A different kind of fusion cuisine

Some time ago, a colleague said that she had char kuey teow with rice (fried together in the same dish) in her secondary school, and that it was delicious. She was surprised that no one else had heard of it before, just like we were surprised to hear about the dish!

Since she had it in her school, she couldn’t tell us to go to the same stall. But since she said that it wasn’t exactly a dish on the menu, I decided to ask the char kuey teow uncle near my place whether he sells it (especially since he sells fried rice as well).

So one day when I visited his stall, I asked him whether he sells char kuey teow with rice. He immediately responded yes, and told me it cost RM6 (normal char kuey teow or normal fried rice costs RM5, and RM6 for a big portion). I wonder whether he heard it for the first time when I asked him, and immediately said that to get some business. :P

Anyway, the other day I gave it a try. Here it is:

I ordered for take-away, so it might not look as good as a freshly dished-up one.

Before I tell you whether it was good, would you try it?

Frankly, it was more like char kuey teow than fried rice. The ingredients were the same as those in char kuey teow (instead of those in fried rice; I initially thought they would mix both :P ). Taste-wise, it also tasted like char kuey teow, though the rice added some different texture to the dish.

Adding the rice made the portion bigger, which was probably why it cost RM6. But it also made the dish a little too big for me (I never order a big portion). So all in all, I don’t think I would order it again. I would rather order char kuey teow or fried rice, but not a mixture!

A strange design

This week's photo theme was warped.

On the way home from work, I passed this building that was still in construction. The seems to be some warped string design on the walls...

I initially even thought that they had wrapped some kind of wire around the walls, and I was wondering what it was for. Then I realized that it seemed to be a painted design!

In any case, this kind of pattern ain't my cup of tea...

Muscle memory

Muscle memory is such a curious/awesome/scary thing.

Usually when I drive home, I have to use my access card to enter the neighbourhood, and then use my remote control to open my gate. Recently they are trying out a number plate recognition system, which is to replace our access card system. And every time I enter, even though I remember to tell myself that I do not need my access card, after entering and when approaching my gate, my hand reaches out to the access card first. Even when I remind myself that I should now just get my remote control, my hand still goes for the access card.

I guess it is because I usually only take my remote control right after putting back my access card. So my hand is not used to getting the remote control directly...

Don't act your age

The other day I received my birthday gift from my company, in the form of a Grab voucher. When I redeemed it into my Grab account, this message was attached:

"Remember to not act your age!"

The same day, we had our team lunch. The lunch was at Sushi Brito, which is quite near to my house, and on that day I had a bunch of meetings and code to write (before being able to test it), so I decided to work from home.

In the interest of not acting my age (because I am an obedient employee :P ), I sent this message to my team in our group chat:

Pikachu is crying… only one person wants to see it. Most are interested in other Pokemon! 

So I wore my Dragonair t-shirt to the lunch, instead of my Pikachu t-shirt. :P Turns out quite a few of my team were expecting me to bring a soft toy… hahaha. They didn't even notice my t-shirt...until someone asked where my Pokemon was, and I showed it to them.

And as a side-story, this is a screenshot from way back in July, but seems that I haven’t posted it. I had changed my work profile picture to a Pikachu, after seeing someone else using a Pikachu (and mine’s cuter!) (side note in the side-story: actually a bunch of people use cartoon characters as their profile pic in the office).

Then one day this colleague from Israel wanted to ask me something, and he started off with this:

Note: The emoji reactions to his first comment are from me.

See, some people appreciate Pikachu!

He wasn't the only one; there was another Malaysian colleague who praised my Pikachu, but it was in a less funny manner (I believe he just said something like "nice profile pic"), so I did not bother taking a screenshot of that!

A heavy Santa

I was at the dentist the other day, when I noticed a Santa that had fallen.

Guess he was too heavy. :P

A wind farm

Last week's photo theme was farm.

I had a hard time finding a farm to take a photo of, but today we had a Christmas gift exchange (rather early, ain't it?) and I received a handheld fan as a gift. So I decided to make my own wind farm! :P 

(I already had the white fan)

Don't play-play, the curtain is really moving, okay? You can see the fold being pushed to the right by the wind from the fans (the bigger fan, mainly, because the smaller one isn't really strong enough for that)

Driving on a rainy day

Today there was an extremely heavy downpour starting some time before 5pm. The sky was as dark as it would usually get after 7pm.

