CNY 2010

Reunion dinner in Kuantan, 1st day in Kuantan, 2nd and 3rd day in Klang, 4th day in Ipoh, 5th day in Pangkor Island, 6th day in Ipoh again and finally, I was back to student house in Bandar Utama again… This is the end of CNY celebration with family members but it was truly a wonderful celebration…I cherished every moment I spent with them and I really enjoyed it…

This year CNY was slightly different from the one I used to have. It’s not the way we celebrated it had changed but our thinking. The way we think will determine our action. We still gambled and eat a lot, we still pay a visit to our friends and relatives, but we no longer … …

Last time, I used to sit on the sofa, waiting for the reunion dinner to start. All my aunties were busy preparing for the dinner but I take no action to lend them a helping hand. This year, I took the initiative to help them. I swept the floor, arranged the chair, washed the mushroom and so on. They appreciated my assistance and I feel satisfied for being able to reduce their burden.
Last time, I used to gamble and eat for the whole day. This year, my cousins and I chose to “sacrifice” some of our gamble time to help our aunties made kuih. Two generations of people gathered around a table, chit-chatted and made jokes while learning how to make pau and Ang Kat Toh, WOW! This was such a heart-warming and sweet scene…Originally, pau is round in shape and has either smooth or split surface, but we came out with all kind of shapes of pau – curry puff, pillow… We enjoyed the pau-baking session and we even came out with some tricks to trick the gentlemen who didn’t do anything except to eat…but sad to say that we failed to trick them except my elder brother!

Last time, when I visited my 1st uncle house (mother side), I always sit alone at the corner watched TV while enjoying the cookies. But this year, I took the first step to start a conversation with my cousin. In the end, we had a nice chat with each other and some of our memory during childhood flowed into our mind again. At night, we even played poker cards together. For 19 years I had know them, this was the first time I gambled together with them.

Last time, I used to have long chat with my cousin Mian Yi until late night. It’s a must for us to do so no matter how sleepy we are as it’s our tradition. This year, we still keep to this tradition but we had not much thing to tell each other already. We used to have heart-to-heart talk about the problems we encounter and most of them are related to relationship and family problems. This year, we still chatted about the same topic but both of us had not much stories to share already. Anyway, this is nothing bad but a good sign as we have less relationship and family problems now.

Happy Chinese New Year!

CNY in Klang again but...

Supposedly, this year i wouldn't be able to celebrate CNY in Klang with my whole bunch of relatives BUT eventually, i managed to persuade my mum to give us the green light to have our CNY celebration in KLANG once again...Yippy!Hoorey! Mission completed, finally! I was in cloud nine when i heard the word "YES" from my mother...i would have missed my cousins and the prosperous CNY atmosphere in my cousin house...We chit chat, we play pocker card, we go shopping, we go karaoke... ...CNY in Klang is always the festival that i anticipated the most...

But, something still bordering me even after my mum had agreed to follow us to Klang...I knew she did it just for me or she will never give in..She has been protesting for many years not because she doesn't like our relatives but she feels boring just sitting in the house, watching us playing (gambling) all the time...She is not interested in this type of game and while eveyone is having fun, she just have her buttock sticks to the sofa...she is not happy. i know it and i can truly understand that kind of feeling as i have experienced it before (but not in this case)...FOr many years, she has been suppressing her own unhappiness for the seek of our happiness...This year, since the day before i left Kuantan to BU again, she has told me determinely that she IS NOT going to Klang anymore but in the end, she still gave in because she realised that this year might be the last year I celebrate CNY with all my family members in Klang or the last time i celebrate CNY in Malaysia...This year, she nodded her head but how about next year and the following years? When i am no longer in Malaysia,will she somehow suddenly gains pleasure when celebrating CNY in Klang and agree to follow them again next year, next next year and next next next year? In one hand, i hope she will have a really wonderful CNY with her friends but on the other hand, i hope that she and my father would not be left in Kuantan while my two brothers enjoy their CNY celebration in Klang...is it sad to see your family don't share the joy together during such prosperous and meaningful festival?

Hopefully, thing will change gradually...No matter how it changes, the only scene that i wish to witness is UNITED FAMILY!

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!

HAVE A PAWs-PEROUS CNY CELEBRATION!

CNY is coming!WOohoooO....

