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lunch today

went out for groceries and bought lunch back.

cheese burger from Five Guys. toppings are free, asked for grilled onions, mushrooms and jalapeno peppers. their burger is better than Carl Jr! didn't get their fries though, even though it is quite good! the problem is that their portion is so big that I will be OD on fries alone.

they serve free peanuts which I think is to encourage thirsty customers to buy coca cola and other soda drinks. which is relatively ex around $2 to $3 depending on size.

bought Utz potato chips from supermarket which I was told, is quite good!

new habitat

this will be my main habitat over the next 9 months! Johns Hopkins SAIS is a city campus like SMU, spread over several buildings in downtown DC.

after the first week of classes, I am adjusting back to the grad student frame of mind. going through readings of chapters and papers before each class. before long, I should be bog down with term papers and assignments...oh joy! the classes I'm taking are challenging and interesting, hope to update myself and learn more...

compared to the MA students (who are mostly fresh from college), we mid career people are generally older than the younglings...but I am finding out that I'm still learning new things from the young padawans...

aware of AWARE

Like most Singaporeans, I had been "aware" of AWARE and the good work of Constance Singam and Dr Kanwaljit Soin. until this recent "brouhaha", AWARE has always been there at the back of our minds. for most of us, it was just good to know that they were there, even though we might not be familiar with their day to day work or need their help. It was enough that we know that women’s issues in Singapore is well covered.

During one of our home visits back to Singapore, Robina’s ex-work friend X (not a close friend, only an acquaintance I would say) shared her family problems. Turns out that her husband had gone astray (ran away with Thai prostitute). Now X and husband were fighting for their children’s custody and the family flat (husband wanna sell). According to X, her husband has been violent (as in physically hit her).

However X , being a Christian, refused to divorce the cad. despite counselling from their pastor, the husband insisted on divorce. What was more shocking was when she told Robina that she had attempted suicide before. she was convinced that she could not win custody of her kids. I think X was using suicide to "convince" her errant husband to return. Robina heard from X that she was hiding her separation from her close friends. they were told that the husband was working overseas. This might explain why X poured out her troubles to Robina; while she could provide a listening ear since she was not from X's close circle of friends. all in all, it was a cry for help.

Even when Robina was still talking with X, she called me to check AWARE phone number (a quick google search). She referred X to AWARE. Robina thought that AWARE would be better placed to advise her friend on the legal issues as well as counsel her psychologically. We didn't know if X did seek out AWARE, I hope she did.

Singapore needs a group to champion women's issues. It should remain secular. Women who need help must have an avenue for assistance, and should not be discriminated for their sexual orientation, beliefs or creed. In the immortal words of Depeche Mode, "People are people, So why should it be, You and I should get along so awfully".

chicken weekend

we made chicken rice and two batches of grilled chicken over the weekend. now OD over chicken!
chicken stock for the rice.
two chicken legs: for plain boiled chicken
grilled chicken marinated in Home Gourmet Chicken Kai Yang spices.
boiled pork ribs for Sally. it came from the lotus root soup, with scallops and dried cuttlefish
for carbo: Sally is having brown rice with shitake mushrooms

ancestral tombs

My cousin from Guangdong sent me this photo of our ancestral tombs in Hua County, just outside Guangzhou City. My uncles and aunties and their families, (from my Grandfather's brother's side of the family) had visited the ancestral tombs during last Saturday's Qing Ming (or tomb sweeping) festival.

I visited our China relatives last year together with my parents. At that time, we only visited the ancestral home and the ancestral shrine (under renovation) but not the family's ancestral tomb site.

Seoul food parade

a quick preview of our food journey as requested by Peck Wai. I just downloaded the tourist guide and search for the makan joints.
first day lunch after touch down. mandukgul. dumpling soup (more like hot pot)
2nd day dinner: Tteokbokki at Sindangdong. rice cake with assorted vege and seafood.
3rd day dinner. BBQ!
last evening dinner at Noryangin seafood market: King crab, abalone and cockles.

The Great Dialect Debate

I spoke Cantonese my whole life in my family. but I discovered that I was tongue tied when I was in Guangzhou (or Kwong Chow in cantonese) last year visiting our relatives with my parents. their vocabulary and phrasing was so much richer. It was only about the third day that I was able to speak with my uncles and aunties much more effectively. Robina fared little better since she is Hokkien. but she is married into the family, so there was no expectations on her. Initially, she could just smile and sit there, no need to make small talk. but later on she could chat with our Grand Aunt in her Hokkien-accented Cantonese which nonetheless could impress my relatives.

I then realised that my Cantonese ability was probably adulterated by learning English and Mandarin despite the years of supplementary revision from watching HK TV serials :-). I also realised that my grandmother was probably using her kampong Cantonese dialect. She was from a village even more ulu than my supposed ancestral village Hua County (Fa Yun 花县); it's now called Huadu District (花都) very near to Guangzhou Baiyun Airport. my relatives told us that my grandmother's accent was different. yes, native speakers could tell the differences between Guangzhou Cantonese and those from surrounding villages in the boondocks...

However, I could connect much better my younger Guangzhou cousins since they have our same problem of being educated a foreign language: Mandarin. when all else fails, Robina and I could speak Mandarin to them!

everywhere I go in China, Singaporeans are praised (whether sincerely or not I'm not sure) about our language abilities, able to speak English, Mandarin and regional dialects like Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew and Hakka. It seems to me that we are losing one of our greatest assets in engaging China but severing our dialect origins and inherent language skills. learning or absorbing your own dialect in the laps of your grandfather or grandmother, is very much different from learning English or Mandarin in school. it's as much part of our culture and heritage as being Singaporean.

after a while in China, most Singaporeans will realise that even the Chinese don speak Mandarin in the official crisp CCTV accent (much like BBC English), at least not everyone. On the streets, you can hear a hodge podge of accents and dialects like Sichuan, Hunan, Anhui etc. some like Shanghaiese or Suzhou dialects sound like French to me? China is so big that every province and region have their own dialects and accents. for crying out loud, even the Brits have the own London, Scottish and Northeast accents...

IMHO, there's not much point in debating the merits of languages and dialects, especially when we in Singapore merely use languages as a mercenary economic tool. I can still remember every father, mother son in the 80s flocking to learn Japanese, but where are they now? if Eskimos are the next economic power, then we would probably be learning the language next. I don think anyone would serious advocate dialects to be taught in schools, but most responders were probably arguing for a rightful place for dialects as part of our heritage and culture.