Luckily, I left work at 5pm and managed to avoid any jam all the way back to Relau...and there the jam started :P (side-story: The wind was so strong when I reached the office lobby, several of us - even those with umbrellas, like me - simply waited there for a while so that the wind could calm down, before going to the car-park)

This week's photo theme is driving, so this is me driving back home (I think it took another 10-15 minutes from there...where it would take less than 5 minutes without any traffic)

The rain had stopped by the time I reached Relau. Or maybe the rain started here earlier and then moved to the factory area...I doubt it could stop that quickly!

Fallen fruit

This week's photo theme was fall.

Fittingly, in this "fall" season, there were leaves and fruits that had fallen to the ground...

I don’t understand people

Your team needs a minimum of six players, and is allowed a reserve player in case one of the players is injured.

So you start with seven players, but one needs to drop out and you are allowed to find a replacement for the seventh player (to be the reserve).

You ask the next best player you can find, but they can only attend on the first and third day of the six-day tournament.

The second-best has quite a big level of difference in skill compared to the first one, but can be there on all days of the tournament.

Do you:
a) Get the next best player as the reserve?
b) Get the second-best as the reserve?
c) Not get a new reserve player?

Have you got your answer? Well, this is a similar situation to what we had during our badminton tournament.

I’ve been wanting to write about it since it happened, but I never got around to it. Basically this year we had a last-minute replacement player into our team, because a player had to drop out.

The game format was with three doubles games, so we needed a minimum of six players, and were allowed a maximum of eight. We had eight players to start off with, so when one dropped out, I suggested not finding a replacement, and just going along with the remaining seven.

However, some other “senior” players said that it was too risky; what if our players got injured? That is a reasonable concern...so I totally understand if they want to get a replacement.

What I couldn’t understand was that they settled on a replacement player who could only attend the tournament on the first and third days. The reason for selecting this player was that the next best player was not good enough, skill-wise.

The group stage was played on the first four days (Tuesday to Friday), and then if we made it through, we would play the quarter-finals on Saturday. The semi-finals and finals would be held on Sunday. (I already mentioned this in my previous post on the tournament, so the details on our results are there)

So by getting this replacement player, if up to two of our original players got injured (which was the exact reason why they said they needed the new player), she would not be able to play towards the end of the tournament, when we would need the substitute player most. What kind of decision was that, to say you need a replacement player for a certain reason, and then select one who could not fulfill that requirement?

And it wasn’t that the thought did not occur to them. I was involved in the selection of the replacement player, and I did ask them, what if the day that she cannot attend the tournament is the day that we need the substitute player? (they ignored me, and I did not press the matter, leaving it to the captain to decide)

Another thing about my badminton team that I cannot understand is what the “senior” players say sometimes. After a tournament (or during it), sometimes they would say something like “Let’s get [this player] back next year”, or “We should get [this player] back next year”. And this is said when the whole team is there. So what does that make of the current team members? The number of players is limited, so if you want someone else to come back, it means that there is someone here that you do not want to be here.

This is not the first year I have heard them saying this. I usually just stay silent when they say things like these, but I do wonder, doesn't anyone else think the same way as I do?

Ice

This week's photo theme was ice.

I tried to take a photo of ice in a drink, thinking that taking a photo of only ice was too boring. 

But on that day, my ice looked quite fine (not wet) when I took them out of their tray, so I snapped a quick photo before they started melting. And that photo looks better than I thought it would. Therefore I decided to settle for pure ice as my Photo Friday pic!

I'm just a little disappointed that the blocks of ice are not aligned neatly enough. Because I didn't want to risk melting them, I touched them as little as I could, and snapped the photo as quickly as I could!

If you're curious (and also for my future self in case I get curious :P ), here's the other photo that I wanted to take for this photo theme.

iced chocolate

I actually started snapping photos of my drink after I put that ice tray back into the freezer...and took several pics to get a better arrangement of the ice cubes. This photo was the best, that I kept for this photo theme. But...in the end I fell back to using that single photo that I snapped of the plain ice cubes. Haha...the irony.

So, which photo do you prefer? :P

Totally illogical

Lunchmate 1 was telling us about how a friend who went with her to China did not know how to read Chinese, and therefore she had to translate menu items for the friend.

Lunchmate 2 suddenly says, that person needs halal food right?

We both stared at him…

I mean, this is idiotic on so many levels, I don’t even know where to start.

