Look, talk and eat like a Chinese campaign

Color-treated my hair…. completely BLACK. Back to my black hair roots!
I've definitely always looked very Chinese, but now looking more Chinese than ever …the next step is to brush up on my Mandarin.

I had dinner last Tuesday with my former colleagues, whom I suspect took up Chinese as first language when in school. My ex-manager used a mandarin phrase “wu yi si wei ...” and I thought he was speaking Hokkien! Need to watch more Taiwanese talk shows to brush up on mandarin language skills.

As a race, the Chinese have a lot of pork. Main meat staple, in fact. Hope we're not what we eat. Hmm...recently, I had alot of sweet soupy Shanghai xiao long baos dipped in vinegar with ginger slices. Fresh pork is so good.

During a sunday coffee session with my girlfriends, who were Chinese Chinese or Chinese Peranakan, we realized that we all had, at one point in time, stopped taking pork for various reasons, but later resumed pork-eating habits again.

For instance, one of the Karens started eating much more pork when she was posted to Vietnam. After she got there, she realized that all the local specialties involved pork in one form or another. So for practical gastronomic reasons, she consumed more pork, and concluded Vietnamese Pork is the Best in the World! If my sister were here, maybe they can argue on Vietnamese Pork versus American Bacon.

The general consensus was that air-flown pork (pigs can indeed fly!) does not taste as good as pork transported in other manners. T**** said it’s because the air-flown pork pigs were not neutered, so there’s a lot of hormones in the meat and that’s why it's relatively smellier. Never knew it was all due to hormones.

Friends disgusted with air-flown pork:

Dilly is a pesco-vegetarian now (more pork for us then!) and couldn’t contribute personal opinions on pork taste, but, when she was in Chiangmai, Thailand, she witnessed a baby pig that got neutered with a very thin wire. And the severed parts were promptly thrown into the fire, I assume she means BBQ pit to be cooked. And all this while, the poor baby pig was squealing away. But we know it will grow up to be a big, strong, hormone-free pig, and provide non-smelly meat for all.

Hokkaido Food Fair Report

There were food sampler stations everywhere! The Aunties manning the various stations were very generous and it's almost like a FREE food fair. Had corn chocolate, healthy Yam juice, peppermint candy, melon chocolate, pumpkin soup...

I checked out the horse oil counter. Predictably, it was not very popular. There was a TV at the counter showing happy healthy horses galloping away in green fields but I think you need more that that to convince Singaporeans when you’re selling skincare.

Isetan imported a sushi master and he was stationed at the supermarket, so I had Surprise! Surprise! Mouth Watering Fresh Scallop Sushi!

I bought an Otaru Sweet Potato cake, but didn't get to try it as the Parents had it for breakfast before I woke up. I didn’t buy the biscuits after all which were too expensive. Hai! Disappointment in both instances though I’m happy the Parents liked the cake (they said it was "not bad" which means "quite alright!").

I also bought packets of pumpkin and Hokkaido potato flakes.
Mix the flakes with milk and water, and stir repeatedly, and you get pumpkin soup, or potato soup. The imported-from-Japan salesman was very funny. He pointed to the flakes and stated firmly.. Salad..Oishi… Soup-p…Oishi … Ice-ce Creame…Oishi… Cak-ke…Oishi. Multipurpose flakes will transform me into a master chef yet.

Minotaur in Singapore

The Singapore Tyler Print Institute is currently hosting the Vollard Suite, a collection of 100 prints (etchings, aquatints and drypoints from 1930 to 1937) by Picasso.

The institute proclaims that this collection is regarded as
“one of the most important graphic series in the history of art, comparable in quality and importance only to the prints of Rembrant & Goya”.
It doesn't say why though.

I’m pleasantly surprised that a CF firm I worked for is one of the sponsors of the exhibition. I’ve always love prints so I enjoyed this collection. GO see!

The Vollard Suite reveals Picasso's then obsessions, the classically derived (meaning often naked) subjects of the Minotaur and Pygmalion.

Picasso identified himself with the mythical MINOTAUR. Ego ego ego. Sometimes the Minotaur is the artist, or lover in a studio setting, and on other occasions, a bull in the ring of a bullfight.



