Is it me.

Wok with Bob.


I was at the McDonald a few days ago.....I had McChicken...and I was SURPRISED!.....it didn’t taste quite the same....it wasn’t quite so delicious...
.............it tasted a far cry from my first bite of the McChicken I have had the pleasure to indulge some twenty years ago ..........and also now the chicken patty was somewhat less...somewhat smaller....somehow thinner.........and the spinach
......less crunchy....less salad....and LESS.

..or is it me..

The next time ...I have the McChicken.... will be a few months later....and if it doesn’t change for the better.....that will be the Last time. [ Hope some McDonald’s Clowns read this.....]

I remembered when I was little (4years and on)......I look forward to my mother given birth to all my younger siblings ...(and never stop giving birth).........memorably it was one of the most satisfying moment because I get to eat all the good stuffs .........that relatives and friends brought for my mother during her confinement.
........... heehee...Yum.. mummy is a very fussy eater...and I had everything else....like the chocolates......Brands.......Dom Perignon cooked with Chicken and loads of Gingers ...Ovaltines , the cocoa drink I missed so much .....and MOST of all I missed the Jacob’s cream crackers....I craved so much.

I just cannot explain the deliciousness ......it was so good then............and...
....Over the years, I bought Jacobs on and off....hoping to get that deliciousness......sadly, it never ever came near as being quite as good as.................Oh! how I miss the creamy deliciousness of the golden years.

...or is it me......

I don’t think so!

I made a yearly pilgrimage, so to speak , to the Kampar Noodle Stall about 200 km from where I stay....My father took me here when I was young...his father brought him there ....I took Sam here to savor the honest-to-goodness bowl of fish balls noodles....and I brought my children here....


It tasted just as delicious...maybe not quite so.....but it was still satisfyingly just as good.

The stall was managed by the old matriarch ...who has been operating here for the past 50 years.......those days she was helped by her late husband and during the school holidays by her children....
..............Her children are all professionals ...receiving the best education financed by the Matriarch’s Enterprise........Many of her children have their own family and staying away in the city...and some emigrated abroad.

The Matriarch stayed with one of the children once for a very brief period...she couldn’t take the inactivity.....and she returned here to do the business that had serve her and the family so well....and she DOES all the preparation by herself......she is in her mid-70s....
........That might explained the slight dip in the deliciousness of her famous “Kampar Fish Balls Noodles”....an institution in this small town...known by all in this country.


Is it me?
No ..my taste bug hadn’t change....
...........profitability replaced honest-to-goodness deliciousness.

Wok with Bob.

“Wok with Bob” is about my favourite past time.......EATING.



After weeks of feasting running up to the New Year 2010.........and the banquets for the pre-Chinese New Year Celebration .........and... the associate companies annual dinners
.... and the family gathering luncheons....and........and........the Sundays morning breakfast bash ......and the midnight snacks ..... suppers ...

..... I have had enough of good food and fine cuisines... ......so when an invitation to dine with friends at the fringe of the jungle on some weird wildlife... I accepted the invitation without reservation.

On that particular day I arrived at the destination 5 hours later .... getting there was half the fun as I enjoyed the country drive........I saw cows .........goats............
....chickens.......and one “ jungle crab” running across the road......and some big birds that look like Turkeys... (I don’t know)....maybe Ostriches....
....... tiger poohs on the beaten tracks (very strong smell)......and the bigger poohs must be the elephant’s .....and yes.........I saw some buffaloes.

I met my friends at another friend house which doubled up as a restaurant.........I was very happy to see them and after exchanging some pleasantries....we got down to serious business...that is to FEAST.

We had ...Curry Wild Boar ........Braised Venison........Herbal Snakes.......with lots of Beers
.........I didn’t touch the Paprika fried Squirrel...because I saw the preparation and I shot a video clip of it....It was too Cute to be eaten.....sniff!

I might want to be a vegetarian one day.....maybe...eating less meat for now.





..

Money..money..Money..

..Money money Money

..it’s a rich man world!!!!!

This must have the quietest Christmas ever....for the first time in as many years I have no invitation to a party...dinner......luncheon.......from friends and relatives because they are not celebrating due to financial difficulties.

I looked around me ...the neighbourhood.....the streets.......I can hardly see any decorations....Christmas trees...........people are just not celebrating......even the midnight Mass saw less people judging from the cars park along the road soulders......

