eHomemakers Malaysia

What affect a child’s values -  education system or the family? CSC ponders. “What are you doing here?  You look like you are in pain!” An acquaintance bumped into me in a shopping mall.  My toes were hurting from the new sandals after an hour of search through the huge complex to find a particular ice cream parlor.  I wanted to treat my parents some low fat frozen yogurt that tastes like ice cream.  They have restrained from their favorite ice cream as they are wearied of the fat content. “You are always doing things I don’t understand……” She commented.  “Just get any ice cream from any store will do!  Why torture yourself like this? It is interesting to see you acting like a villager even though you have been educated and exposed overseas.....” By the time I found the store, there was a big, bloody blister on one of my toes.  I walked bare foot through the complex to the taxi stand with two tubs of frozen yogurt, attracting cur...

  Photo by Rhonwyn Hagedorn Although I was always a regular contestant for elocution contests in school, public speaking still gives me occasional butterflies in my stomach.   The most unnerving is impromptu speaking.   My whole body goes on alert whenever I have to give a speech on the spot because the scheduled speaker has just developed a sore throat or has just left due to a quarrel with his wife.  The first minute of the speech is the hardest.  My mind goes blank when I look out and see hundreds of pairs of eyes staring back at me.  Coming out with something meaningful and appropriate for the occasion in an audience of total strangers is more than just challenging. The most difficult time of all is when the organizers tell me to "lighten up the whole place so we don't all fall asleep".  Closing my eyes for several seconds, I often muster courage and inspiration by bringing myself back to the night when I was given thun...

In the morning of February 18, I connected to the Internet, after a week’s Chinese New Year holiday, to find tons of mail in my mail box.  I was in high spirit until I read a mail from an old friend, GG, who had not contacted me for over half a year.  She is living in the US now.   She has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer with no known cure. With treatment, she can have another 15-20 years. But the disease is going to sap her physical energy greatly. She wrote, “I hate to feel ‘bad’.  It is not me! There will be more tests, surgeries, and monthly injections of a chemical. I think I’m losing interest in life………no more adventures, no more cooking, no more lively conversations with strangers. “9-11 certainly caught everyone's attention where I live, it continues to stay ‘front and center’ in everyone's mind.  I have traveled by air since 9-11, and have felt secure - or was it just my fatalistic view.  When it's my time, it's my time....” ...

Photo by Tzer Haw I gave our orders to the kedai kopi proprietor as he wiped his sweaty forehead with a white Good-morning towel. Flipping it over his shoulder, he yelled to the back of the shop, “Kopi susu DU-A! (two milk coffee)” His round belly raised proudly into the air, almost bursting the threads on his white singlet. His powerful voice, reverberating within the four walls of the shop, came to a crescendo at the last word. Babara, my visiting Canadian friend, covered her ears with her palms. “Wow, he’s so loud!” “You ain’t see nothing yet! Watch how the man there makes our coffee!” I nudged Mary to turn her head to the back area of the shop. The man, dressed just like the proprietor, was standing in front of a big round bronze pot with cooking gas burning menacingly underneath. He grabbed the handle of a long bronze spoon and – Pang! -- flipped open the pot with the other hand. Boiling water bubbled noisily inside. Without a single grimace at the mass of s...

(CSC finds out that the most precious gift a Chinese mother can give to a daughter during mid-Autumn festival is not just moon cakes, but to teach her to dream freely. She recalls an inspiring story which led to her parenting of her daughter.) An American friend, Ger, told me why he became an electronics engineer for a high-tech Silicon Valley firm in California. “I was about six years old when I saw the Apollo 11 moon landing on our old black-and- white television. The men in their strange helmets and suits mesmerized me. Watching them pressing numerous buttons and floating around weightlessly, I asked my Dad who they were. He said they were called astronauts and that they were inside a thing called rocket. Men who built rockets were called engineers. “When the program was over, I was so fascinated that I told my parents I wanted to go inside a rocket and do the same thing. I remembered my Mom said as she hugged me, “Of course you can be an astronaut. You can be anything you want!”...

Several years ago, a reader in Kuching wrote to “Mind your English” in Section 2 expressing his shock about my usage of “Don’t forget to eat your breakfast” in one of my stories. It should be “Don’t forget to have your breakfast,” he insisted. Then, two other readers wrote to back me up. One said, “It is perfectly good English, regardless of what the breakfast consists of – pills or otherwise.” I had just come back from Thailand then, having been fed sumptuous food day and night. All that talk about the word “eat” in English reminded me of several incidences where its various usage within the context of other words (directly translated from native languages or pronounced wrongly in English), had caused humorous misunderstandings. The most memorable incidence occurred the first time I visited Thailand. I was staying in a back-packer’s hotel where the rooms were actually small grass huts by the beach. The proprietor was also the cook in his ‘restaurant’– his big gra...

I invited Claire, a Canadian friend, over for dinner. "Is there anything you can't eat?" I asked. Claire was happy that I asked. "I don't eat anything inside the body, anything that hang from the body, anything above the neck, anything inside the head or anything that flows!" I laughed. "This is a long list. How do you come out with this food guide?" Claire who had lived in several countries told me why she developed this food rule. " I am a farm girl, I like my meat and potato!   "My local hosts were very hospitable. They gave me the best foods within their means or from their cultural perspectives. I couldn't eat some of the foods because I wasn't used to them. But I couldn't offend my hosts with my refusal. There were many memorable occasions where I had to gulp down strange foods with all my might! I now tell someone ahead of time what I can't eat to avoid embarrassing moments." Claire wa...