China Complex

After two visits to China, i have developed a paradox mixture of love and hate feelings for this mystery land. If such inferiority can be named literally then i would simply call it the "china complex".

The 'love' part of the China complex can be easily understand. As a Malaysian, we are born with innate food-loving nature. Its in our genetic. Frankly, you can never find better Chinese food other than in China. The taste is flawlessly exquisite, the tangling spiciness of the hua jiao, the saltiness of the fermented black beans, the gorgeous taste of cucumber with more than flavor water, bead curd tasting of fresh soy, pungent chinese chives, steamed bao oozing pork fats from their swirling top knots etc.

yum, yum, yum...

Business meeting is nothing but eating, eating and eating

Anyway, i will dedicate a separate full post to my culinary experience in China.

Ok, now come to the 'hate' part of my China Complex.

Point 1: China internet censorship

Surfing internet using the China Broadband services is such a pain. Before i came to China, i have been warned by many that the internet police in China 'neutralize' (ahem*terminate*ahem) anti government or religious online opinion and comments. In fact, the critical comments which appearing on internet forum, blogs and major networking portals such as Sina and Xiaonei usually are erased within minutes.

Well ... being China, its understandable. BUT.... They've even block my blogspot!!

Does my blog looks like a threat to their national security? Maybe my harmless grumbles and U rated jokes is a poison to the mind of their good citizen. Never in my life i was hit by so many "Page Load Error" message while surfing the internet. I must solute the China government or rather the internet police for their highest efficiency.

Point 2: RUDE Taxi driver

I have no words to describe China taxi drivers but rude. They have no respect for the foreigners, they chased you out from the taxi when they don't know the address and they'll shout at 100 decibel when you try to exit through the left side of the car (anyway, just a reminder to those who plan to visit China, passenger are forbidden from opening the left door of the cab).

There is this particular incident happened during the trip which pissed the hell out of me. My colleague and I supposed to take a taxi from the hotel to go to Shanghai airport on the final day of our business trip. There were a row of taxis stopped in front of us and without thinking we went to board the taxi at the most front. During the process of loading our 10kg luggage into the car boot, we were suddenly surrounded by a crowd of 10++ taxi drivers who shouted at us loudly with native shanghai slang.

It was kinda scary when i think back, to be surrounded by the angry crowds while my Indian colleague was totally helpless as he don't understand a single word of Chinese. So its up to me to make the sense out of the whole situation and to get both of us out of it, in one piece. After listened to the crowd attentively again and again, i'd finally understood that the taxi which we've boarded actually cut the queue and the rest of the cab drivers who'd already waited there earlier were not happy. In order to calm the crowd, we have no choice but to unload our luggage and reload again to the next taxi.

All these while, the taxi driver who was accused of queue cutting was sitting coolly at the driver seat and no one give a heck about him.

SPEECHLESS....

Anyway, i'll continue in my next post about some weird weird habit of the shanghainese. Stay tuned.

21,23,26

Tagged. Its an interesting exercise of re-discovering myself.

5 Years ago

1. How old were you?: 21
2. Where did you go to school?: College Tunku Abdul Rahman

Those are the days... thats our dear Dr Wong!

3. Where did you work? I didn't.
4. Where did you live?: Wangsa Maju, in a cramp 800 square feet flat with another seven housemates.
5. Where did you hang out? good question, probably my church. I was there Monday for CG leader meeting, Thursday for singspiration practice, Friday for CG gathering, Sunday for the Sunday service etc...

My CG members and I during Christmas celebration at Church

6. What's your biggest achievement? First time standing on the stage of Bukit Jalil Stadium as a backup singer

Hongkie singer Hins in red shirt with the rest of the worship crew members, me standing at most right, 1st row

7.Who was your bff(s): Angeline, Hooi Leng, Cat and Cher Pheng

My dear mates from College and Church, its so hard to find those photos from ancient

My dear mate Cher, a genius and a weirdo at times

8. What car did you drive?: i have license, but NO, i dont drive one
9. Had you had your heart broken? yes. long distance relationship can never work, trust me
10.Single/Taken/Married/Divorced?: Single

3 Years Ago
1. How old were you?: 23
2. Where did you go to school?: John Moore University, Liverpool

3. Where did you work?: Mark and Spencer, Averton Football Club, Free Lance tutor for A level, a full time partimer

Scottie and Cragie, my good good student

4. Where did you live?: i moved trice from JMU's hostel, to Kensington and finally to Albany

I miss my purple room in UK!