I said that I felt like whacking him (being Chinese-illiterate myself but by no means needing halal food), but he still didn’t get it… it actually took quite some time before he managed to understand that there were people who couldn’t read Chinese but weren’t Muslim. And yet it didn’t even seem like he fully realized the implications of what he had said (I didn’t bother telling him; it would have been a waste of time)

The “full implications” may be too long to be written here, but just to name a few:
Firstly there are plenty of Chinese Malaysians who do not read Chinese, and consume pork.
Secondly, even if he forgot about Chinese who are Chinese-illiterate (for a stupid Chinese-educated katak-di-bawah-tempurung’s reason), even in Malaysia there are non-Chinese and non-Malays who eat pork (Indians are a big group).
Thirdly, even if you take Malaysians out of the equation, how about all the Europeans and Americans who are Christians and do not read Chinese? Why would they need halal food?

I guess he could be forgiven for being too young to know better. (born in 2000)

Banana delivery

This is just something that I just HAVE to write about. 

I had just driven a bit after exiting our company's gates yesterday, when I caught sight of someone on the roadside, his hand pulled back in a throwing pose, holding a BANANA. I took another glance and saw him launching the banana up towards whatever building was there. :O (Or at least I saw the arm gesture; I did not really see the banana flying off!)

He was standing just beside a car, so I assume he got the banana from there...

Since I was driving, I didn't manage to see properly where he was throwing it to; whether it was an actual building or a construction site. (A construction site would make more sense, because there would be no food in there...)

I sure hope the recipient received the delivery properly, and that there were no banana casualties. :P

The tattoo gang

During the badminton tournament the other day, we had this conversation while watching other teams play after our own match had ended.

Teammate 1: That girl has tattoos. I should get one too, to intimidate my opponent. I shall get an angry Doraemon tattoo on my arm.
Me: Then I shall get an angry Pikachu tattoo.
Teammate 2: Why are you talking about Pokemon?

We relate the conversation to her, and she says: I'll get an angry birds tattoo.

Hahaha...

Let's count the cats!

The other day I went to Lavender Food Court to try their Ipoh hor fun. Google reviews say it's pretty good for a stall in Penang, and I think I agree. I think this is the same stall that was in the Lucasark food court (at Sunshine Lip Sin) before that whole food court closed. I only had that once though, and can't remember it so well...but the name of this stall is Ah Huat, and I sort of remember the other stall having the same name.

I didn't take a photo of the hor fun (I bought it for take-away, so the presentation upon getting home isn't that great), but while waiting for my food, I noticed this cute drawing (or should I say wallpaper?) on the wall, and couldn't resist snapping a photo.

I didn't count them. :P But you're welcome to!

A golden sunset

Left work later than usual the other day, and was greeted by this view of the sky as I approached the Krystal Point roundabout.

Since the Photo Friday theme for the week was gold, I guess this golden sunset is a pretty good shot for it!

The paradoxical mental coach

I suppose it’s time to write a bit about our companies’ badminton tournament. I had a few things to write about that, but as mentioned a few posts back, I caught Covid and was down for a while.

We managed to come in third place this year in the team event, which is something that we hadn't managed to achieve since 2015. My teammates joined the individual women's doubles event and came in second place!

on the left are the individual event medal and trophy; on the right our team event's
(my friend took this photo, and I like it :) )

We were playing day after day; the group stage matches were held on weekdays. Our group had five teams, so we had to play four matches. Our schedule skipped Monday, so we played Tuesday through Friday, then the quarter-finals were on Saturday, followed by the semi-finals and finals on Sunday.

After our last group match on Friday, the draw was immediately held for the knockout stage. We were to play against Intel Blue (Intel sent three teams, so they were identified by colour). It was not the strongest Intel team, according to our best-informed player. So we still stood a chance.

And here’s the thing: One of my new teammates (who has never participated in a tournament before) calls me her mental coach because whenever she worries about our opponents being strong, I keep telling her that we are also strong and that it’s not impossible to beat them. I had been doing that even before the tournament started, and also during the tournament when she kept exclaiming that players from other companies were good.

But the paradox is that I did not wash my team shirt on Friday night because I thought we would not manage to play on Sunday…

On Saturday I actually played the last (third) match which put us through to the semi-finals. We did stand a chance (we were leading the whole way), but the opponents did catch up a bit at one point, making us (and our teammates, especially!) nervous. I didn’t dare to believe we would get through until the game really ended.

And then, when I got home, I suddenly realized: My shirt from Friday is unwashed, I’d better wash it right away so that it can dry in time for the next day! (we have two team shirts, so we rotate them each day)

Actually if you believe in jinxes, me not washing my shirt may be the reason why we did make it to the semi-finals after all. :P (Personally I do have a thing for jinxes…I feel like if I have the audacity to hope that I will play on Sunday, and therefore wash my shirt in preparation, then I would not make it. But that wasn’t the reason why I didn’t wash my shirt…on Friday I was simply thinking: What are the odds that we’ll play on Sunday? Let’s just leave the shirt and wash it with Saturday’s shirt… :P )

On Sunday we played against Jabil...and again I played the third and deciding match with the same partner. Frankly there was a chance of winning...but somehow the opponents still played better.