Woohoo! Chinese New Year is around the corner. This year CNY will be slightly different from the last 18 years where I will excitedly wait for the day of CNY eve to come…For this year, I have another thing that I will anticipate for – the day when I can finally back to my hometown and enjoy the CNY atmosphere in my hometown…

In BU, I could hardly feel that CNY is actually approaching…I can’t see tomato red tang lung hanging in the garages of the houses in my neighborhood…I can barely see my neighbours having “gotong-royong” to welcome the coming soon CNY…I can barely see my neighbours decorating their houses with “Chun Lian”…There’s like no one being thrilled by the arrival of CNY except for me…I try to create the CNY atmosphere in the student house by playing CNY songs in the house…But it’s pathetic to say that I seem like the only one who enjoys listening to CNY songs and can’t wait to go home and taste those delicious and crunchy CNY cookies specially ordered by me from my mum…I am eager to return to the place that I have spent my childhood and teenage years…I can’t wait to see my family members again and have reunion with all my relatives and friends…I want to wait for their arrival from different states of this country…As usual, everyone will be back to have reunion dinner and we all huddle in one small house which is previously owned by my late grandpa and grandma…They would be happy to see us still being so close-knitted despite the separation by distance…

I always enjoy celebrating CNY because there’s reunion and there’s gathering…Reunion and gathering give me the idea that we are appreciating the presence of one another and we are still assume that we are part of the family…CNY used to be a happy festival for me and also for my former classmates and friends…We greeted each other Happy Chinese New Year, we sent CNY cards to our friends or even teachers and sometime, we did go for shopping together…We planned to visit one another’s house during CNY and we were all very excited…I thought it would be the same for everyone but today, only I realize that this is not true…There’re people who have great rejection on hearing CNY songs…There’re people who don’t care about reunion dinner, so they make no effort to turn up for the very meaningful dinner…There’re people who like to just stay at home during CNY as they simply don’t get pleasure from paying visit to their friends’ houses…On the other hand, there’re also people who still celebrate CNY in a very traditional way. They wear SamFu and Cheongsam on the very first day of CNY. It is a compulsory for his family to do so although it’s seldom being practiced in nowadays families. Not only they will dress up traditionally during CNY, they even set “Kong Ming Deng” to the sky. This is a very rare practice in this modern society already and I really hope that I can witness this very significant scene…Besides, there’re also people who feel sad knowing that CNY is coming because this indicates that their wallets have to start bleeding…

Discovering the way of other people celebrating CNY, I really feel happy for having such wonderful CNY celebrations every year…Thanks for everyone who has contributed in making my CNY celebration such a marvelous one! Although this year the time I could spend with all of you during CNY is shorter than the last 18 years, it doesn’t mean I feel bored of the same CNY celebration every year already…I will miss all the great moments that we had spent together last 18 years! HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!

(Should had posted on 10.02.2010)

Challenging AUSMAT year

This is the AUSMAT year, a very crucial year of study which will determine my fate of being able to fly to Australia or not. The education system in the private college is no longer similar to that of in high school. Lecturers are not going to spoon-feed me with all the notes or information but just giving me the course outline and some useful links to enhance my understanding. We don’t usually have a proper textbook. What we have to do when we encounter problem in understanding some principles or what so ever is either seek help from lecturers or refer to references books where the chapters are usually not arranged in the same order of the course outline. I am not really used to this kind of study method initially but luckily, I have acclimatized to it now. However, since those reference books are international books, the explanation is usually very long and it really takes time to digest them. After reading all the tedious explanation, you might find that you have taken 30 minutes to read them but the information you obtain from them is actually very little. As a college student, it’s necessary for me to practice extracting information from long and full of words passages in order to save time. Time! Time is really precious to an AUSMAT student. I can’t waste too much time reading and to understand just one passage. Speed reading is vital and my intellectual level should be very high too.

AUSMAT is truly not an easy course and let’s not take it too easily. What we have to learn is very broad and we really need to be knowledgeable enough to answer the questions in examinations, especially for the EALD and Economics subjects. Evidences are required to support the answers we are going to write in the answer sheets. The sources of those evidences are generally origin from the books we have read, newspapers, online news, movies and so on. Lecturers do have gone through a few printed and non-printed texts, but that is not adequate for me to answer the paper. Those evidences can only be accumulated through constant reading not starting from now, but years and years back of time.

What to do if I have not been reading enough good books or watching enough meaningful movies when I was in high school? The solution is start to push myself to read more, particularly any reading materials in English and be aware of anything occurs not only in my own country but other nations too. Not only read to widen my horizon, but read to learn new vocabulary and think critically about the main issue in the books and movies. Critical thinking! This is the most challenging part for me apart from producing good essays and speaking English fluently in an academic way. I have been pushing myself very hard to sharpen my thinking skill and increase my knowledge since the beginning of this course. Hopefully all my hard work will be compensated with good results or at least, improvement in my English one day in the future. I don’t want to be like a frog in the well especially during English lectures. Every shows, books or popular stars in different fields that he mentions in the class, I would say that only 1% of them I know. My general knowledge is so little and I feel so shame to shake my head to tell the lecturer that “I have not even a single idea of who are you talking about (although they are the well-known people in this world)”. I feel so embarrassed to say “I don’t know” anymore that I just stare at him whenever he looks at me and waiting for my response.

I WANT to change! I WANT TO change! It is not only for academic purposes, but to increase my general knowledge. Seriously, I need to change. I have realized about this weakness of mine since I was in high school but I don’t know what’s the way out. Now, I got the solution so I should work for it! Gambateh! Gambateh! GAMBATEH!

