Last night a dinner was had with old and new friends who happened to know each other. Here’s how it happened:
I showed my best high school friend Thamanoon who had just returned from a 2-year stint in Sydney, pictures of Global Gathering. He commented that he recognises the face of a friend whom I’d met through Lydia – Andrea.
The other day I had lunch with Andrea and Simon, during which I’d mentioned Thamanoon’s name to her. OMG! Are you serious?! She almost shrieked. Since I had the day off and Thama hasn’t started working yet, Andrea had ask me to call Thama out for a coffee in the afternoon.
Thama came out and it turns out they had known each other for close to 19 years and somehow lost touch a while ago. And not only that, Andrea also know another high school friend, Paul.
Andrea then suggested dinner last night, and there we were – friends old and new of mine who knew each other almost inside out. Surreal.
Also, the place where we had dinner, Oriels happened to the place where we used to hang out late nights at one time or another. Last night, we stayed for almost 4 hours just talking about everything. As Thama said, it all feels very time-capsule-ish.
Inevitably, one topic of conversation that came up during our dinner was about relationships and sex. And Paul uttered these funny words,
I just want to hold her hands.
To hear him say that was so uncharacteristic of him that we kept saying, “What?! Come on! Are you serious?!”
We teased him endlessly. We sang The Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand” to him. We commented on pretty girls by saying to Paul, “Hey Paul, would you hold her hand?”, and “Hey Paul, she’s got nice hands huh?” And when Paul commented on Fernando Verdasco’s hair, whose match with Rafael Nadal was playing on the big screen in the restaurant, we’d said, “Yeah Paul wants to hold his hands.”
It wasn’t only until later in the night that we had understood what Paul had meant. He pointed out that, like most of us, he doesn’t want a girl just for sex, he wanted someone whom, when he wakes up in the morning next to, he is happy about, and that he wants to be content just from being able to hold her hands, for someone to be there next to him.
So in the end, after providing us with a few hours of hilarity, Paul’s words made perfect sense.
This year the first day of Chinese New Year coincided with Australia Day, the 26th of January. And I believe that this is the first time that it has ever happened since we moved here from Malaysia. Having a public holiday on the day certainly brings back some of that homely Chinese New Year feeling.
This year also saw some relatives visiting from Singapore and Shanghai which added to the atmosphere.
Above, you can see the lou sang (or yee sheng, or lo hei), the raw fish salad that is eaten during this time of the Chinese calendar. We had substituted the raw fish with abalone and it was yum. We had this on the eve of CNY, Sunday night.
And here you can see my family and relatives tossing the salad with our chopsticks, saying auspicious words and wishing each other good health and good wealth for the year.
To go with the lou sang, we had steamboat.
The next morning, we went over to aunty Lee Hoon’s place where my cousin Han-Wei had made us a big variety of desserts. The girl really likes to bake. And it was super awesome.
Later that night, we headed over to my aunty Gina’s place in the city where we had dinner and caught the Australia Day Perth Skyworks. The view from her balcony was fantastic.
At the end of the night, you can see masses of people walking from the river foreshore to the train stations and car parks. The inner city roads were closed to accommodate this.
The next morning after the wedding, the family and relatives decided to head to Bei Jing Lu, or Beijing Road for some shopping.
Besides being known for the shopping, Bei Jing Lu was also where excavators found thousand year old cobblestone streets in three separate layers, one on top of another, from different Chinese dynasties.
I couldn’t get a good photo because of the reflection of the protective glass (sponsored by Coca-Cola no less) but trust me, it was impressive and fascinating. Here’s the link to the large version of the photo for a better look.
Anyway, the shopping on that street was excellent.
Not only were there major sales going on in most of the stores, but the main boulevard splits into 2 smaller streets. It was quite a lot to explore. This is my uncle Karl in the centre of the photo with the shoulder bag.
With this much capitalism going on, you’d forget that you are in a communist country.
Some parts have this interesting mix of old and new.
And because it was a month away from Chinese New Year, there were these red lanterns hung down the stretch of the road.
My impression of China during that day? There’s a mild identity crisis for sure but it’s fascinating nonetheless.
And I will leave you with two photos taken on the taxi ride back to the hotel.
This one is almost hypnotic.
And this was only the beginning of the trip. More to come!
The primary reason for a big chunk of my mother’s side of the family to be in Guangzhou, China was to attend the wedding of my cousin Kelvin and Queenie, a girl who grew up there. Because I had only arrived mid-morning of that same day, I didn’t attend the morning tea ceremony and I missed the fun and frivolity of the ritual of fetching the bride.
For the reception that night, it was held at a Chinese restaurant (or should it be just “restaurant” since we are in China? Hahah. Seinfeld fans should recognise that joke).
In China, they do things differently. Like for example, on every table there was a free pack of cigarettes.
The stage where a brief speech was made by my cousin Kelvin …
And speaking of doing things differently …
A fake cake was cut just for the show of it.
And champagne was poured into a pyramid of champagne glasses but no one got to drink from it.
But a wedding is a wedding, no matter the culture and the place – it was a happy occasion for all.
Joe Nicolosi has a friend named Amanda. Amanda has only seen bits of the original Star Wars movies. This is how Amanda described the movies. It’s high-larious. Well, at least to Star Wars fan it is.
As different politically as Malaysia and Singapore are, culturally there is a lot of common ground. It’s kinda like the USA and Canada, at least in the English speaking parts anyway. Our spoken English infused with local slangs and intonations sound the same, and our foods are similar.
With the big exception of an overwhelming win-at-all-costs attitude in varying degrees, due to the limited resources and land in Singapore thus causing hyper competitiveness, the peoples are very similar indeed. They are even made up of the same types of people in different proportions: Malay, Chinese, Indian and Eurasian.
Which brings me to today’s story. The office cleaner is an ethnic Indian but until today I didn’t know if he was born here or from elsewhere because he speaks with a broad Asian-Australian accent, much like I do most of the time. I started making small talk about the Christmas holidays and when I revealed that I went to Singapore, he excitedly said,
Are you Singaporean?!
I said, “No, I’m from Malaysia.” Still, his distinctly Singaporean English started flowing out rapidly. And so did my Malaysian English which due to my mixing around with a lot of Singaporeans, tempered with my being in Australia for 20 years, has become this mutt of an accent.
We started talking about life in Australia and how the work-life balance is so much better here, and how when we go back for holidays our primary goal was to eat as much food as possible. Heh. He also mentioned that he has two kids and how the youngest one doesn’t like curry.
I said jokingly, “No! He has to learn! He doesn’t have to speak the language but he must like the food! Never forget his culture!”
He and his wife were corporate types back in Singapore but here in Perth, he owns a cleaning company with a number of staff. He asked me if I could ever go to Malaysia and Singapore to work, and I said it would be very difficult because I’m so used to the laid-back lifestyle here. And he agreed. A big deal for him was that he gets to see his kids more here than when his family was in Singapore.
Speaking with him about these things was a very good bonding experience. Transplanted individuals living a floating life; it’s a trip.
