shortlived

Thanks to Nisarg who sent me this song and lyrics, took out some parts which i feel epitomizes that:
"fleeting eye-contact, lingering glance and the crazy romantic thoughts that run through your head" just over a perfect stranger you see.

It appeals, as it is both mysterious and fleeting.
By the time you walk to the end of the road, it all ends there.
And you awake.

You're Beautiful
James Blunt

You're beautiful. You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
I saw you face in a crowded place,
And I don't know what to do,
'Cause I'll never be with you.

Yeah, she caught my eye,
As we walked on by.
She could see from my face that I was,
Fucking high,
And I don't think that I'll see her again,
But we shared a moment that will last till the end.

You're beautiful. You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
There must be an angel with a smile on her face,
When she thought up that I should be with you.
But it's time to face the truth,
I will never be with you.

Photo of the day

Models in body paint showing off a new product in Seoul.

been a while

On the family:
- We have a newest addition in the family, have yet to name this cute boy (decided it is a he) yet....its non-human...its our Honda CRV(SUV), family car, pretty cool, now we can look down and see what other people are doing in their cars at a traffic light.
- Brother left for oxford(when pronounced in cantonese it means the butt of an ox) for law studies, but will be back in 2mths due to semester break

On the Elux/ Ex Elux scene:
- Realised Nisarg is a nerd, he kinda solved the problem that let me see Rohit on Sametime again or rather i just like to call him names :P
- Vivianne finished her tship in Brazil and should be back at montreal if she is not out wandering again :), have to write her
- Going to Sydney to visit Rajat and probably see Emma there too end of Oct, what cracked me up was when Rajat wanted me to buy an ipod for him, he wanted THAT new one...the IPOD SLIM?!!!! darling you mean ipod nano rite? yes i want one which can spin music and make me slim too :)
- One of my swedish colleagues is leaving soon...why do all my lunch buddies desert me...sigh...

On me:
- Got a new haircut, wanted a trim in the beginning but that japanese hairstyle magazine right in front of me tempted me, so i just picked a picture and i asked " Can I have this one?" And it turned out pretty good, only thing i found funny was this male hairdresser actually said that my hair is too BLACK!
-Attended one of my friends's grandfather's funeral, has been a while ( not to say that its not gd!) , but let me say that in a chinese culture, weddings and funerals are the highlights/ showcases. There were around 100+ pple at the funeral wake, and we had rounds of 3-4 course vegetarian dished served, one of the more big scale funerals i have been to. Apparently the deceased had his picture taken way in advance together with his wife, and I heard that a person even designed their own obituary, in case of fatal illness like cancers. Wonder who would I invite to mine, or would I want one when the time comes...
- On a happier note, my ex team mate Sean is getting married in mid oct, i know its a rare thing to say, but I have yet to attend a wedding for my local friends, as most of my peers have attended many weddings so far...oh well this shall be my first, so happy for them to be making that committement.
- Anna Mattson may be visiting after a 4 year hiatus, my other ex team mate, ....not confirmed yet though but am I looking fwd to this October ! :)

Simple high note of the day: Was sooo expecting myself to miss the bus to work, I was even visualising the bus just leaving in front of my eyes as I stepped onto the mainstreet, that scene just ran and reran itself in front of me countless times...But my,was I happily surprised when I saw it pulled in front of me just as I turned the corner and its was like perfect timing! Just like in the movies....awesome start of the day!

Debating in Mandarin!

Even I wonder how fluent I would be.

Caught parts of the International Varsity Debate spoken in MANDARIN last night , and it brought a wide smile to my face :) The teams were Stockholm Universitet VS some Korean University. ...Ahhhhhh good looking blond girls and guys speaking in fluent MANDARIN, DEBATING on the pros and cons of having budget airlines. And one of the swedish guy debaters reminded me of Fredrik Raynal, :)

"All eyes will be on Group B, where Mandarin is a foreign tongue for every member. This biennial production by Singapore's MediaCorp News and China Central Television drew more than 100 million viewers in 2003"

Can China be possibly more "liberal" than Singapore?

Squeezed in Brazil
Originally uploaded by ying22.

Went to the search engine of a popular chinese search engine Sohu, think chinese version of Yahoo. And while i was looking for other stuff, thumbnails and photo links to scantily dressed women caught my eye, well the title of the articles seem harmless like 9 seductive looks of a woman etc, lets just say you dont see such pictorials in "clean and green" Singapore's magazine stands. Yes we dont sell Playboy in this country... not sure if they do in China, but to have something like that on a yahoo singapore search engine, would probably be something i will not expect in many many years to come, ok how about never :P

Found this rather interesting commercial ad on this other Chinese newspaper site, apparently one that is approved by the Chinese gov.