5. Where did you hang out? yes you are right, its church again

Busy playing angels in the church

6. What is your biggest achievement? Backpacking to Paris, ALONE

7. Who were your bff(s): Kohyee and Jiavern. We did so many wild and stupid things together. Love you gals!

Meet my hubby, who is a Romainian Warrior, and i led a secret double life, with two wives, one was heavily pregnant!

8. What car did you drive?: Nope, but my license was still valid
9. Had your heart broken?: hmmmm.... not because of love. Have a big fight with my best pal; Peter met an accident.... Its complicated. By the way, long distance relationship did work, gulp, i swallow back my words.
10. Single/Taken/Married/Divorced?: Taken

Today
1. How old are you?: 26
2. Where do you go to school?: not anymore, i'm done with study
3. Where do you work? A biotech firm at MINES

Me and my colleagues packing to move

4. Where do you live?: Genting Klang, Setapak
5. Where do you hang out?: hmmm.... Shopping malls, Peter house and church
6. Who are your bff(s): Peter and Miko (who say dog cannot be human's best friend)

7. What car do you drive?: Myvi. And yes, finally i'm driving!
8. What is your biggest achievement? Driving again after 8 years. In fact i drove back and forth transboundary from KL to Singapore in one day!

9. Had your heart broken?: Nah, i'm way too old for heartbreaks, headache sounds more like it
10. Single/Taken/Married/Divorced? Taken

--- end ---

Now, this supposed to be an intuitive Q&A, but unfortunately my bad habit of over analyzing things surfaced again. I was stuck, cracking my head trying to answer some of the questions, especially this one:

"Who are your bff?"

I played this nitendo DS games quite some times ago called Drama queen. In the game, you get to be a drama queen, juggling career, boyfriend and bffs. Your bff will have certain capabilities whereby you can pay them some coins in exchange of certain favor. e.g. get yourself promoted, increase your love life attribute, even stealing your competitor's boyfriend!

Wow, if the games is true, bff means someone i can use to my advantage whenever i'm in need!

Anyway, enough of the crap talk.

Frankly, this is difficult, i dont quite grasp the meaning of this internet slang -'bff'. Of course i know its Best Friend Forever, the thing is i dont really know what it means to me. I have many great friends, some are superficial hangouts friends; some are brethren whom i can be totally transparent with; some are childhood friends whom i only get to see once a year now. If i can, would like to add all of them into my bff list.

However, miss fussy pants wouldnt settle with such generic answer.

After a LONG and DEEP ponder, i came out with my definition of Bff. Bff is someone you could sit together, never say a word, and walk away feeling like that was the best conversation you've had. Someone who understand you so well that words seems to be absolutely unnecessary. When your mind is in a total mess, he/she can easily untangle whats in your thought and took the word right out of your mouth.

Well, the names i've suggested above may not 100% fit the bill. Yes for the best friend part, but frankly speaking i'm not too sure about the FOREVER part myself.

The thing is we tend to measure forever in terms of 'TIME'-continuously, endlessly, interminable, perpetual, incessant. However, wouldnt you agree with me that why do we need a best friend 'forever' when its impossible for human to live 'forever'?

Believe me, when someone tells you he/she will love you 'forever', there is also a timeframe for that.

Well if we take away forever's association with 'TIME', something temporal can be forever as well. for example, some moments are forever; a simple favor/gesture can be forever; a word of encouragement/enlightment can be forever, yes, some friends are forever.

get it? or i can go on and on about this until the cow comes home

Home is where the heart is

Went to visit Auntie Jean last weekend as Peter's mom wanted to pick up some berries from her. Since her house is exactly the opposite of our future dream house at Hillside Apartment,(which makes her our future neighbours), I'm pretty curious about their interior design hence decided to tag along.

Auntie Jean and her husband are one warm and friendly couple. i was touched by their generous hospitality as they were eagerly showing us around their house and offered us a nice warm cup of aromatic Saffron mint tea. In their mid fifties perhaps, they have a welcoming home with warm wooden laminated floor and a naughty schnauzer who cant stop biting our fingers (playfully) to express his welcome to the guest of his master. Beethoven (yes, thats his name, cheeky isnt it) is the second dog's of the family. The first one died a year ago and Aunty Jean was devastated. In fact there are still many photos of him hanging on the wall, reminding the family about their precious moments together.

The reality is that animals have shorter lifespan compare to human, and most of the pet owners refuse to have another pet after they lost their first. Its not hard to understand as many of us are not strong enough to face the heartache of letting our dear friend go when the time comes.

Well, auntie Jean thought she can never keep another dog for the rest of her life after the lost, but she did anyway, because of one reason "we had so much of love to give to the doggies", she said. And that touched me deeply.

