ashes are made from burning palm branches blessed the previous year on Palm Sunday. The priest will say, “Remember, from dust thou art made and unto dust thou shalt return.” (Genesis 3:19)

The ashes serve to remind us of our mortality and humanity and are at the same time, the biblical symbol of repentance, sorrow and humility.

With all due respect for this solemn and significant day in the Christian calendar, therefore, there will not be any of the usual posts you can get to read in the blog today.

God bless, one and all…

When I was young…

We did not have much to choose from when I was young. If we wanted to eat at the coffee shops, it was either kampua noodles or pian sip (something like kiaw or wantan) or we can have loti-kiap – two pieces of charcoal-toasted bread with margarine and kaya (coconut jam) sandwiched together – and half-boiled eggs.

Sometimes, there might be some bak paos (meat buns) available but those would be very different the char siew paos (barbecued meat steamed buns) that we get these days at the dim sum outlets. The texture of the very thick skin would be different and inside, there would be a bit of meat pre-cooked in soy sauce with half or a quarter of a hard-boiled egg. At other times, there might be a saucer of muffin-like cake wrapped in oily red paper or pulut panggang (glutinous rice wrapped in banana leaves and cooked over an open fire).

I do not think many people had their meals outside, so economical fast food and chicken rice were unheard of. You can be sure that we did not get to see stalls like this one…

Kampua noodles were going for 30 cents a plate without meat and 50 cents if you want those few pieces of boiled meat coloured red on the edges. Kpenyu claims that if you switched on the fan at full speed, those slices of meat would be blown away…but then, everybody knows that we need to take whatever he says with a pinch of salt.

Today, we have a lot more choices to cater to our more discerning taste buds but some may be quite expensive and prices may go up to RM5.00 or beyond. It is still much cheaper to go for our good ol’ kampua or pian sip (pian nik, if you want to say it in Foochow) at only RM2.20 a plate/bowl…

It is usually served as a soup dish but some may prefer the dry version. My daughter loves this one in particular from the kampua stall at Soon Hock Cafe, so you can bet that we’ll be heading there for this when she comes home for the holidays in a few weeks’ time. Incidentally, if you may recall, there were complaints about the kampua lady’s long hair and some people were worried about getting it in their noodles. Well, the good news is the lady has cut it short! (Good grief! Has she been reading my blog or what? Hahahahaha!!!)

Pian sip is similar to kiaw as it is called in Kuching or wantan elsewhere but they are not exactly the same. I think the difference is in the skin – the pian sip ones are thinner and whiter whereas wantan skin tends to be a bit “tougher” and is yellowish in colour. For one thing, there isn’t very much of the minced meat in pian sip, so what you get in the end is mostly skin…

But if anyone of you prefers something different for a change and feels that the char siew-roast duck noodles I had on Sunday was way too expensive or you do not like the Hokkien noodles used and prefer kampua instead, you can try this…

This is the char siew kampua at the shop along Ramin Way, across the lane from Meckey Store and it costs only RM3.00. I would say it is very nice but parking in that vicinity can be quite a hassle! Some may feel that it is not exactly the same as those authentic kampua noodles…

…but then, neither are the ones at Rasa Sayang Cafe, and you all know that I love their kampua too…at RM2.20 some more! They say the beef noodles at this particular shop is nice too, but I’ve yet to go there and try. Another time perhaps…

I saw her standing there…

Yes, I did. I saw her standing there…

I got an sms from her a couple of days earlier saying that she’ll be dropping by in Sibu this weekend, but I did not get to hear from her on Saturday so I guessed she must have cancelled her plans or something.

As usual, on Sunday morning, I went to church and after the service, my missus and I went for breakfast. Gee! If you tell me that there is an economic recession right now, I will find it really hard to believe. Around the Sibu bus station area alone, I saw so many new food joints…but I did not manage to get to sample any as they were all overflowing with people. Good grief! Every place was so crowded and parking was such a pain! I headed to the more familiar Yum Yum Cafe that I had posted on before…

…and my missus had this bowl of fish ball noodles (RM4.00)…

…while I had the char siew-roast duck noodles (RM5.00)…

Both tasted ok but neither were something that I would go crazy about, and I felt the prices were pretty steep and I could get much cheaper and nicer stuff elsewhere. But I must say that what I had was nicer than something similar that I had here.