Panda panic

Grudgingly admitting defeat, officials at Ueno Zoo in the centre of Tokyo have sent a childless giant panda back to her home in Mexico. In December 2003, Shuan Shuan was loaned for a year from Chapultepec Zoo in the hopes that the she would appeal to Ling Ling, the 20-year-old star attraction of Ueno Zoo and a panda who has historically shown scant interest in procreation.

His long-term companion, Tong Tong, died of cancer five years ago without producing an heir, underlining the considerable difficulty of persuading captive pandas to breed. Shuan Shuan’s visit to Japan was extended by a second year, during which time she became a favourite with visitors. Unfortunately, Ling Ling remained unimpressed.

You can too get your daily dose of Tokyo-delights from Economist guide- City Briefing on Tokyo. :)
Wonder why the names of Pandas have the trend of repeated name....

Exit Strategy

After gym one day, while both of us were yakking on our indispensible mobile phones, i bumped into Jamie from good old st. nicks days and while walking to the mrt station and just randomly updating each other, the words exit strategy came up.

The last time I heard this term comes from this talk I heard from someone about when starting your own business, you also have to take note of your exit strategies in getting out eventually, in terms of selling your company to someone bigger ( well there is always someone bigger) in the market being the most ideal situation, or listing your company and selling off shares etc. The other time would be a longer way back on my economics class BK1101 of entry and exit barriers to the market for companies. Now being employees of companies, these words took onto another meaning altogether :) So I was pondering on all the many many exit strategies that one could partake and apply in all parts of your life, be it econs, work, relationship, business, social gathering aka parties even.

Reminds me too of one of the 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen R Covey, Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind,

Just an interesting perspective that kept me thinking for the past few days.

"It's Stupid to be Afraid"

An interview with Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew

Really liked this interview, so i decided to post this on my blog again from nomadlife homepage.

SPIEGEL: The political and economic center of gravity is moving from the West towards the East.Is Asia becoming the dominant political and economic force in this century?

Mr. Lee: I wouldn't say it's the dominant force. What is gradually happening is the restoration of the world balance to what it was in the early 19th century or late 18th century when China and India together were responsible for more than 40 percent of world GDP. With those two countries becoming part of the globalized trading world, they are going to go back to approximately the level of world GDP that they previously occupied. But that doesn't make them the superpowers of the world.

Other excerpts:

Mr. Lee: We have watched this transformation and the speed at which it is happening. As many of my people tell me, it's scary. They learn so fast. Our people set up businesses in Shanghai or Suzhou and they employ Chinese at lower wages than Singapore Chinese. After three years, they say: "Look, I can do that work, I want the same pay." So it is a very serious challenge for us to move aside and not collide with them. We have to move to areas where they cannot move.Other excerpts:

Mr. Lee: Right. In 50 years I see China, Korea and Japan at the high-tech end of the value chain. Look at the numbers and quality of the engineers and scientists they produce and you know that this is where the R&D will be done. The Chinese have a space programme, they're going to put a man on the Moon and nobody sold them that technology. We have to face that. But you should not be afraid of that. You are leading in many fields which they cannot catch up with for many years, many decades. In pharmaceuticals, I don't see them catching up with the Germans for a long time.

Mr. Lee: "Every year, our unions and the Labour Department subsidize trips to China and India. We tell the participants: Don't just look at the Great Wall but go to the factories and ask, "What are you paid?" What hours do you work?" And they come back shell-shocked."

:)

Fairest of them all

Appeal of skin whitening puts Japan in cosmetics lead

In search of fairer skins, pale white complexions, so ironic that the scandinivians/ europeans would gladly trade their pale white skins anytime for a tanned brown look. I belong to the tan-preference clan.

Calling for number 128?

Speed dating, Shanghai-style

Over the last 20 years, the number of people getting married in China has fallen by almost 50%. Now, Shanghai parents are taking matters into their own hands: hundreds of parents who believe their children are too old to be single have formed matchmaking parent’s groups. At meetings, parents of male and female children line up on opposite sides of the room. They then watch a slideshow displaying information about children of the opposite sex, including age, height, education and income, family background and housing status (men are often expected to own their own apartment to qualify as suitable candidates). When the lights go up, parents search for each other with the aid of loudspeakers. The meetings, which began in July, are already oversubscribed until January 2006.

