the chinese lifestyle - food and mahjong

the green green grass of home

the first four days of my china visit passed just like that. food, which included all of the below, ice cream (2 yuen per cup! and it's super milky!), goat's milk with sugar (which i must say, is quite unique but nice), and fresh kampong eggs (which are totally kickass...it's something that's worth camping beside a chicken for). other than that, and visiting, just probably the LAN shop downstairs which gave me and my cousin a fun time playing pistol and knife wars in counterstrike. and mosquito swatting. and mahjong (3 yuen per game!). and pool (5 yuen per hour!). i think that's about it.

kinda sums it all up right? haha i should've done this earlier.

punk qing chao selling store!

anyway, after the four audurous days i had in my hometown, sleeping on a psuedo pillow which consisted of many pillowcases stuffed in a pillowcase, rock hard mattress, we finally moved on to meixian, which is about 2 hours from baihou. another butt agonising journey, but i guess it was worth it. after checking into the 3 star hotel, we headed for lunch with another set of relatives. i find it hard to believe i have so many distant relatives. then again, distant spells everything out doesn't it?

the knights of the golden round revolving table

lunch was...hmmm how should i put it...humongous? a humongous table, a humongous number of people on a single table, and a humongous number of dishes. till date i still don't understand why my relatives aren't fat, but they just have to stuff themselves with so much food! so much that they start stuffing their relatives too. over, and over, and over again. ala carte buffet, chinese style. chicken, pork, dog, beef, geese...and a lotta other kinds of vege. did i mention dog? yes, DOG MEAT! i'm not kidding, real dogs, not hotdogs for your information. and they totally enjoy it! hmmm okay i wasn't shocked or anything, but i can vaguely remember having a 39 degress centigrade fever after my past experience with this meat of a different kind. that was 7 years ago, when i was willing to try anything on the market. and i only ate a few pieces, like 4-5? for those curious, let me tell you that dog meat tastes like a mixture of chicken and pork. pretty good taste, if i would say so myself. but that's besides the point. to see man's best friend being slaughtered makes us their worst enemy doesn't it? oh wells, it's their culture, like how we omnivores offend vegetarians.

what an irony. a dog beside a store selling dog meat (the big red words write dog meat)

back to the lunch, it seemed like wine was freeflow. after every one or two dishes, we had to drink a glass. and knowing that we had a total of about 15-20 dishes, with about 15-20 people on the table, how many bottles did they actually buy? my goodness, in singapore that would have cost a bomb. to my dismay, after visiting the local supermart, i found out that wines could be as cheap as 10 yuen, which is like freakin $2!! that rocks, and sucks. if the wine's good, it means it's value for money, and the people are earning peanuts. if the wine's terrible, it means that it's still value for money, the locals just like alcohol without taste, and the people who make these peanuts suck too. furthermore, i learnt that for hard liquor, there have been cases that some of them which can be purchased there, like our everyday liquors (blue bombay, absolut vodka, xo) have a chance of being FAKE! which means you might be paying normal price (probably about 10-20 sing bucks) and you'll be drinking rubbish. my plans of buying wine from china were totally shattered at that very instant. and for a wine person, it was a pretty big blow to me, because personally, i think china wines are on the rise, and could actually be decent. i can expect some big chinese names to hit the wine market soon, but not at the moment i suppose. they still need developing and time for greatness. meanwhile i'll stick to my yellowtail and everyday red wine.


after lunch we visited this shopping mall for about 30 mins. nothing much to shop, although i must say their electronics are cheaper over there. $50 bucks off for my Canon S5IS, not too bad. i'm just worried they have chinese encoding ONLY. like your menus will all be in chinese, which can be a bane when you select certain advanced functions. the next thing i spotted was earphones. considering the state of my panasonic earphones right now which have been faithfully with me for 2 years, although i used my sony nude earphones mostly during that period (which have finally been laid to rest when one of the earbuds became mute), it's time to get another pair. was looking through and trying to find Sony, but instead i found Soyni. ... i had expected that hahaha...but it was still hilarious.

the dedicated tea shop!

