Month: September 2008

My sister dragged her whole family out shopping at The Gardens today. Seeing that I have never actually shopped around there before, I decided to tag along. I have been told that it is filled with stuff that nobody can actually afford to buy and seeing the crowd that ‘throngs’ the place, I would have to agree with that perception.

Instead of the regular fair that you find in almost every other Malaysian shopping mall, The Garden is generally filled with shops that one would find on any regular British high street. You will find Marks & Spencers, Borders and many other regular brands. So, I can understand why there is the perception that The Gardens is filled with high priced stuff.

However, I use the word ‘perception’ as I have to say that the things are not necessarily more expensive. In fact, it could potentially even be cheaper than buying stuff from your regular road side store. Point of fact is that I have been looking for a new branded mobile phone and Bluetooth headset and the cheapest deal that I have found is in a shop at The Gardens (RM 486 opening price).

In addition, I have also started shopping for a prime lens for my Pentax DSLR and the best price that I have found so far, is again in a photo shop at The Gardens (40mm F2.8 @ RM 1050). Seeing that the place is virtually void of other people, customer service is also fairly good. The sales people only have me to serve, wherever I go. So, that is a plus too.

Finally, I understand why my sister prefers to shop at The Gardens. The price of things is not necessarily much higher than found elsewhere. But with few people around, there is no need to muscle our way through crowds to get what we want. On top of that, the people have an ‘image’ to maintain and will treat their customers a little better.

Now, I’m curious about the other slew of ‘upper-class’ shopping malls in and around KL such as Pavilion, Bangsar Village and others. I think that I’ll go take a look around to see if they sell the stuff the I want. I did not spend too much today, just on a car MP3-FM adapter and some more original DVDs and CDs.

Oh, and there are plenty of nice places to eat at The Gardens too. I even found a nice little gelato stall that sells tasty gelato. I got myself a medium cup for RM12.50 (£2) and it was well worth the money. It was the first time I witnessed someone selling ice cream by the weight (she actually used a mini weighing machine as she scooped the gelato!).

PS: And the reason that I was brought along for the shopping trip: to perform the faithful duty that I’ve performed since I was a kid, which is to carry all the bags of stuff that my sister buys!

Oh man.

I’ve not had food this good in a long time. My whole family had just driven for an hour to the coast, to our old seafood haunt at Carey Island. For those who do not know, Carey Island is located somewhere between Klang and Banting along the coast. The restaurant itself is built using stilts on the water, which is unfortunately brown and murky (it’s the Klang coast afterall!).

I love to eat crabs and prawns. However, much of the fun associated with consuming these crustaceans (i.e. the work required to get through the shell to the meat) has been taken away these days. The prawns are cleanly sliced through and slipping the meat out of the shell is just a matter of pulling it out. The crabs have all been thoroughly smashed up and I miss the chance of having to crush the crabs with my hind molars.

I especially like eating something called har gou (mantis prawn), which is particularly difficult to cook. We had once tried cooking them at home but all the meat ended up dissolving into the gravy and we ended up with nothing but gravy and shells. However, the restaurants are able to make them quite well. So, I love to order it whenever I go to a seafood restaurant that knows how to make them.

One interesting development was the number of Malay families that were sitting at the restaurant, waiting for the time to buka puasa with a table full of nice seafood. I find this interesting as the restaurant is a very typical Chinese seafood restaurant. Just five years ago, it would have been difficult to find a single Malay family that would dine at such a place, much less a good half dozen of them.

All in all, I had a wonderful meal today. I have finally satisfied my craving for good seafood. All it takes to make me happy is a good meal. I am a simple man to please.

My mom recently commented about my tastes in things. She mentioned that I like to listen to Malay songs and liked to watch Japanese anime and Korean movies, a very mixed pot of tastes. I added that I professed an Indian religion and speak English as my mother tongue. So, I asked my mother which part of me is actually Chinese.

I have come to realise that I feel rather different now as I do not really feel very Chinese. For some reason, I seem to be the only one in my family who feels this way. While both of my parents were brought up in traditional Chinese families (so they are perfectly understandably Chinese), my sister and I were both brought up in a different way. However, our life experiences have brought us in opposite directions.

My sister has been recently interviewed by a popular local Chinese female magazine for an article on motherhood. Although the interview was conducted in Mandarin, my sister had no problems fielding the questions. She has even begun to speak Mandarin at home. All this was very surprising to me, considering the fact that we were brought up the same way and did not attend Chinese school.

I think that the reason for this difference is because of my love for computers. In the hardcore computer world, the only thing that separates individuals from one another is skill. You either belong to the world of users or the world of hackers. With my skills, I easily joined the latter and our kind generally did not care much for what each other looked like, much less anything else.

As a result, I am less superficial and have learned to see people and things, beyond the surface. The only bit that is probably Chinese about me is my genes (if you can actually draw a genetic definition) and even then, I wouldn’t know how pure it is considering that I have some Peranakan blood in me. If race was a state of mind, I would certainly not be Chinese.

So, it is rather difficult for me to still check the “Cina” box on any forms that I have to fill. I just do not feel Chinese enough to actually check the box. I think that from now on, I will just check “lain-lain” (others) on any forms and fill in “unknown” or “n/a” in the field provided.

PS: This is not to say that I don’t like Chinese things. I do listen to some Chinese tunes, watch some Chinese movies, eat some Chinese food, dream of Chinese women.

