My felicity corner 幸福の部落: September 2006

my life this and that ...

Have been busy from work lately. Life is tiring. A lot of times I don't get to read all the blogs I would like to read, much less leaving comments in everyone's blog, or type any entries ... Anyway, am surviving ...

Am happy that mamabok received all the so-called 'care packages' safely. To be honest with you I salute mamabok to have the strength to stay in a rather small town where she currently resides. I cannot imagine living without asian groceries, for I have a very asian, and for the most part "Malaysian" palate. After I left Halifax I am blessed to be in this city, whereby asian groceries are easily available. Previously when I was in Halifax I required my mum to mail me some cooking stuff from Malaysia because even if there are asian grocery stores in Halifax, they mostly sell China food stuffs, and that, did not suffice my Malaysian-style palate. Now, in Richmond, I no longer require my mum to mail me any food stuffs because of the great variety that is available here. In Halifax it was so tough to get fresh produce like long beans, chinese cabbage, basil, guylan, and etc asian style vege, things are very different here. Can you imagine living in a place whereby asian grocery is not available almost at all (like in Mamabok's place)?
Mamabok, I call that an unconditional love ... for papabok and Chloe.

Mamabok mentioned about the mooncake she bought once years ago in Halifax, mooncakes that were as hard as rock. Hey, I can proof to you that that wasn't a lie, at all. Actually we were able to get some decent mooncakes from the grocery stores in Halifax (that were transported from Hong Kong), but they cost around CAD$25 per box. How could a poor student, like me, afford that? So we opted for some cheaper mooncakes. I think it cost CAD$4 each. They turned out to be the biggest joke, EVER, in mooncake history. They were hardly edible, because they really were as hard as ROCK. A strong knife was a MUST just to slice the mooncakes ... look at this photo, see how dried the mooncake is? and how it crumbled? Yes, we were conned.
Anyhow, am glad that even Chloe (mamabok's daughter) likes mooncake too.

Then, Little Luke Skywalker received the gift that I sent months ago. I thought that parcel went M.I.A, and luckily, it managed to find a way to the receiver. Next LLS's thoughtful father wrote a cute post about the conversation he had with his lil' son about what should LLS say to this 'Auntie Greenapple' should we meet ... haha. LLS's reaction was very shocking indeed. 'Oh my Goodness' was one of a kind reaction, and perhaps sign of watching too much TV shows. =p
Then Mr. Egghead mailed me and asked me whether is it appropriate to address me as 'Auntie' because he wasn't aware of the fact that I am, still, childless ... hmm, oh well. I am at my mid-20s, engaged, not a mum yet. I guess this can be regarded as a confusion age too (like teen-age). Okay, I know I no longer am a girl, so 'jie jie' will be, eerrr, understated (bleh!), but 'auntie' ? [sigh big time!]
Can I have him to call my name instead? =)
All in a sudden I like it here. The culture over here is that you'll address someone by their name for the most part ... unlike Chinese we'll have to determine the relationship and the order according to the family tree ...

oh well ...

Just some brief updates. Take care everyone ...

Two weeks notice.

No I am not talking about the movie starring Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock.

I am referring the customary of giving two weeks notice of resignation as a general working scene here in USA. Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought in Malaysia an employee would need to give at least 2 months notice, or until the employer is able to employ someone as replacement and have him or her trained. Here, however, two weeks, is what it takes to say good-bye. After that timeframe, you're free to go.

A lot of times it takes months to get a new personnel trained. Yet resigning is THAT easy. Certainly this doesn't make sense to me, what do you think?

Last name.

Ever since I live in this continent, I always find people's last name to be interesting. I am sure people find my last lame (surname, or family name) amusing too because how could "Ng", a word that doesn't have vowel, but only consonant be a valid last name? It is rare for people here to have the confidence to pronounce 'Ng' correctly. Whenever they see my name, they would pause slightly, and elevate their heads, ask me politely, 'How do I pronounce your last name?'

'Forget about it, just call me xxxxx.'

That's always my way of replying.

Back to the topic. After a few years living here I realized virtually any words can be last names. I have seen some really cool one, like ''Bachelor", "Singleton", "Handsome", etc. You get the picture. Can you imagine being address as 'Mr. /Ms. Handsome' all the times? I always regard these people as the lucky one because, hey, how often do we get to have cool last names like that?

Needless to say, there are also reverse cases. I always regard those as 'unfortunate' one.

In the hospital, whenever we call back some critical results, we'll have to obtain politely the RN (registered nurse)'s first initial and last name. There was once I heard, 'I am Ms.Whore', I was like, 'Can you repeat that?', then she said, "My last name is HORE, H-O-R-E.'

Oh, I see.

Can you imagine how unfortunate that is?

Lately I have encountered a really sick patient in the hospital having "Grave" as last name. Not to correlate the physical condition with the name, but somehow I can't help but to feel bad for the patient.

To me, the worst last name to have would be ...

"Coffin"

Now that is the ultimate 'unfortunate'.

When I was in school I happened to discuss this phenomenon with a professor, and I brought up this ultimate 'unfortunate' last name. She agreed with me. She told me, believe or not many of the "Coffin" family members made their way to the doctoral level. Can you imagine if you're a MD, or PhD and your last name has to be heighten and you're addressed as Dr. Coffin all the time?

Whatever it is, we shall all cherish our last names.

Stir-fry corn with bird-eye chili, garlic and soy sauce.

When I was younger I was never introduced to using corn as a dish. Sure they serve as a good snack, but never to be stir-fried and plated. My mum learned this dish sometime ago from the Buddhist Library that is located near our home in KL during one of the free vegetarian lunch that was offered by the site. It's actually a simple dish. Stir fry the corn with bird-eye chili (cili padi), garlic (ginger if you're a strict Buddhist, or as you prefer), and soy sauce. Just chop the corns to a smaller parts then stir fry them. As easy as 1-2-3. The aroma of the chili blends really well with garlic and soy sauce.

Have been cooking this dish a lot lately because corns are cheap during the summer months.

This is the soy sauce I use in my daily cooking. I don't use oyster sauce as I am not comfortable with the ingredients used during manufacturing. I started using this soy sauce when I was in Canada, only to realise this product is easily available in Malaysia too. It's a product from Indonesia. It works really well with vege stir-frying.

话说红楼梦……

双喜妈妈的读者都知道她对《红楼梦》的厚爱，说来有点惭愧，身为独中生的我，从来没有度过这一本著作咧。下回回家得抱一本回来这里详阅才可以，想必囫囵吞枣不会让我发现固中的美吧。

红楼梦，你等我吧。

Summer Fun.

Generally people here in North America are crazy about summer. I can actually see why, despite my own preference. During summer everyone is out barbeque-ing, grilling, hiking, cycling, going to the beaches, travelling, etc. Summer concerts in the malls are some of the highlights for the season too. Nice weather during the early evening, nice music, in a nice mall, a very wonderful atmosphere indeed. A lot of them normally attended the summer concert prepared (look at the folding chairs).