There weren’t any sounds of gaiety ....crackers....christmas caroling...........save a few songs here and there from the television...

...most restaurants were not doing well .......no reservation is needed......less clientele even if there is ...they went for the less expensive.....mainly very tight fisted.

Where is faith ...is it so shallow.......it is all about money.....is it!

.........I remembered the good times...when they sang praises.......when they wept with joy .....of their love for God.....when they hug one another in the name of brotherhood.........sisterhood.......of.....their Paradise......

...I remembered also their devotion.....their love...their sigh...their incoherent sound of praises.....chit...cit...ha....

....... and then money ran out........... All is quiet .......this Silent Night.

...the Economic crunch got the better....God is feeling the pinch too!


...........and in another word.....“who is God to these people...God or money.”


I read once, How the Government expects the people to be loyal when they have no money to buy flags.........in another words....do not expect the citizen to be loyal when their stomachs are empty.......the same holds true for the so called “Reborn...”

I am a Chinese....then a Buddhist.......I made no pretense....I am not Holier than thou type........Money makes the whole go round...that’s the fact...

Like most Chinese....money is our Religion.....to most, Money is everything...to some, Money is the only thing....... and ...we strive for it.......we pray for it ...we pray to it..
Worshipping money unashamedly .....It’s OUR GOD!.......FULL STOP.

...to a Chinaman....”No Money, No Honey”...that simple.


I differ from the norm.....and deviate a little from the stereotyped Chinese...to me ....“Money means Financial Independent”....so that I do not have to worry about all the earthy things associated with money......it means Freedom of the heart and soul..... to be able to concentrate on doing social work......to meet peoples....to help people....
...to serve Humanity in my own capacity.

..and in another word.......Money makes me HUMAN....(so to speak).

( which holds true...look around you...Bill Gates and the like..)


I end this with a note of wisdom (perhaps, love) ....

...“When poverty knocks on the door, love flies through the window.”


Happy New Year to you all...let the coming year be a productive one for you and me.

Love......Robert.



......some of the Children I met....it touches my heart a lot to see brotherly and sisterly love.....their parents are hawker, selling fried fritters down the road.

Autumn in my heart.

I was inspired to do this edition by Anita.......and frankly I didn’t know exactly where to begin as I am from a country with no seasons.....so I scan through the file and found a picture that might just do the trick ....I had a tough time because....... I am committed play the naked lights masquerading in forms.......the Art of my calling.



“.....What is Autumn without the colours.......the soft champagne hue of romance.........the yielding tint of love...............with a tinge of nostalgia in a blend shades of melancholy......the falling leaves of the days went by....

......of the youth that seeped by leaving trace memory of tenderness ...too painful to secede .................too beautiful to forsake...........In the yesteryears of our dreams....

.....autumn expresses a longing in solitude....an intimate private moment held in suspension...
..........inclusively in selflessness.......... yet unyielding in exclusivity......... that my autumn remains just a figment of imaginary read ....constructed in moods....captured by sentimentality..........................

........only to remain.....the ‘Autumn in my heart’...................”

An open letter to my future husband.

Dear future husband,

Even though I don’t know exactly who you’ll be yet. I think of you often. I wonder how you’re living your life now. It matters to me because how you live your life now determines the kind of man I’ll spend the rest of my life with.

Apparently for some bizarre reason, manhood doesn’t come automatically for males. Some guys seem to spend their entire lives trying to “prove their manhood” – by hunting, playing sports, driving fast, and unfortunately, by having sex. It seems rather strange to us women that guys think having sex proves they are men. To us it just proves they have reached puberty.

Becoming a man is a much more complicated process. The funny thing is, even in this day and age, most guys want to marry a girl who respects her sexuality. A guy doesn’t like the idea of his future wife in the backseat with someone else, or of her being the subject of a sexual conquest story in the locker room. They’ll brag about girls like that, but they won’t marry them. They want to marry a girl who has never “done it”, who recognizes that sex speaks of forever, committed love – someone like me.

But why would I want to marry someone like that – someone who wants to marry a virgin but spends his youth robbing other girls of their virginity? He’s not a “real man” in my eyes – he’s a selfish, immature boy driven by insecurity, not love.

I want more from you. I want you to respect your sexuality as much as I respect mine.

