(1256)Closing a business after Covid-19 shut down

The seafood restaurant behind where my son and I live closed down. It seemed a hasty decision to me. Due to Covid 19 all businesses were forced to close down for two weeks. The first places to be allowed to open were supermarkets. Then mini markets, grocery stores and wet markets. Restaurants one by one reopened, most are for take out only initially. By the time businesses were returning to normal, the seafood restaurant opened for take out, in less than a week, it decided to close for good.

My landlady said it was not hasty decision, rental was $1800. Workers, even at half pay, probably cost at least $3500. Then water bills and electricity bills run on and had to be paid. Even little or no usage meant minimum payment. She said the boss has been losing at least $15,000 for that three months of closure. The boss decided to give up the shop and go on to selling seafood wholesale operating from his home.

(1255)Ideas on eternity

During my uncle's last visit to Kuala Lumpur, he stayed in my elder brother's house. One morning, I had a chance alone with him and I grabbed it and told him of my dad's death bed scene. While he does not believe in demi-gods or ghosts, he as a trained doctor who could not deny the idea of an all knowing creator of the universe. His idea is that if there is such a God, God is simply too busy to care about one out of 7 billion souls on earth. After I related all the details and the subsequent dream, he promised me that if he has a chance to call out "Jesus, save me!" with his last breath, he would do so like my dad. I hope he did not promise just to get rid of me. Well, I have done all I could. At every opportunity I've shared what I could.

I am also grateful that the talk I gave in Johor allowed me to be accompanied by my cousin Bee Leng to visit fifth uncle in Desa Bayu. We drove on the new high way (open since Chinese New Year 2020) to go to the housing area before Desaru. Staying in my uncle's 5 room house for 2 nights gave me a chance to talk to him about my dad's last hour. He listened attentively as he saw my dad for about 30 minutes in Tung Shin Hospital before rushing off to catch a 6-hour bus ride to Johor about 4 days before the latter's passing. Like my uncle on my mum's side, fifth uncle on my dad's side did not comment on my dream. I find older Chinese are not flippant about dreams, there is a place for dream language in the Chinese culture. He too promised me that he would do the needful at the last moment because he wanted to meet my dad again. 

(1254) Working in China

At one point of my life I was contemplating a year of teaching English in Kwangchow or Chung San. I sounded out my uncle and he told me that it is best overseas Chinese do not return to work in China, unless it is with an International Corporation with contractual, enforceable letters of appointment running to 18 pages. As he himself was born overseas and did return to China in his youth, he must know what he is talking about. I have since thought of China with lots of reservation unless it is bringing money there to spend as tourists.

To tour China is hardly something of interest to me. Meeting kin is another matter. Now that main land Chinese could move around freely, every few years I see my elder cousin and his wife. My second brother visits China often, a habit he started when he studied and worked in Hong Kong. My eldest brother and wife visited Chung San  recently and invited my second cousin and wife to visit us in Kuala Lumpur.
Now that there are female infants in both cousins' families, it will be three years before they would venture to visit a place five hours by flight away. The Heng family seemed to multiply very slowly. From Generation 1 of 2, G2 of 4, G3 of 9 and G4 of 14. There is no G5 yet. Though two G4  have been married for 4 and 3 years respectively, both couples are childless. Both G4 carry other surnames and are descended from daughters. There are only six descendants from G4 with the surname of Heng.
My elder uncle had the Heng family records. According to my elder cousin who heard from her dad, the Hengs (Chinese character bear) came from Hubei. Before the dynasty ended, the ancestor used to work in Peking as a government scholarly servant. Now that elder uncle had passed on, no one knows where the document is. It could have been thrown away after the flood at the back of his shop lot. A business man valued profit, why did he care about family history? 

(1253)Medical profession, all in the family

There is a family in Silver City  of seven members, all seven are medical doctors. Father is a gynaecologist while mother is a paediatrician. All five children are doctors of one kind or another.
Keziah has a classmate whose parents are both medical doctors too. Over the years the first daughter became a haematologist. The second son became a physician who sings in his leisure time. The third son wanted to become a film director when he was 16. Both father and mother objected. They must have gone on their knees to pray for him to change his mind. Over a two year period his interest moved onto economy and he chose to go to a country other than where his siblings went for further studies.

Recently I wonder if his outrageous first choice was a means to deflect away medicine? His eldest sister did want to be a doctor. But his elder brother did not want to be a doctor initially. Yet his suggestion of music as a major was not practical. His father countered with an offer of spending the million prepared into purchasing a shop lot and equipping it into a music instrument shop for him to run. He thought about it and retreated to medicine.