Picasso's interpretations of PYGMALION were also autobiographical. Images of life in a sculptor's studio, and idealised self-portraits of Picasso in "relaking" couch potatoe mode, working with nude models and various pieces of art dominate.





"In a group of prints made towards the end of 1934, the themes of the man–beast, the artist and the model merged. The Minotaur is finally blinded by his own unbridled passions, and is led away by a young girl whose physiognomy recalls Marie-Thérèse."



Picasso had met Marie Therese Walter in the mid 1920s outside Galeries Lafayette, and became obsessed with her. With her "classical" countenance, Marie-Thérèse soon became both lover and inspiration for Picasso's art.

Meet Marie Therese Walter [not part of the suite]:














I would like to pick up studio art again. I do like printmaking, which is therapeutic, though it does get messy, smelly and health hazardous at times - wiping turpentine-soaked cloth off your arms to remove paint, and sore arms from laborious polishing of sticky paint off plates, wearing unfashionable fisherman rubber aprons to protect clothes.
But end of the day, great sense of satisfaction when you look at beautiful or "interesting" stuff you've created.


The information above on the Vollard Suite are derived from the following websites:http://www.nga.gov.au/exhibitions/Picasso/index.html, http://www.marlboroughfineart.com/exhibitions/view.asp?id=161, http://www.shareholder.com/bid/downloads/news/20060914-211070.pdf.

Hokkaido Food Fair

Dear friends, there is a Hokkaido Food Fair at Isetan Scotts from 22 June to 2 July 07. Please visit, I highly recommend it. I plan to buy tons of Shiroi Koibito biscuits. People who miss this fair, please do not attempt to whine the biscuits away from me, it will not work. Please buy your own.



What’s going to be at the Fair: Scallops! Scallops! Scallops!!
We can look forward to seasoned, dried, soft, grilled or cheese scallops.

Potatoes: Hokkaido potatoes are special, smooth and milky tasting. Yum!

Melons, famous Hokkaido melons, cakes flavored with green tea and chestnuts, corn chocolate (Karen, pls note this), fresh gelato/ice cream.

Usual sashimi suspects, Crabs! and Abe Shoten Mori No Ikameshi (Squid with rice stuffing) and other strange but tasty seasoned seafoods.

They are also showcasing natural products such as HOKKAIDO HORSE OIL. My brochure says: “Since ancient times, horse oil has been used to treat burns and injuries. It is also excellent as a moisturizer for rough and hard skin.”

Feels weird to spread animal oil on body. When people say you smell like a horse, it’s usually not a compliment.

Household Mystery of the Day

In the Chin family, I’m in charge of buying heavyweight grocery items weighing more than 5 kgs. No one, except me, has noticed that it’s ironic, as I’m easily the physically smallest Chin family member (even if we include overseas family members).

So, the grocery list was passed to me… as usual… rice, washing detergent…Rice! We’re buying rice again? I just bought a 10kg sack of rice last month, and now we need more rice?

I did a survey amongst friends. Going by rice grain count, my family consumed almost twice as much rice as everybody else. How is that possible? We’re not heavy eaters. We have only one meal daily, six times a week.

I consume 0.75 bowl of rice, the maid 0.8, mum 1.0, dad 1.0 (approx), and Rocky 1.5, which would be a maximum of 5.05 bowls of rice. There are no refugees hiding in the basement or attic. Where did it all go?

This time, I bought two times as much rice - 20Kgs. If we finish the rice in less than two months I will scream and launch an official investigation.

Car Tires

It's ridiculous fear of the unknown for me when it comes to cars. But I really can't help it. If the car doesn’t start (because I have locked steering wheel by accident), or if I can’t shut down engine and yank out car key (because I forgot to set gear to “P” from “D”), I would fly into a panic and start calling any car aficionado, usually patient Chris (thank you) who will do on-the-spot problem solving.

Another wise friend, Mike, tried to demystify cars and explained that all they need are three basic elements: Air (tires), Water (wiper, cooler) & Oil (to run). Anything else, leave to the mechanic.

Recently, I heard the tires squeak when I tried to maneuver into a tight parking lot at the Siglap Centre underground car park. Do car tires squeak easily when there’s insufficient air? No idea! But I must not subject myself to potentially dangerous situations and fix this.