further on in the afternoon, we only managed to find a couple of shops selling decent items. if i would say so, there were only two. one was the beijing olympics official gift store, which sold really nice collectible coins and gifts, reasonably priced. i think my cousin, my father and i spent about 30mins at that shop looking for stuff to buy back. the other shop was the tea shop. one whole 3 storey shop selling tea and tea related items. tea leaves, ranging from 50 yuen to 2000 yuen per 100g. tea pots of all shapes and sizes, tea leave holders, strainers, tea sets etc etc. you name it, they have it. they even have those itsy bitsy tea sweets which will make you feel happy after drinking tea. either way, got some items there and that was it. sad.


another dinner at night, this time at some roadside restaurant. as usual, my meixian uncle would stuff us poor singaporeans with food while we perform our routine futile resistance. this time it was worse, there was this deadly dish called the 25% alcohol chicken wine [or what we call ji(1) jiu(3)]. coupled by the fact that we were drinking red wine, some beer, it was a deadly concoction not for the faint hearted. in fact, i actually didn't feel really well after that (i suspect it's not the alcohol, but the heatiness. reason being i didn't get a headache after i woke up 2 hours later. a lil 'forced' dog meat + heaty chicken wine = goner for me). so that was dinner. phew. no more forcing man, your stomach will literally blow. i'll even pay to get out of it. but well, that's the last one, in a long time.


so after my 2 hour siesta, i awoke knowing that i had mahjong ahead of me. i'm sure some of you have heard of the auto mahjong washing (or shuffling) machine, and that's what we noobs were going to play on. after some searching, we found the first table we could get. the rate was 10 yuen (a lil less than $2) per hour, for a minimum of 3 hours, so we were excited to get started to avoid ending late. for those who have played singapore mahjong before, you'll know that it contains 8 numbered flowers and 4 animals. china doesn't have that, which means it's effectively only 2 rows of 17 each. that makes the counting simple. after that, the throwing of the dice proceed, and the winner is the first person who games with a reasonable hand, no doubles (tai) required. so for us, it was a new experience. and for the fun of it, whoever threw the winning tile will pay 3 chips to the winner, and the other two will just watch the show. if the person won by self draw, everyone will pay 2 chips. meng gang and hou gang = 0.5 chip each. an gang = 1 chip each. pretty foolproof.

now for the table itself. the table has 1 sole stand, inside contains electronic panels, magnetic boards and what not. it's slightly bigger to encompass the bigger mechanism in it, and it has a really solid feel to it. it requires 2 sets of mahjong tiles, same size. i suspect they have magnets or chips in them, as they are sorted even when they are upside down. but the system's like this. at the start the table will set up the first 4 walls. from there, you carry on playing till someone games. after counting chips, press one of the buttons on the centre circle (metal, contains two dice, 6 buttons, 4 for each player's dice roll, 2 for popping out the centre circle) and the centre circle slowly elevates, opening a hole with a tilted turning table for shuffling. push all the tiles into the gap, and then push the same button to close it. once it totally reaches back to the normal level, another set of 4 walls rises up from below, and then you start your next round! it's uber cool lar! no complaints if it's not shuffled properly. no complaints about slow stackers. no complaints about cheating! the wonders of technology! hahaha...

well, that's the second installment for china. amazing isn't it? to be honest, i think i'll go there again, but as a tourist to enjoy the sights and sounds for what they are. minus the massage. ouch

500 grams/day : short stories about china and weight gaining

finally back! woots! singapore soil! woots!

okay i'm just really tired and, it's just hard to get a catchy opening can? hahaha...anyway, yes, to seng ee and jason, i'm really finally back in singapore. to the rest, yes i'm finally back from china!
and let me make this clear, i went there not with a tour, to help with the relief, or volunteer for the beijing olympics. hahaha...i just went back to visit my relatives back there in guangzhou and some place called bai hou, a pretty small village. by village, it's not a kampong where they have atap houses or aluminium roofs. it's a town where they have four storey buildings and at most five, but it's very technologically deprived. no neon lights, no paved roads. it's one similar to movies where a roll of yarn can just stumble across the road, sandy and empty. 8 hour bus ride from guangzhou. one word. ulu.