Then on Monday I played badminton with the Tetra gang (our weekly session after work) We didn’t have enough players, so we asked one of my teammates to join in. We had spent the whole weekend with another Tetra guy who was our best supporter this year - he went to watch us play on two weekdays, and then drove three of us to the court on both days during the weekend (we all live in the same area) - and during Monday's session we kept talking about scores and such (still high from the tournament? :P ), and we even kept track that my teammate and I kept winning; the only time she lost was when we played against each other (so we couldn’t both win), and I somehow managed to keep my winning streak that day.

And then, the next day all three of us started having a sore throat and cough, followed by a confirmation of Covid on Wednesday. :( So much for being invincible. :P

In a way I was relieved to know that it was Covid… On Tuesday I was feeling so tired, and I thought that it was due to playing badminton for seven days straight. But I couldn’t understand how it could take such a toll on me (aging came to mind…); it wasn’t like we played two solid hours (or even one hour) each day; we just played one match!

Anyway to round up the “report” on the tournament: This year I joined the mixed doubles individual event again (after getting third place last year), albeit with a different partner. We lost in the quarter-finals, so unfortunately fell just short of getting a prize.

Time to go into battle

Let’s pick our weapons!

Er…are we fighting with fireworks, or throwing rotten mandarin oranges at the enemy?

Opening the box…

Broken badminton racquets as boomerangs and ping pong balls as missiles?

It's a ping pong bat!

Let’s play ping pong! ♥

Anyway, this post may seem random, but it's the first time I'm playing ping pong in years. I didn't even remember for sure what I had in this box of ping pong stuff. :P

Looking at roofs

This past week has been awful in terms of traffic jam on the way home from work.

While stuck on the flyover in the jam, I managed to get a photo of a roof, which was the week's photo theme.

There seems to be some kind of pattern drawn on the roof, but unfortunately it's not clear from this angle.

An interesting minesweeping day

Today I did my Minesweeper dose of the month (the challenge of finishing at least one board per level per calendar month is still ongoing).

There were a few notable boards this time, so I shall keep them here: After getting my basic three boards done (one on each level), I was attempting a second expert when I blasted a board with a 7 on a 50-50. 

After that, there was a board with an 8, which I didn't manage to uncover. Here, I kick myself for not noticing that it could be an 8 and attempt that square. And also, I should have first attempted the actual 50-50 beside it, while hoping that the 3×3 block were all mines.

While finishing up with beginner, I somehow managed 3s on a really easy board. (I forgot to move the stats window onto the main window when taking the screenshot… :( )

All in all, not a bad day's work, with pretty decent intermediate (sub-30!) and expert (sub-100!) scores too.

all of today's scores; just fitting into the stats window

P.S.: And while I'm posting, here's a nice beginner board that I got back in March, with a 5! And I managed to finish it in 3 seconds too.

(had been keeping the screenshot on my desktop, so now I can finally delete it after uploading it! :P )

Old sport

Last week’s photo theme was sport. Since I stopped badminton for a while after recovering from Covid, I did not manage to get a photo of a sports session.

And since there’s been and there’s going to be a lot of talk of badminton due to the tournament…I decided to snap a photo of this old table-tennis trophy instead. (too lazy to go and pull out my actual ping pong bat(s) :P )

Plus, I do like this design that they put on the trophy. It's the whole ping pong table with equipment needed to play!

Inside a shoe

This shall be a 2-in-1 Photo Friday post.

Firstly because two weeks ago I was busy with the companies' badminton tournament (more on that later), so even though I had taken my Photo Friday pic, I delayed posting it.

The photo theme at that time was inside. Right before our tournament, we squeezed in a few extra badminton sessions at the Shih Chung primary school. On some low walls near the hall, there were a number of shoes, with plants inside. I took a photo of this one that looked kinda cute.

The following week, I was hit by Covid (which came from the tournament; half of my team was down with it), and wasn't in the right presence of mind to take Photo Friday pics. So for that one, I am posting this pic that is kinda nice, which did made me think of the theme, though I wasn't quite happy with it. It was also taken on the same day that I found out Covid had struck (albeit before I found out).

Vehicles for all seasons, dry or wet?

The photo theme last week was seasons.

