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I have always been curious about Tunku Kurshiah College (TKC to the older folks and KTK to the younger folks) after a friend of mine from primary school, got admitted into the school. Although I have forgotten how she looked like (I have a vague recollection of some studious looking kid in a headscarf), I can still remember her name. Until today I still sometimes wonder what had happened to her and if she had found success in life.

Although I was too young to understand it at the time, my mother told me that TKC was a premier school for girls in our country. It was to the girls like MCKK was to the boys. Now that was another school that I had never heard of before then but would feature prominently in my future life as people I knew started going to MCKK (or MC Gay Gay as it is affectionately known by the other boarding school students).

So, seeing that I was in Seremban recently driving along Jalan Tunku Kurshiah, I decided to pop in for a visit. So, I drove up to the school and asked the guard if I could just go in for a visit. It was afterall a Sunday and I knew where all the boarding school students went on a Sunday afternoon. So, it should be fairly safe for me to nose around an all-girls secondary boarding school without rousing any nasty suspicions.

So, the guards who guarded the school asked me “kenapa? bekas pelajar ke?” (why? are you a former student?). Man, I was stunned for a couple of seconds as I wondered if I looked like I was a former student of an all-girls secondary boarding school. Anyway, my friend mentioned that we had come from afar to visit the school, all the way from Kuala Lumpur (smart move!) and the guards decided to let us in after signing the log book. So, we signed the log book and took a drive around the school.

The thing that struck me about the school was how small it actually was. I would have imagined a premier boarding school to be much bigger. The whole of TKC would have probably fitted into the sports field of my secondary school. Then, I realised that the size probably worked to its advantage by maintaining a forced exclusivity. There just wasn’t any room available to take in anyone who wasn’t the best of the best.

The next thing that struck me about the school was that my friend, didn’t even know about it’s exclusive status. Well, I can probably blame that on the fact that my friend came from a Chinese school and didn’t have any other friends who went there or even applied to attend there. She did remember that the girls from TKC always seemed to be very smartly dressed with their headscarves all done up when attending competitions.

Then, on our way out, some of the girls started returning to school from home and they were all being driven in by BMWs and the like. So, I can safely surmise that most of the kids from that school were probably from families much richer than mine (nobody in my family ever drove a BMW). I have nothing against that as I strictly believe that there is no such thing as meritocracy in this world. There is no point in having wealth if you cannot use it to better your childrens’ lives.

Anyway, that’s all for my post.

I’ve been home for barely a month and I have already been caught ill, twice! Man, I think that I have been living away from home for far too long and have lost all the natural defenses that I used to have against local bugs.

I think that I need to be very careful during this initial period of readjustment. I will need to drink lots of water to avoid myself getting dehydrated. Also, I’ll need to be careful while eating out and not visit any dodgy unfamiliar places. I should also think of stocking up on my regular medications, like lots of PCM for the times when I am down and out.

Anyway, I just hope that I get well by tomorrow. Another day of bed rest should do me good. Otherwise, I may need to get some direct medical intervention.

PS: I miss how healthy I felt in the UK, falling ill only twice in 4 years.

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My whole family went for a short holiday over the last few days to Cherating, which is a famous beach off the east coast of peninsular Malaysia, facing the South China Sea. It is a sleepy village with nothing but miles of coastline and beach resorts. It was a much deserved break for the family, away from the city.

We decided to drive there in two cars. My brother-in-law led the way in an MPV and I drove the rest of my family in our sedan. The drive there was most uneventful except towards the end. We did not know where the resort was and it was not marked very clearly either. So, when we saw it, my bro-in-law stopped and I was forced to brake suddenly as well. In the end, I rear-ended him but without any damage to either car, which was good.

We checked into our own little chalet which had it’s own little jacuzzi pool. So, everyone spent a lot of time in the pool, including my niece and nephews in their floats. We only went to the beach in the evenings when the sun was not so bright, to enjoy some fresh air and fine sand. As I was the designated photographer, I ended up going around taking photos and staying away from the sea water.

In the evenings, we ended up playing board games after dinner. It was fun and brought back many memories of games that my sister and I had played when we were younger. As usual, she still beat me squarely at Monopoly while I still trounced her at word games. It is nice to reminisce on old times when you’re both already approaching mid-life.

The last night, I decided to sacrifice some of my sleep in order to catch the sunrise the next morning. I got up at 5.30am and went down to the beach alone, with my camera and tripod in tow. Unfortunately, the sky was cloudy as there was a thunderstorm out at sea the night before. I could actually see the lightning sparks from the beach. So, instead of the sunbeams that you typically see, I caught the red dawn behind the clouds.

On the last day, we made a short trip to the turtle sanctuary located on the said beach. There, we got to see little baby hatchlings that were to be released into the sea shortly. The people at the sanctuary told us that there were many visits by turtles over the last few nights and many eggs were lain. They would then collect the eggs and incubate them in their facility before releasing the hatchlings.

I’ve included some photographs in my album. I will probably send most of the family photos for printing. It will give me a chance to try out the quality of our digital prints as well as to compare prices. I would imagine spending quite a small fortune on photography in the future. I have just found a place that can sell me a 40mm f2.8 prime lens for RM 1050 (opening price).

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.