I went down to the nearby JUSCO today to purchase a few DVDs. I have gotten quite sick of the free TV in Malaysia and was in the mood for some Korean movies. As there was a convenient Speedy Video store there, I walked in and browsed through some of their wares and I came across several surprises.

The price of original DVDs in Malaysia can be anywhere from about RM15 (£2.50) to 10 times that. So, I felt that I could definitely buy a few original DVDs here. There were 2 shelves full of Korean stuff but they were mostly Korean dramas. I guess that not many people actually like to watch Korean movies (me being an exception). About 10% of the wares were VCDs and not DVDs so, I had to be a little careful when choosing the titles.

In the end I settled for 5 movies, 3 random movies that I had never watched before, 1 favourite movie of mine (My Sassy Girl) and 1 very famous Korean war movie that was the most popular box office hit in 2005. Although I have already watched “My Sassy Girl” a large number of times, it still did not fail to touch me and bring a tear to my eye when I watched it again today. I just love that movie, which is the reason why I happily paid £4 for it.

Then, I decided to go look for some Siti Nurhaliza DVDs and that was when I encountered my next surprise. There were hardly any of here CDs, let alone DVDs on the shelf. So, I thought to myself that this was an extremely sad situation. If our country’s most popular artiste is unable to stock the shelves in a major chain store, it must be extremely difficult for the rest of the artistes. In fact, the shelf that was marked Malay videos did not even hold many Malay videos but were mostly filled with Chinese ones.

Finally, I walked to the counter to pay for my purchases using my newly minted Malaysian credit card. I decided to ask about their return policy and was promptly surprised when I was told that I could return my purchases if any problems were found with them within 14 days to any of their branches. Good thing they had this policy as I had already encountered a problem with one of the movies starting Son Ye Jin, which brings me to the final surprise.

The quality of the local original DVDs are a bit of a disappointment. The local licensee who brought in the movies had to comply with the requirements of the National Film Board. As a result, even movies that are rated “U” for universal consumption, have bits of it censored off. This is quite disappointing as it interrupts the flow of the story. Also, the problem movie had an audio track that I could not play on my DVD player. So, I will be bringing it back for replacement within the next few days.

Overall, my experience in buying originals in Malaysia has been mixed. I will have to further explore other shops and other types of movies, before deciding on whether or not to return to my old decadent ways.

PS: Western movies cost a bit more than eastern ones, which means that I will probably be buying more Korean, Japanese and Chinese DVDs from now on.

http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

Nothing much to say. Just enjoy the photographs. Leave comments if you so wish to.

Optimism.

A friend of mine mentioned the other day that I was fairly optimistic about the future. I quipped back that it was because I was still young. I could use this excuse because he was a family man and several years older than me. However, the truth is that my optimism does not come from my youthful exuberance, but rather my grim outlook on life.

When I was 19, I was told by someone many years older, that I was too jaded with life and that at 19, I should not be jaded at all. The truth is that I have been jaded with life, since a very young age and I am optimistic, because I am jaded. When I see things, I tend to see the worst possible outcome of any scenario. After seeing the worst possible outcome, every other possibility becomes a much better prospect.

However, convincing oneself that a better scenario will ultimately emerge over the worst possible outcome, is quite another matter altogether.

Anyway, enough of the morbid talk.

I had recently gone to a very modern kopitiam in KL called Oldtown Whitecoffee, which should be familiar to people from Ipoh. It is an odd establishment. It is styled and priced like an up-market coffee place, sells low-end food and beverages, and is frequented by the kind of people that you would find at any mamak stall at 4am in the morning.

We had a mixed coffee (i.e. neslo), enhanced chocolate (i.e milo kau) and two slices of butter and kaya toast for a whopping RM12! That’s a whopping RM6 for what is essentially two slices of bread and water each. My friend decided to pick up the tab, which was awfully nice of him. It was surprisingly packed, even at 4am in the morning.

Too bad I did not have my camera with me at the time.

As you all know, I have been doing some shopping recently, to slowly replace the various items that had to be discarded at Heathrow because I had excess luggage. One of the things that I had to buy was a pair of sandals. Thinking that I would settle for a cheap pair, I went to the nearby Bata store for a random pair.

At the Bata store, there were a number of different cheap sandals available. So, I tried them on and they were all pretty much similar. You cannot really expect much from a RM20 pair of sandals (£3.50). Then, I saw a more expensive pair and I thought to myself, why would anyone pay RM100 for a pair of sandals. It is not even a branded pair of special sandals like Nike or what nots.

So, on a whim, I put on the pair of pricier sandals. That was it. I had never worn a pair of sandals that felt so good on my feet before. There seemed to be various points of support and cushioning around the sole. So, I quickly made the decision to get the more expensive pair. So, it was just a matter of choosing a design, colour and size.

Honestly, I have never ever spent as much on a pair of sandals before. I grew up in a strictly middle class family and I grew up on pasar malam fashion. In fact, I don’t even normally spend that much on proper shoes either. I have only spent this much on leather shoes, in Malaysia. My feet must hate me for all the torture that I have subjected them through.

I guess that there is a reason for them being pricier than the rest and the money isn’t being paid for the brand since it isn’t Nike anyway. All I hope for now, is that this pair of sandals lasts me for a year. The cheap ones usually fail me in half that time. If they do last that long and provide my feet with tender loving care, it would be money well spent.