There is this house on my way out of our neighbourhood, which has a boat in its compound. I had seen it a number of times before, but most of the time I was driving, and therefore it wasn't convenient to snap a photo. That day I happened to stop there for the traffic light (the line was long), and therefore managed to take this photo.

Two thoughts on how this suits the photo theme: (1) The boat is there throughout all seasons, and (2) These two vehicles can cover both dry and wet (flood) seasons.

Anyway, I initially had decided that this photo was not suitable for the Photo Friday theme, but since I didn't get a better one, here it is!

Wheels

Last week's photo theme was wheel.

I was on the lookout for unique-looking wheels (tyres) or even steering wheels, but I didn't spot any.

So I ended up with this wheel on a bicycle-keychain.

I also spotted this unique pair of wheels stuck up above the ground...but the individual wheel doesn't look that good, which is why I decided to keep  my keychain's wheel as my Photo Friday pic.

Not sure which stall of the food court this bicycle is/was from...its cargo on the back may give some clue?

Kapitan Signature

The other day we went to Kapitan Signature. There were five of us, and none of us had been there before, so we decided to order five items to share.

There were two different kinds of briyani, dum briyani and dalgona briyani. There were a few pictures in the menu, but no description of what they were.

We ordered both kinds, but only one dum, because there were somehow more kinds of dalgona (for example the lamb shank and prawn versions were not available in dum briyani).

The strangest dish is the dum briyani, which came with bread baked on top of the dish.

dum briyani chicken, RM18

after we broke open the bread

The chicken was a whole chicken thigh, at the bottom of the rice.

dalgona chicken briyani, RM18

dalgona lamb shank briyani, RM32

dalgona prawn briyani, RM25

After seeing the dishes, I think that “dalgona” might refer to the sauce that they put on top of the briyani (or that they cook the meat in). Another clue was in the name of the dishes…the “dum” comes right before the word “briyani”, whereas the word “dalgona” comes before the name of the meat.

For pizza, we chose kebabish pizza, and it seems to have pieces of kebab and tandoori chicken on it. (they also had tandoori pizza, which I guess may have those pieces of tandoori, but no kebab chicken?)

kebabish pizza, RM25

They gave us small individual plates, but I’m wondering whether it was only because we ordered the pizza. (the pizza was the first to arrive with the plates)

The wrath of guys who don’t get to meet girls

So the other day, it was a holiday and our Tetra badminton court didn’t have enough players. So I asked a few of my badminton teammates to come and practise together.

Two Tetrans (I’ll call them A and B) came to play, and so got to meet the girls. There were two younger girls their age, so naturally the talk later was about these two girls (I’ll call them P and Q).

After that session, we were in the office when somehow the topic came up. A said he had spoken to one of the girls, P (he had plucked up the courage to ask her name! :P ) Then I told him, B has Q’s number already…

Two other guys were around at the time (let’s call them C and D, and by the way both of them do come to the badminton sessions more or less often), and all three of them went “What?! Is it true?!?!”

Not wanting to label B as a playboy, I decided to tell them the truth, which was that Q stays at the same apartment as B - and C immediately exclaims, “Me too!” I managed to get them to calm down so I could continue - she was looking for badminton players who could go to their apartment’s badminton court (it’s open to outsiders too, but of course it’s convenient to stay nearby!) - to which it was D’s turn to immediately exclaim, “I can go anytime! Just let me know!” (and note that D stays far far away…)

I doubt they were being totally serious, but the whole scene was absolutely hilarious. Which is why I still remember it about a week later… So now this post is for keepsakes. :D

The child at the table

Last night we had a lantern festival event in our neighbourhood, with dinner followed by a lantern walkabout.

While I was eating my dinner, someone suddenly put a hand on my shoulder and exclaimed, “Wah, your lantern is so nice ah!” The lantern was on the table, a bit to my right, and two girls were sitting to the right of the lantern (it was theirs). I replied that it wasn’t my lantern, then the guy asked the girl on my right, “Is it mei-mei’s (little sister’s) one?”

Initially I had thought that he might have mistaken me for a parent, but later it occurred to me that he might have thought I was a child. I just got a haircut (really short :D ) and from the back, I might have really looked like a kid :P This new realization also came because the way he spoke to me had that tone of someone speaking to a child…similar to the tone that he used with the girl beside me.

On a side note, there were mooncakes on the table when we were having dinner. I spotted this cute “Don’t litter” logo on one of the packages and had to snap a photo. What’s more, this week’s Photo Friday theme is cute, so here you go!

