engrish country vs msian kampung wedding

I have 2 BBC distant cousin sisters. Those years, going to england to pursue nursing is like a dream job for my mom and people her generation. My mom was not allowed to go. Her cousin brother, lets call uncle wong and his wife (family from a really small village near Taiping) went ahead.

Fast forward to 2008. This evening, I attended their eldest daughter wedding dinner at a chinese restaurant. Her wedding reception and church wedding at Oxford with her gweilo husband was so... as englishy-country as you can ever imagine.

The thing abt my maternal grandma side of the family is they're all very close, and they like to have big family gatherings, and there will be lotsa noise and yakking and comparing and ... noise. Well old people actually appreciate noise. What's kampung-grown-family-reunion without the noise?

Uncle wong was so dramatic when one of his niece started to get ready for a kiddie-chinese-karaoke song, on stage. He practically shoo-ed them off stage. *cut it off*

Since appalling karaoke was a no-no to the englishy-people, and there was also no background music, not even pop ballads to fill the air. It was so odd, the wedding dinner, organised by the father whose probably afraid of scaring his son-in-law off. My parents and I were even contemplating on going up to the stage to grab the mic and ask for a thankyou speech from uncle wong.

There was no sign of the couple going on stage to make a yum-seng toast. I subtlely suggested to the other uncle wong that I volunteer to take group photo for each table, with the couple going round to each table.

Ahh... almost at the last dish... the newly-wed couple got up and went to the nearest table, thinking to take group photo, but everybody at the table stood up lifting their glass of tea or wine... and after I've finished snapping the group-table photo, they just instantly go "Yaaaaammmmm SENG"!

I think that must have caught the gweilo by surprised! I hear him asking how to say the word... he learnt quickly... and smiling... they went round to all other tables doing the same thing. Then the mood of the whole dinner begun to lighten up. With more cheers, louder laughing, the out-doing other table in shouting Yaaammm SENG!

It's not so bad afterall, my dad mumbled. The gweilo is enjoying himself!

And the horrible thing happened, one of the I-think-I-can-sing-very-well uncle from another family went up the stage to sing Karaoke in cantonese and hokkien songs. I think he did it on purpose. I guess uncle wong cannot control anymore -- what's a chinese kampung family wedding dinner without karaoke sung horribly by a loud uncle?

Yet, all eyes were on the 'entertainer' on stage. Old ppl were smiling, my grandma was even clapping her hand away. One of the song he sang was "cha-siao-bao"... go figure.

There's nothing much Vanessa talked about with me, when I went over to sit beside her to try to chat up. She's the only cousin from my maternal grandma family, who's about my age. Who got married first (for my generation). The rest of the cousins are toddlers, in primary & sec school, and a few school leavers.

She managed to show me her wedding pictures taken back in England (you gotta pronounced it the British way), I definitely must rave about the bride's hand bouquet in the photo, the colour combination is similar to this pic and added with calla lily flowing to the front.

I asked "how much did this bridal bouquet cost?"
"300 pound. It's by a designer florist. And the whole floral package including the table arrangements, the bridemaid's bouquet & corsages turned out to be 1000 pound."

*grasp* Wong Mun Yee where are you?! Should you go UK to do your floral design business?!

So on this wesak-eve, I attended the weirdest family wedding dinner ever.

I'm most intrigued by the differences in the wedding couple's family background.

Mom said (of course it has to come from my mom, she's the #1 kaypoh of the entire clan) the husband comes from a rich reputable scholarly family, the grandfather is a professor at Oxford Uni, their family lives in a big mansion. Their wedding reception was held at their own beautiful garden. Husband is a Catholic, so they exchanged vows in her own Oxford Harry-Potter-liked hostel church.

So intrigued, I replied "my grandfather was a book seller!" and my dad greefully add on "oh yes my father was once a lorry driver too!"

And looking at my mom I said "my other grandpa was a taxi driver!" My parents both laughed.

Through the years of knowing Vanessa and her younger sister Charlotte, should I be envious of them? Both sisters graduated from Oxford uni, Vanessa is now a medical doctor and Charlotte graduated as a lawyer now based in London. I onced enquired (sometime ago), the first year of her practise as lawyer, her pay would be as high as my then Accenture manager, after converting pound to ringgit.