empty streets, sandy roads, no surprise if a bale of hay rolls over

seriously ulu.

greenery and moutains suggest ulu-ness

but it still has internet access, so it's not totally disconnected from the world. furthermore it only costs 2 yuen per hour (about 38 cents), which allows you to check mail, play LAN games, surf the net. but not at the same time lar, i think it runs on a celeron. still, it's remarkable considering this town is isolated from major cities. where our house doesn't even have a fridge. that's how bad it gets. o wells, i've gone through worse. at least there are matresses and pillows. and a mahjong table hahaha.

stalking ducks at my relative's house, you'll never be hungry with live food around!

basically spent 3 days there roaming around to visit relatives, my maternal side that is. it's quite nostalgic seeing how people lead their lives, happy with the way they are without being rich. it's a smile that's so pure it could almost melt your heart. a smile that can never be bought with money. visiting temples, praying to ancestors, you know the drill. went to meet my distant 100 year old relative who still looks rather good and smiles really wide. it was quite a sight, where you compare our lives with theirs. of course i'm in no position to compare, we're already living in 2 seperate countries with different backgrounds. we might have more money than them, but we sure have more stress than them. to me, countryside life can be defined pretty easily. that is, when you step outside, and you close your eyes, at certain moments, you can hear, simply nothing. no buzzing, no silent vibrations, nothing. and that is something you cannot enjoy in singapore.

uber sized udder, requires no further explanation

that being said, ulu has it's perks. no market squeezing. no morning horns. and fresh breakfast! their kampong eggs are seriously one that you must try! and also, fresh goat's milk! squeezed from REAL GOATS! okay that doesn't make sense, but it's freshly squeezed and hot! woots!

fireworks and...

firecrackers!

besides that, fireworks too! buy it yourself (about 30 yuen per big tub, lasting 2 mins, roman candles), light it yourself, and watch it with everyone! firecrackers go at 20-40 yuen for 99.

my town! bai hou! they even have a big main gate, how cool is that!

actually to be very honest, the main thing that attracted me to go back is the FOOD! GLORIOUS FOOD! some people might say china's food cleanliness ain't good. i would agree, it isn't the best of worlds, but it's still quite okay. to me, clean food is one that doesn't give me a stomach upset. and i haven't gotten that. here are the top 5 things you have to eat when you're in china.

might not look and sound appetizing, but you have to try to believe!

1. 老鼠板 lou chu ban (4 yuen per bowl, about 80 cents) - 百侯
description : it's a macaroni like thing, white, long...in hakka you can translate it to something relating to rats, whereas in cantonese it's something like mucus.
taste : NOTHING LIKE RATS OR MUCUS!! hahaha...slightly salty, with minced pork, spices. hard to describe, but it's just nice. maybe it sounds better if i say it swims in your mouth.

before and after! black before...

turns white 5 mins later! amazing transformation!

2. 仙草 grass jelly (2 yuen per bowl, about 40 cents) - hu liao
description : not the drink, just the jelly itself, and it's like black taohuay
taste : cooling, rich flavor of jelly, and the syrup is just right. a MUST HAVE on a hot day.

the steaming pig soup and...
the steaming beef soup!

3. 牛杂汤 beef soup (7 yuen per bowl, about $1.40) - 百侯
description : bits of beef sliced and then cooked in, ya, soup. 1/5 ginger
taste : the ginger has a strong taste, but it blends in well with the beef. ginger is known to curb the unfavorable taste of beef, and the beef is tender and easy to bite, retaining the good taste of the beef. simply the best during cold weather

okay this is not the fish porridge, but WHERE we had the fish porridge, at 11pm!! after the long bus ride

4. 鲜鱼片粥 fish porridge - hu liao (40-50 yuen, feeds 5)
description : fish porridge as it is.
taste : damn nice! the fish is so fresh (maybe it's because it was slaughtered 5 mins before the porridge was cooked)

look at the meat!! okay not so well taken, you probably can't see it, but it rocks!