(I bet even the children didn’t notice this rabbit :P )

A "makeover" indeed

I went and got my old TV repaired.

The repairman first said that the LED lights weren’t working any more, and that he could get the new parts in 3 days, then it should be quick to fix. Surprisingly, the following weekend it was still not ready. Today (another week later) he called me and said that it was done. When I went to pick up the TV, he told me that the LEDs weren’t broken after all; instead the board was broken. I asked whether it was the circuit board (at that time, the term “circuit board” evaded me and I just pointed to the board on another TV that he was repairing), but he said no, and kept saying “board” (“paan” in Hokkien). So I didn’t quite know what he meant.

At the shop, he had already plugged in an HDMI cable to show me that the screen was now working. Back home, I tried it out, but hit a snag: Why couldn’t I find the HDMI port?

Now this TV is one that I have been using for years (see the post linked above; I got it in 2014!) And I have been plugging and unplugging the HDMI cable very often, to switch between my NJOI box and my PC (there is only one HDMI port on the TV). The HDMI port is on the side of the TV, so I was very confused not to find it there. Then I noticed that there were two USB ports, and the other ports also looked different.

Next I checked the TV model (from the sticker on the back of the TV), and compared it with a photo that I had taken earlier of my old TV (I had taken a photo so that I wouldn’t have to keep going back to my TV to check the model :P ). They weren’t the same. But the repairman had put a sticker on the screen of my TV, with my name and phone number. Could he have swapped the back cover? Was it a mistake, or was the swap necessary for some reason?

While checking the TV model, I found the HDMI ports at the back of the TV. This TV model has two HDMI ports, so I next tested out the ports. I mean, I’m not gonna complain if I’ve now got two HDMI ports…having only one HDMI port was one of the minor drawbacks of my old TV.

Both HDMI ports worked. However, I noticed one more thing: The front of the TV was not mine either. My TV had the standby LED in the centre, and switching the TV on and off I realized I didn’t see the LED, so I paid a little more attention and suddenly noticed the LED on the corner of the TV. At this point I was wondering whether he had given me someone else’s repaired TV, and was going to give my repaired TV to another customer…

So I called the repairman and asked him about it. He said that he swapped the cover because the new board fitted this TV model better. (something about the “feet” of the board in Hokkien, which I take to mean the board connectors) He said he could switch back to mine if I wanted, just that the connectors may not fit so well. He said that basically everything was my TV (board, screen…? I can’t remember exactly what he said) He was surprised I noticed the swap…but then again, the HDMI port is what I use the most, and its location had totally changed! (if not for that, I might not have noticed immediately, but I would have noticed the standby LED anyway, sooner or later)

In a way, I guess it’s kinda a good deal that I got my TV an additional HDMI input through the repair. :P

Note for future reference: LED lights were supposed to cost RM280. For the board, he charged me RM270.

Textured wall

Since the photo theme this week is wall...

I decided this wall was a little less boring than just a plain stretch.

Unfortunately I didn't come across any interesting wall painting in the past week...

The latest episode of “geographically-challenged Penangites”

I said I was from Kuantan.

Penangite 1: Kuantan is in Terengganu or Kelantan?
I laughed and said, neither, please try again. And added a hint: You know where SH is from? (SH is from Pahang too, albeit not from Kuantan)
They think and guess: Selangor? (Turns out they didn’t know where SH was from)
Me: No.
Them: What other states are over there??
I ask them: Do you know where Tioman is?
Penangite 2: Johor? *facepalm*

(The one who said Johor, she said that to get to Tioman, you leave from Johor. I wouldn’t know; I’ve never been…)

After I told them that Kuantan was in Pahang, they were extremely shocked.

Penangite 2: Genting is also in Pahang? So different and they are in the same state *facepalm again*

I recalled a drawing that I had put on Facebook before…I couldn’t find it on my blog, so I dug it back out from Facebook. (I didn’t draw this!)

How did the drawing come about? It was when I was still in IQ Group (FB post was on 4 April 2013). Three Penangites (I still remember who two of them were, but not the third…) said that Pahang does not have a beach. They drew a map...with Pahang in the middle of the peninsula. 😢 (okay, technically, one drew and the others approved)

I told those two Penangites about this drawing (didn’t show it to them, I just dug it out for my blog post), and they were in total agreement, nodding “yes yes, we also thought Pahang didn’t have a beach!” *facepalm 3*

My previous blog post on this was here. I had forgotten that story!