Pressure to marry can run high—the older generation believes that women in China should be married before they turn 28. Many of the parents at September’s meeting, who had female children aged between 23 and 30 years old, pinned their hopes on the parents of number 128: their son is 177 centimetres tall, studying for a master’s degree and earns 13,000 yuan per month (about $1,600), almost double the average annual wage in China.

Wu Clan

Wu Family Photo
Originally uploaded by ying22.

My brother and cousin are going to UK/Ireland end of the month, joining my other 2 cousins who are already there for their undergraduate studies. Seems like UK is THE destination for our uncles/aunties to visit their darling children.:)

With the 4 out the 7 kids of my generation leaving this month, leaves only me, my sis and my oldest cousin. We have decided to go on a holiday the coming chinese new year in feb so we dont have to the only "children" around that time aka meaning having to entertain the older aunties and uncles....:P

Notice too that i am the shortest among all my cousins...not fair indeed. The tallest coincidentally is the youngest at only 19. What are the kids eating nowadays man?

I am a puddle of fat

Brought Ruoxia to the gym yday and she signed up for the 2 week free trial which entails a free bio-analysis of some kind machine where you are measured on how much fat, muscle, water mass you have in your body benchmarked against the normal standards, and target weight, muscles etc. So i went along too.

I have to lose 7kg of fats and gain 7kg of muscles, in short convert all the fats to muscles...exciting.....
My muscles as predicted are underdeveloped at the arms, and i have a high fat mass.

Was shocked to see that i am in the Under category for proteins, afterall i am a meat eater, but was told by the p.e. teacher (ruoxia) and the fitness instructor that even though u eat enough meat and drink milk, you need to exercise to extract the proteins and calcium from them, darn! why no body told me that! I blame my sec 4 biology teacher.

My 1st Malay Wedding

Malay Wedding with Shahrin
Originally uploaded by ying22.

Thanks to Shahrin, finally his Malay heritage has come to some use in our years of friendship :P.I attended my first Malay Wedding with him on Sat. Funny isnt it, that I have never attended someone's wedding from another race in Singapore in my 25 years of life. Maybe its because I dont have many friends of other races in Singapore. Sad case eh.

Anyways I was rather surprised to learn the interesting facts of Malay wedding in comparision with the Chinese ones. Apparently:

- A normal Malay wedding takes place from 12noon to 8pm at night, and usually its a 2 day affair.One day for probably the groom's side of relatives and friends, and another day for the bride's side.This long time range is so that pple can just drop by and leave after their "makan" ( eat in malay) and taking photos with the bride and groom on this decorated platform called the raised dais. So you go,take photo, talk to the happy couple and their mum and dad, take the buffet meal or sometimes the attendents serve u when u are seated. And in some stricter cases, apparently the males are seated in one side of the room and the females at another side of the room.

- There are also supposedly many costume changes for the couple, well we went around the last few hours, so we didnt see them

- And a wedding would normally see 2000-3000!!!! pple attending!My swedish friends have often dropped their jaws when they heard that a Chinese wedding has around 300-500 pple whereas in Sweden, small wedding dinner of only close relatives and friends of around 50 or less is the normal trend. Have heard of attendees in thousands for Indian weddings which go on for days and nights, never knew the same apply for Malay weddings as well.

- Interestingly enough, Shahrin said that due to the influence of Hinduism before Islam in Singapore, there are many "borrowed" customs from the Indian wedding such as the dais and the henna application of the bride's hands.Otherwise a Malay Muslim wedding is really a simple affair of signing of contract and solemnization.


Pretty casual and "lots of freedom and conveinence" I would say compared to the Chinese 10 course wedding dinner where the dinner starts around 8pm till 11pm and of course you have to stay seated till the whole thing ends with
the occasional alcohol drinking rounds with the couple "yam seng" screams. But I can also imagine how "shack" or exhausting this wedding couple is to get those pearly white smiles up for half the day. And I guess unless you are really really rich, you cant afford to book an expensive venue like hotel ballroom for half a day, otherwise having the celebration at community centres and the HDB void decks would suffice nicely.

Have also done a search and found more information here if you are interested to learn more about Malay weddings in Singapore.

Mooncakes are a TORTURE to your tastebuds!!!!

I hereby decide to give the cakes a REPRIEVE after chatting with Johit on our company's sametime (nifty "msn-like" communicator)!