Miko, my precious girl

All of us are capable to love so much more than we think we can, but most of the time we refuse to live out the capacity. We might not realize it at first, but we will soon discover that the fear of losing is not the great risk of our feelings in caring for someone. As we survive the heartache, anticipate the next, it actually strengthen us and replenish what we have dispersed, and that further expands our aptitude in love even more.

The short visit reminded me of what we want our future home to be. A place where our love can be freely expressed to each other. A place where our love for food, for doggies, for music and movies can be shared with our families and friends. And hopefully one day, our joy can be even extended to some distant friends or any person in need as well.

Looking at Auntie Jean's home made me craved so much for a home of my own. Although we are still in the process of closing the sales and purchase agreement for our place, and yes its still empty and bare, but its amazing that in such a short period of time, we had harbor so much of feelings and love for the place.

And i know for sure that this will be a home where our heart is and we will definitely have rooms for a puppy too.

Tortilla frenzy

Just a quick one here. Peter's best cooking so far- luxurious home made tortilla chips with Roasted chicken fillet, gracious dressing of olive oil with black olive, tomatoes, lettuce, plus lots of cheddar, mozzarella cheese and mayonese.

I never knew that making tortilla chips is so easy, you just need to get the ready made tortilla wrap from any supermarket. It will cost you something like 5 pieces for RM5.50. Then cut it to triangular pieces, add the chicken fillet and the cheese on, and let the toaster oven do the job for you. When its cooked, just add on whatever toppings you want. As easy as that!

I dont have the photo of the exact tortilla wrap package we bought from Giant Supermarket, but it looks something like this

Anyway, i planned to make tortilla casserole this weekend, it will be my show this time. Tortilla casserole is something like Mexican lasagna, whereby you supposed to layer the tortilla piece, with chicken mixture and cheese alternately until it reach 5-6 layers, followed by baking.

I love the exquisite taste of Olives by the way, the slight bitter after taste was kinda addicting. There is no doubt that i'm gonna sprinkle alot of olives on top of it.

Anyway, need to start to browse for recipe online now. Ciao!

Ps: Found the photo below from the net, i'm salivating now!

Annoyed pt 2

A week with endless business meeting is a long time. Obviously its not as long as having no project for 1 month, but its all about relativity. The workload seems like never reduced despite the fact that i've managed to clear some, but more flowed in. It continues to pile up like a mountain on my table, i know for sure it wont be long before my colleague find me suffocated underneath piles of business documents.

Lately, I have this funny thought of being slowly consumed by my job. The feeling regurgitated from my stomach to esophagus, my mouth, and back to my stomach again. The first thing came to my mind the moment i open my e-mailbox every morning is "Another whole long list of tasks to look into, great...". I think this feeling had slowly slipping into my system to an extent it started to poison and took away my passion for job.

At the same time, my flight and fight response mechanism was on its high. I'm no more sitting in obedience, taking and accepting whatever rubbish that comes to me, or going with the flow in order to make everyone happy. Nowadays i'm either fighting hard to get my point across or flee to survive whenever people engaged in unnecessary arguments.

Blame it to the adrenaline.

I am a science person who serve in business development team. However, wearing high heels and sleek suit, giving some business presentation or engaging in an intelligently sound business prep talk are never appeal to me. In fact it irks me to the core to see how businessman smartly maneuver themselves to get the upperhand when it comes to business negotiation. At times, i would have performed harakiri if someone was kind enough to give me a sword, rather than torturing myself looking at how the businessmen polished each other shoes.

In the past, i tried my best to avoid those unnecessary dinners and interaction with customers, especially with government officials and those pot belly bearing businessman, but its getting harder to do so nowadays. The company is expecting me to go full force at the frontline, but i knew there is so much of resistancy inside of me. I simply dont have the cut for business nor i able to talk about cents as natural as breathing the air.

Anyway, i knew this is not healthy and i'm complaining too much, but this is the damage of one week of restless work can do to you.

End of my "Annoyed" part 2, and no, there is no part 3.

Annoyed pt 1

Annoyed, really annoyed.

There are times when i really felt like throwing the resignation letter onto my boss's table and leave without any hesitation. Frankly, the only reason i'm still not leaving... YET is because i have received so much from the company and i will be seen as an ungrateful bastard if i choose to walk out just like that.

Forgive me God, but the truth is i hate to deal with my onshore team members. I was forced to write a warning for poor performance email (as per Performance Appraisal procedure enforced by HR Dept) to my team members due to the fact that he is heavily behind timeline and showed no initiative to improve his performance. And thats when the emails war started.