And to be fair to Penangites, not long ago a Kedahan also said that he did not know where Perlis was. :P He was kinda worse; he didn’t seem to know that Kedah was north of KL (but I may have remembered this wrongly; the main thing I remember is that he did not know something about Kedah even though he was from Kedah!). Basically he said that he did not care about these things at all.

Edit (22 Sept): I asked three Penangites today whether Pahang has a beach. All three said yes. There is still hope for Penangites after all... :P

An empty court

An empty badminton court in the early morning...

I was not the first to arrive...but my friend went out to show someone the way in. This is the court in the One Imperial condominium, so for first-time visitors, it is kinda hard to find!

More than one arch

Last week's photo theme was arch.

You can look for your favourite arch in this photo :P

Effects of ruinous empathy

This post has been floating about inside my head for quite some time…months at least. But writing it down takes time…especially writing it down properly.

I’ve probably ranted about people’s English on this blog before (long story short, culture shock when starting work, to discover that the standard of English is that low among professionals). But I’m not going to spend my time digging those old rants out. This will be about new observations, and my thoughts on it.

What I’ve noticed is that those with bad English tend to say sentences that do not have any meaning, or do not actually mean what they want to say. But from the context, sometimes it is easy to see what they mean, so we brush the miscommunication off and just reply as if they had actually said what they wanted to say.

Example: You go to someone’s house and they tell you, “Come in. The door open already.”

Everyone understands that. What they want to say is “The door is already open.” So no one corrects them, and they continue thinking that the sentence is correct.

However, technically speaking, “The door open already” is not a proper sentence. “Open” here sounds like a verb conjugated wrongly, and “already” isn’t something that can be opened by the door. (Here, you might have lost me if you don’t know proper English grammar)

This is why the title of this post is about “ruinous empathy”. This is a part of the “radical candor” concept that started making waves a few years back. The concept is about “caring personally while challenging directly”, and if you draw two axes, one for caring and the other for challenging, this makes four quadrants:

drawing courtesy of Radical Candor

Radical candor is what we should aim for, where we care about the person while still challenging undesirable actions. The opposite of it while still caring, is ruinous empathy, where we keep silent to spare someone’s feelings.

So when no one tells them that their English is wrong, and everyone understands them perfectly, they conclude that their English is correct. How could they come to any other conclusion? However, this also means that their English will not improve. How would they know what to improve if they do not know what is wrong?

I have had my head bitten off before by a colleague when I corrected the structure of their sentence (luckily, it was not literally :P ). They were writing it for a requirements document. They were upset because they had always been using that sentence structure and no one had ever complained. But this was either because those reading (or listening to) the sentence did not know that it was wrong either, or because they were practicing ruinous empathy. Frankly, I don’t correct every grammatical mistake I see or hear either; that would ruin every communication (and my relationship with more than half the people I know).

I also use Manglish often (like that sentence above about the door), especially with people who speak Manglish. There is an uncomfortable feeling of being pompous when we use grammatically-correct English with people who are using Manglish. I guess this would also fall under the category of ruinous empathy. Guilty as charged.

Even though in this case it seems like a little ruinous empathy is necessary (again, we cannot correct every single mistake!), the question is, how do we offset the effect of that ruinous empathy?

I have been trying to figure out what those people who cannot make a proper sentence are missing. The answer, unfortunately, is “a lot”. But it is not possible to get them to go back and learn basic English. So, what can be done to have the biggest improvement with the smallest effort?

I settled on two things: Transitive/Intransitive verbs and active/passive voice.

Both of these have to do with sentence structure. Verb conjugations may cause some confusion if done wrongly, but these are more easily clarified or corrected. Vocabulary (using the wrong words) is less of a problem; most of my colleagues tend to have better vocabulary than grammar. Differentiating nouns and adjectives/adverbs is another issue, but that usually does not cause huge misunderstandings.

Back to what I mentioned earlier in the post, my colleagues would say sentences that actually make no sense. They would use a transitive verb without an object, thus leaving a sentence hanging. (And they do not know that their sentence is incomplete.) They would say a sentence with a noun-noun-verb structure, and we wouldn’t know which noun is the object and which is the subject. If they understood active and passive voices, they would be able to use a noun-verb-noun structure, even if the verb were not conjugated properly. (or am I being too optimistic here? :P )

There is a colleague of mine who is very hardworking, and it seemed to me that they were making efforts to improve their English. I would notice them using not-so-common English expressions when no one else would use such expressions in Manglish. So a few years back when this colleague started writing formal documentation, I told them (kaypoh much?) that they could try paying more attention to these two items, namely transitive/intransitive verbs and active/passive voice.