Nah... not envious. Cos we're just from two very different world. Imagine during the dinner, my family of four, were assigned to the same table as another family, who all cannot speak English and were very lowly educated. I couldn't even explain in chinese language what do I work as. I tried say IT services in chinese... "tian nao fu wu" all of them were turning head... one even try to clarify.. "you install computer?" ... ahh yes I said... and also "repair when people make phone call". Ohh..... they could finally figure out. The guy beside me exclaimed he's working as "repair photostate machine". Ahhh.... it was as awkward talking to my relatives from this lowly-educated family vs as astounding talking to Vanessa's family.

Chinese saying ~ compare with the higher, you have less; compare with the lower, you have more.

Be thankful, be happy, living the moment. Happy Wesak Day!

Just typical of ppl? Or its just me.

You know what I can't stand abt certain ppl, when you're lining up to pick your dish / vege, like lining up to buy 'economy-rice', the people infront of you will take their own sweet time, to pick and choose, and pick and choose, and think.. errm... put the soy sauce on the rice, then cover the egg on the rice, then put the soysauce on the egg... then since its same price wether you take 1 saugage or 3 sausages, might as well take all 3 of it.. and tell your friends about it..

and you're there standing behind - waiting. You know how fast I scoop my rice and add the telor with some ikan bilis and cucumber and pay?

The world is testing my patience.

Townhouse

Just as I thought I could never find any link for this townhouse that I viewed last Saturday, *phew* here's one. The agent have her own blog! :P(the ground flr unit we saw with hse no. 8-1)

Ok this info is also for my friend who's hoping to be my new neighbour! wakakaka... (at time of blogging, I stil don't know what's the developer name)

And why was it so hard for me to FIND any info from google?! Cos I was searching for "Merdu Impian" the name is actually "Merdu Idaman" DOH!!!

Found a link to the architect.

Basically the look & feel is cool, modern nice looking... wait until you hear this :: Maintenance Fee is rm0.15/ft2. Whoah.. like built-up of 1500ft2 is RM225!

If monthly loan repayment is RM1400, have to add another RM225 every month.

~*~

Anyway, here's some info abt townhouses ::

The fact is that there are two types of townhouse & both are on residential land :
1. without facilities
2. comes with facilities (what we saw is this!!)

(1)
- link hse bldg design
- Each lot will have two strata titles (subdivided into lower & upper unit).
- Maintenance of common areas are under Local Authorities.
- Besides assessment fee there is no maintenance fees & sinking fund
- Billing of water & elec will be just like for other houses.
- ie. Townhouse @ Hartamas, Bangsar & Sec 7 Shah Alam.

(2)
- Either link hse or apt/condo bldg design
- One block title will be subdivided into strata titles for the # of units in the development.
- Maintenance of common areas are under property mgmt.
- Maintenance fees & sinking fund are payable apart from assessment fee.
- With facilities such as security, sports, lavish soft & hardscape, etc.
- Perimeter fencing.
- No alteration to bldg facade is allowed.
- Billing of elec will be just like other houses.
- Billing of water is similar to apt/condo in which SYABAS will issue a bill on the bulk meter to prop mgmt. Subsequently, billing of household usage is done by prop mgmt based on sub-meter reading.*
- ie. Townhouse @ Sunway Damansara, TTDI & Templer Park Resort.

Can I disappear?

You know how annoying it is when my aunties are around. Mother's day dinner is just over. They are still complaining about the vege dishes esp the one the captain recommended -- green chili. Sighh... somehow I found similarity btwn D and my spinster aunts. If I can't stand my mom 5x, I think I can't stand my aunts 10x. I know I shouldn't say bad things abt my own family, but its very very very very brrrr... I'm counting the time now, see how long they're STILL going to "talk" about the "dinner" being expensive / wait too long / weird dishes / unexpected / could have gone to Kepong / should have gone to Malay restaurant.

"mj! why the room got so many mosquito?"
"what has the room with so many mosquito gotta do with me?"

"mj! where is the whiteboard? why didn't put it back after use?"
"its upstairs just bring it down" (*im physically at another far corner of the city, don't even think of asking me to come over to rescue*)

"ah joon-ah! why choose this restaurant? why order this fry green chili?"
"its not me, ask my parents."

"ah joon-ah! are you going to pay the bill? how are we going to split the bill? count by per head minus grandma?"
"my dad will pay, my mom will count."

"You buy this BodyShop gift for me, so expensive why you buy?"

(*its a mother's day gift, I know its so easy to buy u, just by buying u a gift, and don't ask me why expensive I buy??!!!?!*)

Sometimes, I do wish I can vanish from the face of this earth.