I dont want to go into details because its already giving me so much of headache. The point is i inherited this project from my ex colleague when he left the company. My only understanding towards project management is because of my experience as an Appraisal team members for a Software Development Quality Standard (CMMI), and not because i've graduated from MIT and managed hundreds of bombastic IT project before. i know nuts about semantics technology and i've to learn from scratch and yet still have to act confidently infront of the other stakeholders.

The fact is alot of hardworks has been poured into planning and managing the project of this size (big in money sense with 10 team members). However, its seems like my onshore team members are totally blind to the amount of effort me and others had poured in. From the first day i've taken up the role as Project Manager, i've told my team members clearly that what i need from them is not "yes mam, we can do it" (Every Indians said that) but professionalism. They will be given full freedom with minimal supervision as long as they are accountable for the tasks which was assigned, which is exactly what professionalism spell for.

And obviously they took the freedom that was given to them for granted.

I am not a racist person (in fact i have no issue with Malaysian Indian) , but i failed miserably trying to grasp and embraced the Indian working culture. All talk and no work is like getting blown by a gush of wind, i can feel it but there is actually nothing there!

God please forgive me for bearing such kind of emotions, i'm only human.

Alert

Just a short announcement here.

If you received any email from my yahoo account at susanong_83@yahoo.com this morning. Please kindly DELETE it!

Thanks to Wangyue for his kind reminder.

In fact, when i checked my corporate email, i found out that even i've received it myself at my corporate email account. The thing is it didnt occur to me that it's maybe a virus or what, i was thinking how on earth that i'm receiving an email from myself.

And i clicked on the link without second thought

Ok, my pc didnt crashed or puffing out smoke.

The fact is the realization (that it might be a virus) only hit me hard after the involuntary reflex. I might have lost my 3 years worth of works/data which i stored in my working pc, if its not because of this person, my colleague-Anthony, who is also the system administrator of my company. For the first time in the history, i'm so thankful to him for blocking all the .exe sites, of course, along with hundreds of other websites such as youtube.com, megaupload.com, torrent.com etc.

* Sigh *

Be careful what you wish for

I think my memory went from bad to worse as i'm aged.

Last night while watching "America the Wright way", the cheeky host Ian Wright mentioned this word 'metastasize' in his show. For some reason, my grey matter couldnt comprehend the word although it sounded so familiar, i tried to think in the contex but it still doesnt ring a bell. When i asked my walking dictionary, he has no clue either and brushed me off with a snort and "you and your big vocab!"

Thanks to my stupid pride, i refused to let go of the subject, it was totally un acceptable for a person who studied biology for 6 years unable to retrieve the meaning of a simple biological term. i couldn't searched online as Peter's internet setting needs to be re configured. Since I need to go back as it was getting late, I told Peter to search for me the word and he had totally forgotten that.

I know it sounded stupid, but for some reason, it bugged me, irked me the whole night. Ok maybe right before dozing off, my brain is automatically dis function when i'm sleepy.

This morning, the moment my laptop is on, i searched the word through google, and ta ta.... the search came back as "spread, usually refer to cancerous tumor".

And yes, my heart is finally at peace again.

It makes me think, is it true that the strength of memory is inversely proportional to the age? We always heard people saying: "opps, i've totally forgotten, getting old!", well, maybe there is some truth in this common exclamation.

I remembered reading Nicholas Sparks "The notebook", whereby this old lady was suffered from acute amnesia, and the husband will tell her their love story over and over again as he believed that he could bring back the lost memory of his wife. When i think of myself, there will be a day when my body cells started to degenerate, my neurons will be no longer sensitive towards stimuli. Will my heart still able to hold the memory of not just some biological terms and knowledge, but the memories of my love ones which i've cherished and treasured throughout my whole life?

I used to wish that i can look more matured (older), as i'd always being told that i looked too young and playful to be in my position. In fact, my boss always said that i'm ALMOST perfect, cuz i have the 2 A's-Attitude, Aptitude, but not the third A-Aged.

A reminder to myself to be careful with my words and wish, the day when its realized, it may no longer be what i wished for.

Reconciliation

I found another long lost friend today, Angeline. Blog really does wonders, arent you agree? ok i know Facebook is equally efficient in finding the boy sitting at the classroom corner whom you have secretly admired during the primary school days. But still, i am stubbornly sticking to my one and only way of virtual networking, which is this blog whom had faithfully accompanied me through the hype and low of my life for the past 5 years.