Recently, after seeing a number of written explanations that made no sense, I decided to tell a few more people about these two “improvements to try out”. This time, I looked up examples on the Internet, and shared the two links above with them. Whether they will actually make the effort to correct themselves or not, I do not know...

Water art

Last week's photo theme was drops.

I had a brown paper bag lying around, so I decided to make it my canvas...

...by flinging a few drops of water at it.

Artistic much? :P

Fluffy cake and cheese tart

Some time ago, we went to Kia Lai Cake Pastry which had just opened a branch near Sunshine Square. 

Their best-seller is a seaweed chicken floss cake, and they have a variety of cheese tarts. We tried their best-seller, and selected a cheese tart.

chocolate cheese tart, RM5.90

seaweed chicken floss cake, RM7.90

The cake was extremely fluffy; the sponge was so soft that the cake could hardly keep its square shape. In the middle, between the two layers of sponge, there is a bit of jam filling, probably just enough to keep the cake from being monotone.

The cheese tart was also extremely good; I felt that it was even better than Hokkaido cheese tarts. The cheese was not overpowering, lighter than Hokkaido's. Maybe people who like a stronger cheese taste would prefer Hokkaido?

Fish head at Hameediyah's

The other day we had dinner at Hameediyah Sungai Ara.

I have always liked their beef murtabak and beef rendang, which I had ordered for takeaway or delivery before. (eh, both are beef dishes :P )

That day we were planning to order these two and some other dishes to eat with rice, but the employee there immediately asked us whether we wanted curry fish head. There were a number of fresh fish heads on display in a chiller, and we ended up ordering the smallest one for RM30 (my mother did some negotiation to bring the price down, otherwise they were planning to charge us more)

Then we selected a few other dishes, all single portions since we already had a curry fish head!

The employees seemed very happy when the fish head curry was served; they brought all the other dishes together with the curry. And then they asked us for a photo, with us sitting at the table, and a few of them standing behind the table holding a Hameediyah placard.

I told them not to post the photo online, and they said it would be only for their Whatsapp group. I’m confused as to what that means…is that an employee Whatsapp group? Is that to show their boss what they managed to sell??

Anyway, here is my own photo of the dishes:

And the bill:

The beef rendang was still the best (apart from the fish curry, which is a different category of dish), better than the lamb mysore which was also good. But the fried squid was the worst! Besides being tough and rubbery, it was the most expensive. At this quality, I wouldn't pay RM1 for it.

The mango lassi was also disappointing; it was so watered down that it was just like a milky mango drink.

So what we think is: Next time we should just have beef rendang, since it is the best and cheapest. And probably the curry fish head, if we can get that kind of price again.

Food discoveries in Ipoh

Last weekend we made a trip to Ipoh. This time we tried two new eateries.

One was Small Village Cafe, a newly-opened cafe in town, near Tong Sui Kai. We tried two of their signature dishes, and both were good.

sour & spicy fish noodles, RM19.80

mutton curry rice, RM21.90

We also tried two desserts. These were good but not that special…

barley foochuk, RM5

pumpkin sago (with ice because we ordered it cold), RM5.50

We were surprised to find pieces of pumpkin inside. We thought it would all have been blended smoothly in...

The other place we tried was a kopitiam that we had always passed by when going to Chooi Yue Dim Sum. During dinnertime, they have a rather famous western food stall (Thum’s Western Food) and also a satay stall. There are other stalls too, but these two were the ones we tried.

chicken chop

fish & chips

Both come with fries and onion rings. The fried items were very crispy indeed. We thought that the chicken chop would be deep fried (the photo showed that it was…but it may have been a very old photo), but turned out it was grilled. We saw that most people ordered chicken maryland, which was definitely fried. The western food cost around RM15 each if not mistaken.

beef & lamb satay

chicken satay

To me, the western food was not bad, but I especially like the satay. It was 80 sen a stick for chicken or beef, and 90 sen for mutton.

When ordering, we were actually considering trying the lamb, but we decided not to because there was too much fat on the lamb skewers (you can see it from the photo) So we ordered chicken and beef, five sticks each. But the seller brought us beef and lamb instead. Since both tasted good, we went back and ordered five sticks of chicken. The chicken was good too, so we were satisfied. :D I forgot to take a photo until there were only two left. :P

The only “bad” thing about the satay is the sauce; it’s not great. But the taste of the satay is good enough that it can make up for it. It would have been good even without the sauce!

The kopitiam is called New Weng Fatt. I’m definitely looking forward to going back for more satay. But we’ll skip the mutton…it’s not worth it when the beef is just as good!