~*~

On another note, I had this visual of my own funeral, no its not a sad one, I was trying to 'scare' ppl off while lying dead in the coffin suddenly I 'awaken' and go "boo!" LOL *crazy*

Then I thought, I could not do that unless I'm not dead. Brrrr.... So anyway, first night-wake will have Theravada monks chanting, 2nd night Tibetan lama chanting, 3rd day morning Mahayana monks chanting. During the 1st night, there'll be Buddhist friends coming over to sing hymns... (I thought why is it so christian-style funeral?) but nevermind, it'll be cool to have nice sweet melodious igemz sing-along-songs, ie. my beautiful friend, blessings, thankful...

I think my parents going to go nutz over my imaginative-funeral.

~*~

I want to sort so many things out during this 2 months...
- making sure every committee do all the things they are supposed to do for idc without having me imaginatively pull my hair.
- don't lose my cool no matter what.
- aspire for capable leader(s) to emerge to carry on with the idc torch run.
- try to complete the bisds newsletter before I go Borobudor.
- try to maintain my strenght at work to solve unavoidable stupid problems before I can wholeheartedly quit.
- try to get volunteers for wiff happening in june.
- try to follow up with new bgf initiatives. (bgf yearly calendar? incovar website? D&D publicity? membership card? bunting?)
- follow up with bisds story telling, chanting, hymn singing competitions happening in july.
- organise bisds zone 7 (staff from PJ) fellowship dinner.
- go to Borobudor retreat with a peaceful mind and free heart, 2 weeks after idc.

~*~

May my heart be peaceful & free.
May my mind be happy.
May my body be healthy.
May I be well & happy.

+ve begets +ve

In this blog post after the IGC, I wanted to share something that I had no chance to ask.. well I almost wanted to ask bro WF when he was explaining how to tackle office politics... he said "Nah! May you be well and happy!"

Err... I'm not sure if I really got that. How can I taichi back to an arsehole and still say 'may u be well and happy' and mean it? Did he mean it when he said it? Dr. Ong definitely encouraged us and really want us to mean it...

Maybe I'm afterall a beginner in Metta meditation... or I've lost touch with radiating metta (to enemies), I find it so hard to genuinely imagine ^%^%$#@% of my office and smile and send metta sincerely to them. Bro THC said we should try to avoid 2-face ppl, as Buddha even said don't associate with the fools. Did Buddha also mean don't bother to send metta to fools? But we're disassociating with them... so why still bother send them metta?

Then I assess myself... and the secret work... how positive begets positive... why I don't feel / think positive at work... due to my own speech... because I've hardly give positive speech or think positively abt fools. Yes... unfortunetly I never took AT's career philosophy "never let anything happen by chance". The stupid reason that I'm staying in this company although surrounded with fools... is due to the convenient distance. Then when faced with unavoidable office politics and working alongside 2-face ppl.... I subconsciously prevented myself from having metta and peace towards all beings. I let "chance" put me in situation where I find it extremely tough to send positive vibes towads work-people. And with law of karma - what goes around comes around -- so I can't expect or blame it why other ppl always have the luck / opportunity while I don't!

If I follow the way of nature, or universal law... of positive begets positive... I must say nice things to ppl... (no matter hoooooooowwwwww HAARRRDDDDD) then more ppl will reciprocate! Even for ppl who's never met me but have to deal with me thru phone and emails... The law will conspire its forces to make me more likeable and be less of a threat to ppl... and eventually make my whole working life wonderful & rewarding!

You know all these while... all I do is to avoid shooting people... avoid saying nasty things.. controlling myself from not kutuk ppl... so it's not bad but there's nothing good! How do I learn to compliment people, how do I learn to speak with tact & empathy, how to say things that people like to hear, how to advise people nicely without making ppl deem stupid...

It's like investing in the merit-bank, I've not put in any positive merits but I also stay out of debts, which means... the merit-bank account is still zero. It's not negative neither its positive! If I wanna hope and wish and aim to be positive-energy-rich... I must invest with the right positive effort! Do more dana, speak more good words (& try to mean it)....

Bro. THC asked "at the end of the day, what do you want OUT of your life?" not so much on what do you want in life.

I guess to answer that -- that's why I am where I am today ;)

*i remember when I was young & naive, all I wanted was to become a UN volunteer, and to achieve that (coming from a middle-class family), I must work very hard to earn lotsa money to support myself when I don't get a salary in being a volunteer, enough money to support me up till old age -- so I wished I was rich*