5. popiah - 百侯 (2 yuen per roll, about 60 cents)
description : meat, mushroom and other vegetables wrapped in sauce with a thin dough
taste : the meat melts in your mouth together with the sauce, which tastes so complex, yet flows easily and dances on your tastebuds. the thin dough is just the right thickness, feel the dough, but not too much. crunchy vegetables. seriously nice lar!

i'll be back later with the mahjong machine and feeding streak...later! pang kang now!

hiho! ahhh a bit stuck here and there, but i'm enjoying the internet access as it is, which means i'm actually quite well off right? haha maybe i'm just lucky.

before you go on wondering why i'm being so happy with being able to access the internet, it's because i'm actually in my hometown. as in china. some uber ulu part of china to be exact. one which takes a long and audrous 10 hours from guangzhou. in other words, uber ulu *uses echo*...

the last time i came here was when i was in sec two tho...it's quite a quiet place, with nothing much around. in the sense where you can run around the town and no one cares. free roaming. and there's only 4 storey buildings around. seriously. it's uber cool in that aspect. anyway, i gotta run...haha sorry jiali for being cut away halfway, but yeah connection's been unstable. so yep. take care all the singapore folks...

and last but not least...

MAN U WON DOUBLES! WE ROCK!! hahahahaha...till next time!

本当にうれしいです！

it's been a long week. i wouldn't say i'm glad it's over, but i'm happy it passed on smoothly!

the past week gave me time to reflect on my actions, time to think about things, and think about what i really want to do. 1 x weird interview (really), 1 x movie (iron man's pretty good, should check it out if you haven't), 1 x dinner meeting (haha as i apologised, sorry!), 1 x guitar practice (uber chui, i'm so screwed), 1 x class bbq (yays! thanks to all of you who've turned up and made this a wonderful success! and to those who couldn't make it, we missed you!), 1 x family birthday celebration (久しぶり! haha! dinner was *ahem*...yea), 1 x kueh chap meeting (hmmm), 1 x shifting job (heh heh...lucky us!) and then now am preparing to leave for overseas! woots! it's been a pretty happening week.

but yep, i think i've failed in some aspects. inability to guide people, the quality of coaching. that's something i have to improve on. it's not going to be easy, but i'll try my very best. many apologies. human relations, anger management (okay not so much of anger, but rather, stress). thanks again for providing advice...somehow it's been different recently, so i think i'll try to sort it out by myself.

it's funny when you start writing with a goal in mind.

and after sometime.

that goal just disappears.

AHHH I FORGOT WHAT I WANNA WRITE!!

o wells, till next time, probably from china, mata ne!

*5W1H...hahahaha*

助けて！

i wonder if i have been in control of my own life the way i really want it to be. do i really like the person that i am today? i feel at times i've been disillusioned, and i've been telling myself to be happy about things the way they are. but am i really happy? have i been convincing myself that i am happy just because i want to be happy?

sometimes, you feel a void in your heart. it's not because i'm missing something material. i admit i do not have trendy clothes, branded wallets or dine at expensive places, but i'm happy without it. yet, there's this feeling that you're missing something that you desire. something that's necessary. but i just can't find out what it is. am i seeking something that doesn't exist? my heart yearns for it, yet my mind can't tell me what.

it's just been a bugging feeling that something's missing. no worries though, it's a worry on the back on my mind. it's just a bit weird. haha.

anyway, i'm really happy with the life i'm leading now (this time i'm serious haha). the mayday concert the previous week was awesome! words can't describe much, but that experience will stay in my heart. it's not just any concert, it's the energy and passion you feel from people who enjoy playing and making music. i wish i could be someone like that. not for the fame, but the power to give people hope and dreams through music. it's really amazing, don't you think? how something like melody can give people hope and dreams. kudos to sheeway who popped by with me, i'm sure you enjoyed yourself too! and to the two girls who sat behind us, sorry about that, but concerts are just like that. hope you understand!