In the meantime, I got an sms from her, asking me where e-cafe was…so after we had finished, I went in search of her. She did not manage to find e-cafe and ended up eating kampua noodles at Soon Hock…and I was only able to catch up with her when she was standing outside the hardware store in the vicinity of the Delta Commercial Centre.

So, finally I got to meet ex-Kuching blogger, now based in Brunei, – Mar of marg.wordpress.com, a friend for quite sometime now in cyberspace and at one time, a radio friend as well, on the now-discontinued “Pat and Mag in the afternoon” on TraxxFm.

Nice meeting you, Mar…and now that your family’s settled in Sibu, I guess we’ll be meeting each other much more often from now on!

Both sides now…

I first came across this picture in one of the TESL (Teaching of English as a Second Language) methodology books. It has been included as a possible teaching aid that may be used to generate discussion and thus, encourage the use of language. If you look at it from one angle, you may see a young lady but if you look at it from another angle, you see an old woman instead…

A line from the Ray Stevens’ song “Everything is beautiful” goes like this” “There is none so blind as he who will not see.” I guess you will agree that so very often, we see things the way we want to see them – blinded by our convictions, our prejudices and what not, so much so that we fail to see them from other possible points of view.

There are two sides to a coin, so we should not look at it on one side only but should look at the other side as well. Therefore, in looking at things, we may have to look from both sides now or from different angles and at other times, perhaps, we may even need to step back a little and view the thing once again for what we perceive originally may appear quite different when viewed from a distance…

Having said that, perhaps you would like to tell me who you can see in the picture below…

Have a Blessed Sunday, everybody.

Breaking the habit…

A friend of mine gave me this fridge magnet sometime ago…

That is supposed to be Miss Piggy in the unmistakable Jane Fonda aerobics pose and the caption on the belly reads: “Square meals make round people.”

Well, despite the warning, I have always had the habit of eating 3 square meals a day – a substantial breakfast, and rice and dishes for lunch and dinner. But yesterday, I felt like something different for a change, so I stopped by this stall outside Everise at the Pedada Commercial Centre near my house. If it’s of any interest to anybody, that particular branch has closed down and yesterday, I saw people shifting the display cabinets and what not out of the place.

Back to what I was talking about, there is this stall outside on the pavement selling fried kuihs and stuff and I bought these so-called Malaysian burgers at 3 for RM1.00…

They’re actually deep-fried buns with sambal and a slice of cucumber inside…

I can’t remember exactly when people started selling these here but that was quite a number of years ago and I used to like it very much at the time. Having not had it for a while, I thought they tasted real nice. I did not like the ti-piang though…

I am quite positive that I bought these at 4 for RM1.00 not too long ago, but these were 3 for a ringgit. Maybe the price has gone up again. It would not be so bad if they were nice but unfortunately, they were not. Definitely not worth the calories, I must say!

The or-kuih (yam cake), also 3 for RM1.00, wasn’t too bad though but I very much prefer the ones sold at the stall at Rejang Park…

Now these were really very nice – the bingka bandong (tapioca cake)…

It was also going for 3 for RM1.00, but the man said I could have the whole lot for RM2.00 and I accepted the offer. When I got home, I found that there were 10 generous slices!!! Wow! That’s a real good bargain…and the best part was it tasted nice!

So that was what I had for lunch yesterday, but do not worry! I did not finish the whole lot alone in one sitting! Lord have mercy! ROTFLMAO!!!

Say you, say me…

The debate on whether Science and Mathematics should be taught in English or not has been dragging on and on for so long now that it does not look as if it is ever going to end. Well, I am not going to dwell on that in this post as personally, I feel it is more a political thing rather than any genuine concern for what is good for the students. But one thing’s for sure, the standard of English in the country is really going to the dogs.

