olddog-samesame

14 May 2006 Mom celebrated her 80th birthday last year. We are extremely fortunate that mom is still with us and in good health. Dad is still around too. It looks like the Ng family is blessed with the longevity gene. Mom was born in KL in 1925. She was married off at sweet 16, a hastily arranged marriage before the invading Japanese army occupied Malaya. Life in those early years were no bed of roses. Food and basic necessities were scarce. Only the big towkays could afford the luxury of domestic help. Family planning was also not in vogue. Despite the adversity, in the space of 12 years along came 6 children before she reached 30. Although her hands were full, Mom managed to enroll and graduate from a tailoring course. A vocational skill that would be extremely useful had the need arise. In their younger years, Mom and Dad had very different personalities, much like chalk from cheese. Had their data being fed into a match making computer, the result would have been a zero match. But ...

5 February 2006 * My daughter taught me Haiku 17 syllabus, 3 lines Beautiful Japanese poems. * Today my birthday The years fly by Feel happy and sad. * CNY 2006 Year of the Dog New tricks for old dog.

27 January 2006 This is a subjective personal review of the above task. Maybe an interim report card. Sometimes, the process of putting thoughts to paper makes it easier to rationalize. It allows us to reflect and reevaluate and hopefully some of the more muddled pictures will become clearer in perspective. Providing food, shelter and other material needs to your only child is the easy part. That is basically the job description of parenting for the first 5 years. The subsequent 20 years is the complicated part because there is no manual or text book to provide a systematic guide. Bring up a child is not like growing a plant in a green house. Too many factors come into the mix. Family, friends, school, teachers, peer groups, society, the political scenario, environment, etc. You worry how the recipe is going to turn out! The goal or ultimate product we hope to create is the same for most parents. A responsible, independent, well adjusted and educated adult that we can be proud of. So t...

13 January 2006 We speak English and Mandarin at home. Occasionaly, my wife and I switch to Hokkien in the presence of our 9 year old daughter if the conversation is not meant for her ears. She will nonchalantly ignore us in her innocent way until one recent day, when she asked with a suspicious look in her face, "Why are you guys talking in a foreign language?" -_- since when Hokkien has become a foreign language? Come to think of it, dialect is indeed dying out with the new generation. It is quite rare these days to have extended family living under one roof. In our childhood days, grandparents and dialects are part and parcel of growing up. The only Hokkien phrase my daughter knows " Lim peh ka lu kong " was picked up from watching a Singapore produced movie. However, that coarse phrase is totally inappropriate to be used by a little girl! Maybe it is time to start some Hokkien lesson.

11 January 2006 Both the CD and DVD RW drive in my home PC conked out on me lately. They could neither read nor write any CDs. Made a trip to Low Yat Plaza over the long weekend and purchased a couple of new ones costing some RM250. The following night, tried to install them. Opened up the CPU and took out the defunct units. Put the new drives in, hooked up all the cables and screwed the drives in place. Closed up the CPU and restarted. A piece of cake. Computer boots up and detects new hardware - CD drive in E. Shit! What happened to my DVD drive in F? Click, click, click, nothing. Restart computer - nothing. Turn computer off completely and restart again - still nothing. OMG! Pull power off, open the CPU and recheck cables, everything in place. Maybe, I was given a faulty DVD drive. Shit, shit. OK calm down, lets test it. Unhook all cables and rewire only DVD. Power up and start. Ok, detected DVD in E drive. Turn off power and recheck instructions, an A2 size foldable sheet printed i...