While the third one was growing up, he must have been looking at the first one undergoing a most demanding course. Then she saw how the second one reluctantly persevered through two degrees to qualify. I actually think being a very smart person, he thought of a way to counter the father's one-track mind. 

(1252) The Chinese mania of forcing children to become medical doctors

When Keziah was a 2 year old, there is a girl in church who used to carry her all around the church grounds on Sunday. Our church in Silver City was made up of five buildings spread over three acres or more. We have a main sanctuary, a kindergarten, chapel for the secondary school next door, a gymnasium and a long educational block.

Kelly is a bright , personable, sensitive and caring tween then. It is hard to remember how old she was when Keziah first appeared in church way back in 1994.But I remembered being quite worried whether she could handle Keziah who was rather plump then. A Sunday school teacher, I think it was Amy, reassured me that Kelly is strong, responsible and had her head screw on right. So from initially  running after Kelly, I merely told her to return the toddler to me, not to pass her to any one else. That Kelly was good about obeying. She did not disappoint me, not even once.

Over the years I saw her struggle. Given a free choice, she would have made an excellent early educational specialist, whether in running a kindergarten or becoming a specialist like educational psychologist working with special children... She would be such a potential blessing to a whole generation  of 0-5 children either in KL or Silver City.

The last I heard, she became something link with children, whether paediatrician or child psychologist, I could not recall. Maybe you would say that is fitting, right inside her area of interest too. But sad to say, she was working in a Singapore hospital the last time my daughter located her on face book. Great loss to our nation!

(1251)Alcoholic genes

I remember my first host family whom I spent the first Christmas holidays and part of the first summer with. Papa Ellison was adopted. There was no details of his forebear's medical background. The second generation were five girls, all of them happily married. My friend from college is the elder daughter with one brother from the youngest girl. Like her grandma and mum, she married young. After her marriage to her high school sweetheart, she transferred to a state university.

Years later I visited her and her husband in Raleigh. She has adopted a Korean boy, a biracial boy and then a Korean girl. Catching up with the post college years, she related how her brother drank to excess and dropped out of college. He drifted from one job to the next, finally settled in selling cars and made Florida his home. By that time it was widely known that there was a set of genes that are prone to alcoholism. People could go for generations without suffering from alcoholism provided they abstain. Nobody else in the entire clan drink to excess. Strictly speaking, most of them don't drink, period. Maybe it is upbringing, perhaps you call it family culture or it is Christian abstinence. All six families are church going right up to that time, somewhat like what most people call the American dream.

In my own family, I have a cousin on my mother side who drinks. We heard about his Saturday late night vomiting. Yet it was totally incongruent with the fact that he is an official quite high up in the district hospital. His first marriage failed.The first wife did not remarry after more than 10 years. His second wife just delivered a baby girl a few months back after about four years of marriage.
I guess comparing my cousin to Steven there is a difference. My cousin could function and keep to his profession. Steven crashed a few times before he joined the AA and stayed sober, counting the days, months and hopefully years. As a clan, most of us hardly drink. every one of my maternal grandma's four biological children and one adopted girl did not drink. From my eldest aunt, her elder girl may take half a glass of wine. Her younger brother may take a can of beer. Both my second uncle's children are strict Christian non-drinkers. None of my mum's three children take to drinking. It is only from small uncle that his younger son picked up the drinking habit as a college student. The family history closely mirrored the Ellisons. After all, my grandma was adopted, she hardly knew her siblings, let alone relatives or family medical history. 

(1250)Freshman Fall

A good friend in college gave me an autumn picture her brother took of the woods while driving her to college. He aptly named it Freshman Fall. I took the picture back from North America and deposited it with an artistic friend who treasured it and displayed it in her dining area which is predominantly brown in colour. A touch of gold in foliage added aesthetics to her nook.

During my freshman first semester, I had a tough time with my roommate. She was a bright spark, who at age 16 won a merit scholarship to my college. Although I was a mature student at 21, my short stature and baby face made me look younger than her. Despite her combative attitude, I tolerated it with a shrug. At the end of the semester, the aggressor went to complain about my daylight absences from a shared room. She was distraught that I brought the wind, the chill and the snow into our shared warm room late at night. The Housing Director called me and heard my side of the story. Well! I said my dear roommate was spoiled and arrogant. But as an adult five years her senior, I think she has great potential if she could stick to our college and hack it socially. The Housing Director laughed and asked if I want another roommate. I said no thank you. It was arranged that I was given a single right at the end of another wing. Right before leaving her office, I asked if it was a joke that I was assigned with this particular girl. Her eyes twinkled and said I was yet another outstanding girl from Malaysia who did well academically and socially in spite of any adverse circumstances. I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. Sharing the interview with my pals at the international table, I had a good chuckle with them. In a way it could be a high compliment to my compatriots. A Science Professor who was there counted on his fingers, there were no less than four Malaysian girls who won high honours (Phi Beta Kappa or Sigma Xi) at graduation during the past fifteen years or so. The college generally take in one Malaysian student every two or three years.