The Caltax uncle helped me add air to tires, and it’s really simple because he used the automatic air inflator machine that adjusted all the tire pressure to 220 kPA. Whew! Thought it’s up to me to gauge acceptable pressure level. My car tires read approx. 190 kPA before the adjustment. Not sure if that’s dangerous? Anyway no more worries of tire collapse or explosion.

Tiramisu burger & Chloe I can't afford

Burning Hot Sun today, so we rushed from one aircon place to another. Ex-Probation girl was going to get heatstroke at the Chinatown coffeeshop. She turned all red and puffy.

We ended up at Ricciotti, a nice cool shelter, for cake & ice cream. Can you see the "beef patty" in the tiramisu? Beef in cake does sound a little gross. Throat tickled by light cocoa powder sprinkled all over so I coughed a bit.



I Like Chloe current season collection [Spring 07]. The brand has a polished, all-dressed-up youthful look. Reminds me of the happy 60s.


I must say their fun pieces are not very classic though. In two seasons, they might be unwearable.




Ok THIS is what I would want to wear for work when I work (If can wear the above for work, life would be perfect). I really like the idea of pairing shorts or neat bermudas with a jacket, and of course, fierce heels. Perfect for the killer tropical weather and killer office chill. So practical.

Dengue Scare

Phone call from Dad & Mum’s office to me, at home, rotting in pain with a PMS backache.

DAD: “Ah Ping, can you bring the maid to the doc? She has fever and is feeling itchy.”

Ah Ping: “Can I talk to Mum?”

DAD: “Sure, but she’s on the phone now. I can put you on call waiting, call back later” [Phone goes dead]

10 minutes later…

MUM: “Can you bring the maid to the doc? She has fever, and is itchy all over. It’s Dengue Fever. I left her card and money at your study desk”

Ah Ping: “Is the body covered with little red dots?”

MUM: “Yah”

After call to clinic… circuit driving across Siglap and mad dash across car park to clinic before it closed in 10 minutes, we caught the Malay-speaking Chinese Doc as he was going out for lunch. Nurses looked grumpy and I felt a little guilty. The ministry of environment people were just at our place last week checking drainage systems for mosquito larvae colonies.

5 minutes later…

DOC: "it’s not Dengue. She also said she has no fever. It is just a rash caused by allergy, she had scratched herself some serious looking red welts here”.

Ah Ping: “Ok, can you please explain to her in Malay it’s just an allergy? She will cry later if she thinks she’s very sick”

DOC: [In Malay to maid] “You are not going to die.”

Nurse: “She says she using a new soap brand. Better change back to old soap brand”.

15 minutes later…we got home and I tracked down the culprit soap. Palmolive! I quickly passed her three bars of Lux.

From Dengue to Hives, I thought we did pretty well.

Doe, a Deer

We used to watch The Sound of Music EVERYDAY in VHS format. That was how we filled up our primary school holidays, in between playing badminton and cycling in the neighborhood. Idyllic children.


Looking back, the adults around us must had been grinding their teeth in pain as it’s like putting Barney on repeat mode all the time. I remember it used to take forever to rewind the silly tape because the movie was so long.

We later graduated to La Bamba, Dirty Dancing, and Laser Discs and now DVDs that won't grow mouldy. I’m sorry we missed out on Grease, which would have been another fun sing-along movie.

I just bought the 35th Anniversary Collector’s Edition of The Sound of Music. It has additional Edelweiss mixes, and also Orchestra music not on the Original ST album. Double CD for $8, very good value. I will pass the CDs to my sister when she’s next in Singapore, then she can also relive the raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens moments. On repeat mode if she likes. Heh heh, and torture other adults around her.

The Chanel Bookathon

Too lazy to browse through aisles of books, I decided to trust the judgment of strangers who may have different literary tastes (Amazon editors) and read the books highly ranked on the Amazon list of best 2006 books. So far, the system works well, and I have not read a bad book. Yet.

I estimated for every book I borrow from the library, instead of making a trip down to Kino, I would save about $20 on a weekly basis (average price of hardcover and paperback, and assuming I read one book every week), which would work out to about $1,000 annual savings if I read for one full year. And, Tah-daaaah, in three years, with the money I would have saved, I could afford a CHANEL 2.55. Woo Hoo!! Alternatively, I could invest in blue chips, but see how first.