I do listen to the radio quite often and I must say that the errors the announcers make on air can be quite appalling at times. Our Malaysian newspapers, unfortunately, are not much better. To prove my point, I just picked up ONE copy of a national English language newspaper and I found this…

I do not know if the columnist is trying to be clever by twisting the title of Thomas Hardy’s novel or whether it is a sheer exhibition of her ignorance. For one thing, the article makes no mention of people getting on her nerves, just that the place can be very busy and advanced reservations would be in order. Still, I fail to see the relevance of the headline. Then, on another page, I saw this…

Now, isn’t “anymore” one single word anymore? Anyway, let us see if there are any more slips in the daily…

I will not say that I’m a fan of Nat King Cole or I will never hear the end of it from people like Kpenyu…but I do like his song “Unforgettable” especially the duet with his daughter, Natalie (after his demise).

I also wonder why the capital letter “P” is used for “prawns” here…

Has it got anything to do with the size? Maybe they are HUGE ones like those Kpenyu is bringing over for me when he comes here in April. ROTFLMAO!!!

Moving on from the subject of prawns, all of you will agree with me, I’m sure, when I say that little things mean a lot…even if it is something seemingly insignificant like a comma or an apostrophe. Just look at these two sentences, for example:
1 The principal says, “The teacher is very lazy.”
2 “The principal,” says the teacher, “is very lazy.”
Note how the meaning is changed once the punctuation marks are shifted.

Well, there is this report on David Beckham in the sports section…

Ok, ladies…*clapping hands…attention, ladies! Don’t get distracted now, and that goes for you too, TOC!!! Hahahahahaha!!! Now, what do you think of the following headline? I am not the possessive type but I am positive that there is a need for an apostrophe mark to show possession…

Other than the above, I also find the use of the hyphen or the dash somewhat erratic and mind-boggling. Should the words be hyphenated or should they be two separate words? Or perhaps they should be joined together to form just one word?

Let’s see how good you are at this. Can you look at the following and tell me which are correct and which are incorrect?

Have a great weekend, everybody!!! LOL!!!

As time goes by…

…some things change, others remain the same. This is the Masland Methodist Church along Island Road here in Sibu…

It used to be a small, wooden church, but it underwent a facelift and ended up looking very different from before. Right now, they are carrying out further construction around the place but I guess the church itself will retain its present appearance for the time being, at least.

Across the road, to the right, was the Borneo Company (subsequently after independence,  renamed SEBOR) premises. You cannot get to see it now as they had demolished the whole place sometime ago to build this tall building that used to house the Hock Hua Bank and later, after the merger, Public Bank.

Don’t ask me why…but Public Bank vacated the place eventually and now, it has become the office of everybody’s enemies…

…the Inland Revenue Department! Right or not, Faisaladmar? Your office in Penang just as nice or not? LOL!!!

But what has not changed is the row of shophouses to the left. Yes, it is still that same row and I would say that it looks more or less the same as it did years ago. There is a kampua noodle shop there, still going strong, it seems…

The kampua was very popular, reputed to be among the best in town. I did not like to go there because of the heavy traffic due to the primary school located beside the church and later, because of the presence of the bank. However, when I went yesterday morning, the roads were not really busy and there were ample parking spaces.

Some people would refer to the noodles as Dr. Xavier’s kampua because at one time, there was an Indian doctor by that name in Sibu and his clinic was a couple of doors away in that same block of shophouses. Well, the stall seems to be enjoying brisk business still. You can see the noodles on the counter and I’m sure they had some more stashed away some place else…

The coffee was good – thick and strong, the way I like it. Some places may have nice food…but the coffee is usually such a disappointment. I had the kopi-o peng kau-kau (thick iced black coffee), of course…

The kampua has not changed either! You still get the same generous sprinkling of fragrant fried onions as before…

…but personally, I think I prefer the ones at Soon Hock or Rasa Sayang. Ah well! As time goes by, some things change and people change too! What do you think?