I want you to really learn to love. Learning to love is learning to put the other first. A guy who messes around outside of marriage isn’t putting the good of the other first. He’s putting the girl at risk of pregnancy. He’s putting himself at risk of some nasty diseases – diseases he can then pass to his wife.

A real man doesn’t let his desires control his actions. He controls the desires instead. I want you to develop self control. That’s important to me. I don’t want to marry a man who can’t control himself. Men like that make lousy husbands.

When I meet you I want you to be a man who has made a conscious decision to wait – out of love for our future family and commitment to marriage. I want you to be a real man, who has developed the self control, maturity and unselfishness that waiting brings. That will make you a better husband, and a better father.

I’ve abstained from sex all these years, and saying “no” hasn’t always been easy. I’m sure it wasn’t always easy for you either. But it will make our marriage so much stronger.
Sex will be our gift to each other. It belongs to us; not “us and everyone else we have ever dated”

Thanks for waiting for me. I promise you won’t regret.


Author unknown.

A good cry.

I was watching a Korean Drama with Sam.......it was a tear jerker....we got teary eyes.
It was so touchingly sad.....I thought love is beautiful and all things good.....I didn’t know love hurts that much...and it was so painful.... [ It got me thinking ].

.......and yet behind this pain and beyond this heartbreak ... is love at its best...a love so beautiful and divine.....It was this fabled pain that brought on to me the capacity to understand love as .........an intense passion insulated paradoxically ......enveloped in compassion ............and to know love in its painful perimeter....a aide memoire ...the consequential humanity.........a human being.

...but wait!!

I/we am/are man......we don’t watch dramas...we want action....we demand gory.......we watch Rambo.......we go bar hoping....we go chick hunting.....we boo...we fight...we swear.......and more.....much more.....

We, men are the sole-agent of God......executing decree in God’s name....and in God’s name the wholesale murdering of the innocents as collateral damage.......sacrificing one’s life to further the glory of god.....thus..
....claiming impunity to man’s law in accordance to God’s Will........the omnipotent to act notwithstanding the consequence......the sorrow of the living....and of those left behind...

We are Man first.... then human being..........destroying everything in our path to satiate a desire to stamp ownership of Mother Earth and beyond........to claim mastery over all living things.........to play God in God’s name.

...because we can...We are man.


...are we forgetting something!........God can be woman too.


I love musicals and dramas.... we were watching “Winter Sonata”...........I became human again....after a good cry.

Girls and tidbits.

I wrote once that when I was little, my mother took me to a fortune teller to have my palm read. The Monk told my mother that I have flower power. I took to believe that I was irresistible to girls, I was wrong. He was wrong, the Monk.

The actual truth is that I am always outnumbered by girls, at times overwhelmingly outnumbered, like in my family. Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining, girls are some of my best friends.

It is just that the hormonal requirement in me behaving like a homing pigeon seeking the company of the “boys will be boys camaraderie” and the need to check against the benchmark of being a male specie.

As a matter of fact, I am enjoying myself in their company because through my close association with the ladies, I understood the male role in their domain and the behavioral consequence of their monthly stupor that I once wrote as the second worst thing about being the male in female world.

I also wrote that I have mastered the art of disappearance, during those trying period, of the ability to blend in with the furniture and the wisdom to be “seen not heard” and “heard not seen”

What I didn’t write was the worst thing about being the male in the female world and the taste buds acquiring the liking of the lady that male specie wouldn’t be caught dead with:- the love for Dom Perignon instead of Whisky, the craving for all things sour and sweet and worst, tidbits.

I love tidbits......all sort...sour....preserved...sweet...salty and more. ..
[ munching and sucking the deliciously sour preserved mango now ]



I took a detour to the wonderland of tidbits to do a short video clipping.

New found love..

We celebrated Sam’s (my wife) birthday pigging out at one of the swanky joint offering buffet in ‘all-you-can-eat’ Japanese and ‘fusion’ cuisine. The “kiasu” - thou shall not lose – mode kick in and I was in a combative mood trying to eat all I can to recoup the initial investment besides pure gluttony. I am ashamed of myself but it was FUN with a capital and fun I did have stuffing myself with all those ‘to-die-for’ cuisine. It was suicidal.

Kamikaze – come to think of it.


The story today is about my new found love...the love at first bite...the craving for an ala carte sourish spicy ‘green curry’ seafood cuisine ...the Tom Yam. I have developed the craving a few months back when Sam insisted that I take a sip of the spicy soup that she had loved for years, one sip there was no turning back. It was love at first sip to be more appropriate.