Anyway, back to my long lost friend, Angeline. She used to be my faithful benchmates, as we always sit together during lectures. Whenever i'm late for class, i'll have no worries cuz i knew she will reserved a seat for me. Back in those days, i dont have many friends from my own group, and she was the only friend who was able to tolerate my nerdiness throughout the 4 years of my college life. Shame on me, we used to be bff during my college years but we failed to keep in touch with each other the moment we waved goodbyes and stepped out of the college.

I must said that the official transit from a student to the world of adults really over whelmed me during that time, like a busy bee i've gluttonously absorbed whatever shits (ok, majorities are not) this new world offerred to me, which includes new friendship, new love interest, new hobbies such as culinary and travel, and the list goes on.

In a way it had also blinded me as i was too engrossed in the process of experimenting and exercising this newly found freedom. To the extent of ignoring my old mates, those who had accompanied me through a much significance and greater fraction of my life. Frankly, i think i've lost in touch with 90% of my ex college mate and school mates.

Apart from the mentioned reason, i need to admit that it actually has alot to do with my funny attitude as well. I'm a very private person to be frank. I do think that every person has his/her emotional comfort zone which he/she feel safe when its remain secluded and non-intruded. Imagine if someone suddenly stand too close to you, i bet you that all the cells in your body will start to itch as though there are ants crawling in your skin. The invisible line which you have subconsciously drawn to distance yourself from others is the physical comfort zone that i'm talking about.

Its the same with our emotional comfort zone, all of us have different perceived level of personal security. Most of the time we only allow ourselves to have emotional interaction with others up to a certain degree. You will be surprised to see a gentle person turns into a furious lion when their comfort zone was invaded. The best example is during confrontation times, especially when its related to a personal issue or a weakness in us which we are in total self deception. Because deep down inside we know that the revelation will strip us bare and leaves us no room to run away.

Well, i have went through once and lost a friend forever. I swore to myself i will never went through the same experience again. That's why I said that I am a very private person, there are not many friends i can be very open and frank with, or even to have a long sustained friendship with. And sometimes i prefer to be that way. We can hang out and share a good time together but there will be a boundary which he/she can never cross. A distance which defines my security and privacy.

Although i'm still very much the same Susan from 6 years ago, however, somewhere along the road i've opened my all to him without even realizing. He had taught me the joy of having no boundaries between two hearts, to be able to share not only thoughts but a life together.

Anyway, am still a very lousy friend, but at least i'd 'reconciled' with some of my old friends lately in the blogsphere. Bowl, Dorcas, and now Angeline, she who remembers my birthday every year without fail.

I'm so blessed to have you all.

Ps: Read Angeline's latest entry on lost and found just now, am having a good laugh as those "nerdy" days of ours were so vivid in my memory as though it only happened yesterday! Seriously, no one willing to accompany me to Pasar Seni other than you, my dear friend.

Since you uploaded my photo in your entry, i will return the favor as well. jeng jeng jeng

Ps2: Maybe Midvalley is a better idea, and this auntie is still not planning to create a FB account. muahahaha...

Pork, home food and Transformers

I'm caught in mad mad work frenzy for the past one week. Am working on a tender project plus getting the business plan/proposal done for a few clients. Obviously, its had greatly impacted the frequency i am updating the blog. Anyway, just a recap of what happening for the past few weeks.

Pork, pork, pork!

Went for a Shabu Shabu with Peter and my couples friends-Tong and Sam, Eve and Kah Leong a few weeks ago. This is the second time i'm there and the food is still as good as ever. Ok maybe the taste of the food was not explicitly unique since everything came raw, so it very much depend on how you wanna cook it as we have our own seperate pot. But the freshness of the food ingredients and its varieties are still there, in fact new food items were added into their menu, my favorite Century eggs, wo hoooo!

Another good thing is they have this sushi restaurant style conveyer belt which will deliver all the food items to your table effortlessly, how convenient is that!

We've enjoyed our food very much, but the companionship was even better.

.....

Last Saturday, Peter went for PD trip, so i had the weekend all for myself. Cooked some simple brunch and dinner for myself.

Malaysian Kopitiam style brunch: toasted bread with fried egg and a good cup of milo.

Dinner time i was having stir fry celery, toasted bread with self made bolognese sauce, and fried potatoes (with anchovies, onions and dry shrimps). Simple yet quite filling.

Thanks to Jenny's help, i've finally got the Transformers leader class miniature. Before you start wondering since when i picked up the hobby of keeping collectors item. Its not mine, bought it for my brother in law, since he said that he couldnt find any in Miri as it was out of stock.

Looks quite pretty for me, as it comes with the blades at the side of the arm and detachtable armour/suit. Anyway, Peter said its very plastic. But heck if its RM235 for a piece of plastic, thats a damn expensive plastic then.