BY FAR! they are one of the yummiest, I REPEAT!!!!! YUMMIEST CHINESE SNACK/CAKE/ DESSERT ever !
I am yes, declaring my love for these cakes! How can Lotus Seed Paste fillings and these ingredients EVER EVER go wrong?

The Mid Autumn/ Mooncake/ Lantern festival this year, lands on the 18th of September this year, is one of my fave Chinese festivals , where you eat yummy mooncakes (be it in "snow skin" or the traditional brown layer and they have more and more creative fillings including green tea my fave at the moment!) and carry fancy lanterns ( they come in all colours and shapes, see them selling everywhere , ranging from cellophane paper made dragons, bunnies, flying horse to battery operated Batman, Superman etc)

As a kid we would walk around our neighbourhoods carrying our nice lanterns....:))) I had a Nemo the year before, probably they would have Madagescar creatures this year round.:D
 =====================================================
Background:
The Mid-Autumn Festival, or more popularly known as the Mooncake Festival, is celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth lunar moon, when a full and brilliant moon reigns high in the night sky. As an old Chinese saying goes, "when the moon is full, mankind is one", and so on this day, friends and family gather to catch up and of course eat mooncakes.

 There are many colourful myths associated with the origin of the festival. The most popular one tells of the legend of a beautiful girl called Chang Er and a divine archer called Hou Yi, who saved the people from severe drought and heat by shooting down the nine extra suns that suddenly appeared in the sky one day. It turned out that the suns were actually the Jade Emperor's own sons, and the couple were immediately banished from Earth by the angry Emperor. The Goddess Xi Wang Mu took pity on them and gave Hou Yi the "pill of immortality", but Chang Er stole the pill and swallowed it. She rose to the moon, where she became the immortal moon goddess, unable to return to mankind again. Hou Yi's love for Chang-Er overcame his anger at her deed, and he built her a magnificent Moon Palace out of fragrant cinnamon wood to shelter her from the cold. Touched, Chang-Er asked the Goddess Xi Wang Mu to make her husband immortal as well. The Goddess agreed, but punished her for her selfish act by separating the two. Chang-Er now rules over the lunar kingdom, while Hou Yi rules over the solar kingdom, and they can only meet once a year on the 15th day of the 8th month, a day when people offer annual prayer and sacrifices to the moon to commemorate the event.


Mooncakes




(Oh Tee, there is now a new flavour KIWI mooncake btw :))
A huge variety of lanterns and mooncakes go on sale about a month before the festival, and many actually start eating mooncakes long before the actual day. Mooncakes were believed to have helped bring about a revolution during the Yuan Dynasty when messages and instructions were hidden in mooncakes urging the people to rebel against the ruling Mongols on the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival. A mixture of pastry and filling made from lotus paste, spices and salted egg yolk, mooncakes are the symbol of the festival, and a multi-million dollar industry to boot.

Another must-have during the festival is the pomelo, which is considered an auspicious fruit because its Chinese name stands for "blessing" and its cantonese name sounds like the Chinese word for "have". Also, pomelo season coincides with the Mid-Autumn Festival.
 
The last symbol of the Mooncake festival is the lantern, which comes in all shapes, colours and sizes. On the night of the festival, it is not uncommon to see pyjama-clad children carrying colourfully lit lanterns at the various housing estates. There are also lantern "exhibitions" at places like the Chinese Garden in Singapore.

what a month!!!

got food poisoning, fell, "poisoned" and took medical leave from work on tue..
and have more problems with my bowel system today (okok too graphic for details)they are NOT kidding when they say that things go downhill after 25!:P

I have to be the one that repeat this age age old old wisdom that is long embedded in our minds but we just subconsciously repressed it way deep down every time it tries to surface: Dont things for granted. You have to suffer and in the worse sort of the way you can imagine before you REALLY REALLY(HELL YEAH!) appreciate things as they are for you. Health is ok even though there are always those persistant extra kilos to be shed, family still together even though there are squabbles/naggings at least once a day,friends are still somewhere there for you even though sometimes they are late or only want to see u once a month etc, Work is ok even though you do question yourself sometimes are you at the right place, spending your time on right stuff you lurve.

Well nobody is perfect, much less anybody's lives. (Call me if you find one, i wanna take tips too ok?:)) But hey this is still considered normal/ acceptable for you, now you dont want anything worse or less right. So BE THANKFUL for the gd health, exisiting family,lousey friends and mouth-feeding job that you hold!

Going read this posting of mine once in a while before i get all ungrateful again and my tendency to forget things may just kick in soon...getting old la as Mr Yong says ;)