31 December 2005 1. Stay healthy by maintaining a healthy lifestyle. 2. Eat moderately and keep weight below 66kg. 3. Join a gym and continue with Yoga class. 4. Keep golf handicap below 20. 5. Be proficient in Autocad. 6. Talk less and listen more. 7. Be more sensitive and nicer to people. 8. Be more proactive. 9. Maintain a happy family environment. 10. To persist with the above resolutions until 31.12.06

28 December 2005 This conversation with my then 8 year old daughter happened some time back. It regards an incident while the family was holidaying in Taiwan end of last year. We were waiting to check into a hotel after a very long day. There were more than 20 of us in the group comprising the extended Ng family and our Taiwanese host and families. A 3 year old toddler walked up and snatched a toy / trinket my daughter was fiddling with and broke it the process. She grabbed back the thing and pushed the boy onto the floor. The boy was shocked rather than hurt and started to wail. It all happened in a matter of seconds and before any of us could intervene. Her bad behavior was a major embarrassment to the parents. When we scolded her in the privacy of our hotel room, she too wailed loudly and started for the door saying she wanted to tell grandma that we scolded her. That was when I grabbed her and threw her onto the bed and told her to shut up. It was the first time I did that and the ...

22 December 2005 It was more than a decade ago when I hit my first golf ball at the driving range. You would not believe that I had been playing the game for 10 long years if you watch me play. It is UGLY. Just last weekend, my divots were flying further than the ball that went scuttering across the fairway in a nasty hook into the bunkers. You let fly a slew of expletives - at yourself of course. Yes, you get to hear very colorful language at the golf course besides seeing guys peeing (sic) all over the place. Yet they call it a gentleman's game. Head of states, presidents, ministers, CEOs and ordinary Joes play the game. So, why is the game so facinating and addictive yet at the same time so frustrating. That is the beguling nature of golf. It is a game of irony. For weekend hackers like yours truly, the feeling of hitting an occasional perfect shot is difficult to describe. It is just exhilirating, seeing your ball swooshing high through the air and landing a few feet from the h...

Tuesday, 13 December 2005 "Same-same" - the most useful and used English phrase in Thailand. Every other road side traders dealing with the farangs (foreigners) can communicate fairly effectively using just that one word, (Scene: Chiangmai Night Market) Farang: "How much is this T-shirt?" T seller: "200B" Farang: "How much is that Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt?" T seller: "Same same" Farang: " But quality is different." T-seller: " No, same same." Farang: "Too expensive, are you try to rip me off?" T-seller: "No, same same." Farang: " You think I am a big sucker, don't you?" T-seller: "Same same." ( meaning: I'm no sucker too ) Farang: " #@//% !!!" T-seller: " Same same." ( meaning: #@//% !!! to you too ) Tourism is big in Thailand. So is the promotion of the English language. You can also buy T-shirt proudly embossed with SAME SAME.

Sunday, 11 December 2005 We were traveling up to the hill station Doi Mae Salong in north-east Thailand recently. On the way we passed by a community "show village" where a group of the long neck Karen hill tribe are settled. The village looks pretty basic and poverty stricken. Some corn and vegetable were planted on tiny tracts of land on the steep terrain. A few of the women (another tribe) were selling small souvenirs by the roadside stalls. Whatever subsidy given by the Thai authority is probably insignificant. Their shelters are very basic and living conditions squalid. As were passing by, we thought we will stop by to have a look-see and we were in for a nasty shock. S ome unscrupulous character at the entrance to the village wanted to charge us 500B per head entrance fee!!!!!!!!!!!! That was simply outrageous if not daylight robbery. For our party of eight that is 4,000B (RM400). I have not heard of anything more ridiculous. We had intended a 5-10 minutes stop cum pho...

11 DECEMBER 2005 Hello out there, This will be my first venture into the blog sphere. I feel like a hermit crab crawling out of a hole. The fact is it feels a bit weird, writing your journal and posting it to on the world notice board. Well that may sound conceited, cos t he truth is no one would even give a damn. Yeah, there are millions of blogs out there. Adding another grain of sand in the desert is a more accurate analogy. There will probably be alot of technical pit holes I am going to fall into cos I am not really computer savvy. Well, I hope it will be a good learning process. Nothing venture, nothing gain. We have to live in the present world to connect with the new generation.