The perfectionist that I am...the fastidiousness of my character drove me to seek the best bowl of Tom Yam that I could find and each gastronomic journey lifted the taste buds to a higher level. I deciphered the ingredients of each bowl of Tom Yam and fed the information to Sam.

Today, Sam makes the best bowl of Tom Yam...an enticing blend of saltiness to accentuate the sourish soup in fiery spiciness of deliciously sweet seafood herbal brew.

Oh Heaven!......Sam is cooking fried noodles with Tom Yam paste....NOW!!!!!! 8.08pm.


November 20, 2009 – Friday.

Next door to Alice.

In the family old house...we had a neighbour staying right behind us...and there lives Alice.

.....in Alice’s backyard were Rambutan trees (hairy strawberry)... ....my sibling and I would steal the fruits during the seasons.....and Alice would come out to chase us away....it went on for years......like a game of cat and mouse.

As we grew older...my sisters would chat with her over the thick fencing undergrowth............they became friends.......... I have never seen her in person....I mean..............how she looks like........

..........there were times when I saw her walking home from school..........she was always in front...............................

..over those years...... we became friends ....we chatted .......cracked jokes.....[never to see her face]......................realized that she was a caring and kind person.........and I like her friendship..................she was a few years my senior.


..One fine morning.....she called me when I was at the back...

Robert...Robert......bye!......
......see you!...I am going to Australia.


That was the last time.....I heard from her......and of her......
.............30 years ago today.



Alice...if you chance upon this site...say Hi! to me...


I chance upon a situation with the song “Living next door to Alice” over the radio and made a short video clip that somehow fits appropriately. ....The ‘lady’ in it is the perfect representation of the girl whom I knew as Alice.....a girl whom I never know the look.



.....for Alice.

The week that was...

Chinese wedding dinner was never on time....and is always late.


During my grandfather time...it was late because some of the guests arrived on foot.......some on bullock carts.......some trekked through jungle.......most do not have watch and relied on the sun’s position.....

...but dinner back then was a full day affair.


During my father’s time.....dinner was still late....though there was public transport...and many haves cars..........

People do not arrive on time.. (to save face).... because they do not want to be seen as desperately hungry for a good meal they could not afford......so they purposefully arrive late.........to signify one has plenty to eat all the time.......at the same time get notice by the guests already there...........................and it inflates their self-importance.

.....and dinner starts eventually...2 hours or more later......


During my time.....on the invitation card....Dinner start: 7pm sharp.

[ I arrived at 7.15pm. .........the 1st. to arrive ]

..............and dinner still starts late....even on a Sunday!!

People feel uncomfortable being on time because they will be greeted by a full platoon of Host’s family members...and they probably couldn’t remember the names of who....and who-is-who...

.....and the more pertinent reason is that people expect the dinner to start late.......
So...no need for excuses..........everybody taking their own sweet time.............and be fashionably late.......


.....dinner starts eventually at 8.30pm

.....by that time the host and family would have stood fashionably for 2 hours at the main entrance since 6.30pm to welcome the arrival of the guests.


I had a great time feasting with my family members and friends.....no beggar’s chicken was serve.....in its place was the roasted suckling pig...delicious.........and we had ‘18yrs. Chivas Regal’ .....Sumptuous!!


As if the price to pay for my indulgence....I was struck by the flu bug on Wednesday...I suffered terribly from body aches ....more so because I was into weight training the day before...and the 10km run on Monday [ to make up for the gluttony on Sunday ].

Consulted the Doctor....he prescribed anti-biotics.....muscle relaxant ..... ponstan (for the pain)....antacid for the acidity.....and 2 days off.

......I continued working as I couldn’t afford to rest........with all the bills to be paid...the children’s education.......daily expenses..........staffs pay.......rentals......incidentals.......installments........bank charges..........and so on..........my food bill........beers.........Dr.Kanda (the Vet)..........dog’s food.......Trusty’s Fido Dog soap..
.....Whisky’s food list...and....and........:faint:


I posted a video clip on a slide show of the bride and groom.......to show you all how it is done here....and for all you aspiring photographer..... it might inspire you to the next level.
....see the professional at >> talkthreetalkfour.blogspot.com


*I am feeling better now.