singapore drift, on the other hand, felt like an overhype. being underpublicised, we were damn happy to get tickets, but when we reached there, we realised they were sold out. and the circuit was so small lar. people go to these events for several reasons. one, the models, car models i'm talking about. two, the models, car models too, but the human kind. three, people who really enjoy the drifting, competition and cars. four, people who follow friends who have interest in any one of the above. i think i belong in the fourth category haha. i do have an interest in drifting of course, after all the long hours of need for speed, but i'm not a fanatic. in the end, i felt mixed. okay, firstly not many cars turned up, which was to be expected, because c'mon, it's the inaugural singapore drift, so you couldn't expect the whole world to turn up. next, the track was so short that it ended within 20s. three, it's so freakin' far (ooi changi leh, and somemore it's the exhibition centre, where they held the aerospace, and it was really hot and all) that we had to pay a compulsory additional $5 for the bus fare there on top of the $12 tickets. amidst all that negativity, i must say, the races were awesome.

drifting basically consists two components. simply put, man and machine. your car has to be good, that's without question. brakes, gear box, tire traction, engine rpms etc. however, if both cars are the same, it's the man that makes the difference. man also consists of two components, one is skill, the other is mentality. skill is required to change the gears, estimating how much to turn, appropriate power to the engine etc. the most important one, however, is the mentality. when you have two cars fighting side by side on a tight track, one has gotta give. it's just a matter of who is more afraid of the other. how much you pressure your opponent, how much are you willing to risk it. it's basically how you gauge your opponent. back to the competition, we've seen many cars "buang" (eh it means they ran off the course, got pushed out...basically it means screwed) the course because their opponents go too close to them, and that pressure causes them to make mistakes. actually it's quite fun watching them (eh buanging too, because the crowd will all go "awww") as every race is never the same as the other. tactics, speed. it was quite a great sight. what made my day better was the free ice-cold carbonated redbull from germany (was it?). on the whole, it was okay lar, not the most worth it, but going out with friends sure was fun!

there were also many other meetings. 1 x dinner meeting at manhattan (i must say it was interesting, and i still feel that statement made was really hilarious. not gonna happen!), 1 x dinner meeting at west mall (eh bro, when you coming back? taking ages lar...and lend me your dSLR once in a while leh!), 1 x sec school gathering (apologies bro for being so serious, i think i blew my head there haha. hope you're okay! and we must meet up more before you go to god-knows-where...take care!) 2 x friends who worked together with me (seriously, if there are openings, i hope to see you guys there again! hope you had fun earning easy, i mean, *ahem*, hard earned money) 1 x overnight mahjong session (waah xiong, but it was damn fun lar! reminiscence. we should do more of this, the max once a month, or else i'll be wasted like today haha) i'm really thankful to what life has provided me, really. definitely not all things will go my way, but i'm happy the way it is. (: it's what makes this thing called "life" exciting.

a sidetrack, i've been intrigued in languages recently. one was japanese, currently learning, but ya a bit hard. i'm too tired to even try to learn sometimes. that's why i started from our own language. as there are shorthanded terms (through = thru), shortmouthed terms do occur too. i'm compiled a short list of commonly used shortmouthed terms and singlish verbs. all in good fun of course.

shortmouthed terms. (WARNING: this by no means is a guide to writing! and not for verbal interviews too!)
commonly used with singlish terms like "lar", "lor", "meh", "neh" (an exclamation to show the listener where an object is, direction marker), "leh", "ma" etc.

1. never --> neh (as ne in netherlands)
e.g. never mind = neh mind. "eh, you neh do your homework!"

2. very --> veh (as va in varies)
e.g very expensive = veh expensive. "i'm veh tired"

3. time --> tam (tarm - combination of tar and arm, with a muted "r" sound)
e.g what time = what tam (no tam already!)

4. government --> gahmen (gah : gar as in garters, men as it is)
no explanation necessary

5. didn't --> din (as the original word din sounds)
e.g. you din do your homework?

6. don't --> dun (the pronunciation of this term has been debated, but using the original pronunciation of "don't" without emphasis on the "t" would be best)

7. what --> vad (vard...like the "h" in "hard" replaced by "v")
usually only used in exclamations, not questions. eg. "vad?!?"

BORROWED WORDS
1. scully (scar-lee) - "then", "so", "later"...it's a starter usually with a negative connotation
e.g. you better dun play with it, scully kana (also knowed as "tio", meaning "get") charged.

ahhh okay i'm tired
haha.
if you guys have any ideas, please do let me know. i think our language is uber fascinating lar. yep that's all for today, またね！