In case you’re wondering, a 2.55 looks like this.





A very classic icon that goes with about everything in my wardrobe. I haven't decided on the color, but probably black. Before I digress, I finished a book yesterday. I liked it, just like Sharp Objects, and start to think that maybe books dealing with the Dark Side and mysteries/suspense are so much more fun than lighthearted stuff. Maybe that’s why I like investigation work so much. The bigger the fraud, the more SHIOK it is.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield was classified as a gothic romance mystery in the style of Bronte by reviewers. The narrators were two females, one a celebrated author, and the other a biographer. Both practiced escapism through books.

The story paid tribute to lovely classics like The Secret Garden, and Jane Eyre with elements of ghosts, beautiful gardens, a house fire, good servants, absent parents, and kids behaving badly.

I did find the book too long initially, at 406 pages, but I couldn’t put down the book after I started. In the end, I finished it too fast.
Another sad and touching tale, and another $20 for the Chanel 2.55 fund.

Seafood Brunch at Hakodate

Went to Japan with my long-time convent friends Lorrine and Karen, and Tong in March this year.

Damn SHIOK! Our first brunch in the land of the rising sun. We were dreaming of sashimi and seafood for days before the Great Japan Trip and Hakodate didn't disappoint, and therefore, deserve a mention here.

First, a view of Hakodate from Mt. Hakodate.


[All photos here taken by Lorrine and Tong]

Seafood Stall/Mini restaurant located in this neighbourhood, near the Japan Rail (JR) Station.



When you go to supermarkets, the aunties always feed you food samplers to entice you to buy. Well this is the equivalent Crab Sampler. We did contemplate going to every seafood stall to try their crab offerings and make that a free and delicious brunch session. But we didn't.



Here are my friends posing with the bigger crabs, but we didn't have them as they were quite pricey.



Viola! Our fresh and sweetly steamed Crab! Smaller than the above crabs, but quite enough for us, still quite enormous! Check out friend's hand (the smaller and farther hand) next to crab leg for scale.



Besides the crab, I really liked the Scallop Sashimi. Very Sweet too. We tried to order as much food as we could finish. We also had chirashi sets of sea urchin, squid, fish roe, which were local specialities. There were also grilled mackeral and delicious crab-flavoured miso soup. I'm getting hungry now just from recording all these down.



We were splitting equally the bill of the seafood brunch. I had whined on and on about Scallops. My dear friend initially converted incorrectly the price of one scallop, and thought it translated to about SGD60 For One Scallop, but since I love scallops so much, decided to let me order it anyway. Going by prices, one teeny weeny scallop = one giant crab. The actual price was about one-tenth. But thank you anyway, my dear dear friend Karen, for indulging me.





Happy troopers, we all were. Of course, we did many other things in Japan too, but I'll leave that for another day. That was great food & company!

Mongkut & the mites

Unfortunately, the little bugger caught ear mites in his left ear.

Looking at the bright side, the lazy mites did not cross over his forehead (approx 10cm) and camped in his right ear as well. Everyday now, he's subjected to smelly medicated ear drops in both ears. If the gross ear wax doesn't clear up in a week, he has to visit the vet.

I do not wish to sound like a hypochondriac but to be on the safe side, I got him the hookworm, roundworm and tapeworm medication, and also the anti-flea application when I bought the ear cleaner "EARrific!" (What a corny name, but it comes highly recommended) to kill the mites.

Hair

Hi! This is in response to Comment No. 2 on the Library at Suntec blog. This is my new haircut by Shad from Iowa who is stationed at Millenia Walk, Singapore.



I'm trying to grow my hair long, so he gives me trims to "shape up" the hair every few months. The parents did not notice that I cut my hair. Hee. Longer hair works better for me, especially in the mornings.



When I had shorter hair, I always woke up with Darth Vader/pumpkin head hairstyle, something my sister understands. Very painful until the discovery of hair styling products, and how to wet your hair and let gravity do the trick.



Dug out a picture of me and sis with bed hair. See? It was sis' 8th birthday at our flat in Marine Parade. The Parents woke us up early to celebrate. I bet the two apples were from Dad.