"Fame"

I didn't make the wrong decision to spend Rm 9 to watch this low popularity show in the cinema...Rm 9 was definitely worthwhile! The songs were melodious...The dances were marvellous..They were the combination of ballet and hip hop dance...They had such a fascinating voice that i wish i could own at least one-fifth of them...I love all the songs and dances in the movie...They were so new, so creative and so impressive that they were really a wow to see them show their talent on the stage confidently...

Overall, i enjoyed watching this movie, which was a mixture of all forms of art-singing, playing all sort of musical instruments, dancing ballet, acting, telling stories, rapping and so on. The performances were amazing but if the story line can be changed to make it more impressive, then this movie would be a perfect production. The storyline was not that impressive to bring out the message that the script writer was trying to convey to the audience. I could barely find the lesson of the story and I could merely see how the youngsters nowadays were putting so much effort in becoming famous though they were very talented persons.

However, there's one, i think i can called it as phenomenon, which wis reflected in this movie. Art is always perceived as solely interest but not future career by most of the parents. It's sort of agreement among parents that the ambition to become an artist or any career related to art is not practical and it could be a very risky route to be taken by their children. They prefer their children to take the road which has less grass as it is safer and offers a better guarantee of success and probably, more money. They are just worried about their children's future and their ability to sustain themselves in this highly competitive world in the future. There's no assurance that the road they have chosed for their children is perfect but they are just trying their best to give them the brightest future. On the other hand, children always misinterpret their parents' good intention. They think their parents simply just don't understand their feeling but they are actually. They are more than proud to discover that their children are actually very talented musicians or dancers but when come to the time to let their children be what they wish to be, they hesitate because they are concerned about their future. Parents hope to be supportive to their children's dreams but sometimes, it's hard for them to do so...

To solve this problem, first of all, both parties must understand each other's concerns, then, one party must let go his/her wish but be ready to bear whatever consequences of their decision...

Just two audiences in the whole cinema?

"Fame". I guess no one has ever heard about this movie. Having "Avatar" and "Legion" being greatly advertised by the media, many have neglected the other movies which are screening in the cinema.I accidentally found out about this movie when i was reading newspaper. Since i like music and art, this movie looked appealing to me. However, when i told anyone about my wish to watch it, no one get as excited as me. I expected this kind of reaction i would get from them but I couldn't blame them as not everyone obsessed in music. However, their reaction caused me to doubt my decision to watch this film. How if the show is not as interesting as i expected? Would i regret after watching it?

Anyway, after getting some motivation from these people who don't really get overjoyed after learning about my excitement towards this movie, I decided to watch it all alone. It sounded pathetic but it's ok for me although i knew very well it would be lack of fun to watch movie all alone, laughing all alone in the cinema. Fortunately, i didn't really went for the movie all alone. Thanks to Li Chi who suddenly made up her mind to accompany me or i would be really alone. When we first stepped into the cinema, we were the only two in the cinema. It's so creepy. Imagine that you and your friend were the only two audiences sitting almost right at the centre of the cinema. No more human beings in the cinema except you and your friend. Well, there might be but you couldn't see them. I felt that i was standing in a haunted hall. I was scared even though i didn't showed it on my face. I actual tried to overcome the fear by keep talking to Li Chi but she seemed like not scared at all but very excited. She was so enegized that she ran to every corner of the cinema to snap photos of the empty cinema from different perspective, acting like a professional photographer. "Do you know what are you doing now?"This was what i was thinking when she was busy taking pictures. I didn't even dared to look at those photos. Finally, when she had completed her mission, she even asked to captured one or two photos of only both of us in the cinema. I barely want to have a look on the photo she took. I was afraid.....See! that's how timid i am....

The show commenced and that's still two of us in the cinema until the advertisements almost ended, a few audiences started to fill in the empty seats in the cinema...PHEewwww....At least there're people who do like me, spent RM 9 to watch the movie that seldom people are interested in though there are not more than 20 of them...

Frustration!

Why is it so much procedures to go through just to get myself registered for an English course?We have to type verification letters to be signed by our former not only secondary, but also primary school principals. It’s so troublesome. I can’t settle everything all by myself as I am so far away from my hometown, which is also the place where I received my primary and secondary schooling. The only thing I can do is type the verification letters and send them to my younger brother. He will do the printing job and my mum will be the one who go and meet principals and ask for their signature. I don’t know exactly what should be written in the letter and also due to my carelessness, it ends up my mum has to to and fro from the schools for three times. It’s understandable that she is pissed on me for a little while because if I were her, I would feel the same and I might say “I won’t do that for YOU anymore!”. Why do we need such verification letter just to sign up for one course? After all the hassle we have gone through just to get the letters done, will they even bother to read them? There’re so many application forms and it would be at least two times more for the amount of verification letters. Is that fine for us to make some errors here and there in the letter since they have a great possibility of not checking every little words and information in the letters? Unfortunately, I am not dare enough to take the risk. What if they do read every single letter that we have attached together with the application form? Isssshhhh….I’m really frustrated by all this now!