A year later, I heard that my ex-roommate was sent to Coventry for attempting to break up friendship of her close associates. She could not take the silent treatment and transferred to a community college near her home town. It was such a waste! Her biological father abandoned her and her mum. A full scholarship obtained was such a blessing to a deserving student with limited financial means. It was a pity that she did not lie low and persevered through the four years of college. All she needed to do was to apologise and eat humble pie to stay on. In spite of everything she did to me, I bore her no malice. Why should any American girl be nice to me just because I was a foreign student? Though some are, few and far in between. I find the children of diplomats, corporate leaders posted overseas, and military offspring are the most friendly to non-Americans in general.

(1249)Meant not to be

There is a saying, marriages are made in heaven.

I have a childhood friend who fell in love with her business partner. They bought a condo to live in and built the business. Thus they were happy for many years. When he wanted to get married, she was too involved in her projects. The date was postponed. When she asked about it, it was a bad recession. Money was scarce. It is traditional to have a lavish reception, especially for an only son who would be the groom.

Then she had a life threatening condition that led to a hysterectomy. She barely escaped with her life. Since the partner's parents expected grandchildren, the entire line depends on her partner. My friend parted from the love of her life. She took the condo while he carried on with the business. She went to Australia for further studies.

Recalling this reminded me of another love story. Another friend of mine took off and visited US with the help of a few close friends. One gave her frequent flyer miles. Another gave her a cheque. Yet others gave her practical things like winter garments. She met her internet friend finally and stayed in his vicinity for almost a year. She came back a changed person. Travelling and staying abroad does broaden one's horizon. It was quite a few weeks upon her return that I heard the sad story. While she was awaiting his marriage proposal, he was undecided. After she purchased her return ticket, he cried and begged her to marry him. It was too late.
She got over him quite easily, but it took him years before he gave up. There are two points that I can't quite figure out:
1. Why wasn't it possible for her to delay the flight? After all, visa was not up and most airlines allowed a change of date 48 hours before flight time.
2. If the relationship meant that much to him, why couldn't he fly over and pursue her when his financial circumstances improved?
Of course in affairs of the heart, there are no easy answers.

(1248) Message from departed pet

In the process of arranging the chapters of my second book, I played with the order until I could reasonably end with the last sentence. Both my editors suggested better or more logical arrangement. However, I refused because my mind was made up. Writing cat stories is one thing, being cast as a cat lover or owner is quite another. Two years later, looking back now, what does it matter? Should I finish my collection of chicken tales someday, would it matter if I am known as a chicken lover?

My husband and I turned up to show Prince's owner the cat book. She was the one who ignited my desire to publish a book containing Prince's stories. She asked a most innocuous question, "On what page is the first Prince story?" I glanced at the table of content and answered evenly,"55." She burst out in tears and explained that 5 was Prince's favourite number. It has been almost a year since the beloved cat passed on to the happy hunting ground. Whenever she looked at the tree at the corner of her garden, she still find tears in her eyes. It was, in her words, like "Prince came back in the book to tell me it is quite OK."

Immediately I thought of other writer's series of piled up co-incidences in their process of writing. At the next opportunity, I will borrow from my niece and read again Tan's "The Opposite of Fate".

(1247)temporary work while waiting for result

There are sixth formers in my church in Sabah. STPM (formerly HSC, equivalent to GCE A-level) results come out in a much shorter time than 40 years previously.

While I waited for my HSC result, I worked as a temporary teacher in a Chinese Primary School in KL for a term. Similarly, my youngest worked at a law firm doing conveyance clerical work for 4 months. From that experience, she decided law is the last profession she wanted in town.
Joanna, who is a happy-go-lucky person in the Sabah church, could not find a job and seemed to cheerfully doodle at home. Yvonne is a little more assertive, she grabbed a tutoring job and has been almost tearing out her hair in struggling to teach since. In teaching, I started the ball rolling a few years before Form 6. In Form One I had a student who came to my house three times a week for English tutoring for a few months. His English did not improve much but his mum was quite pleased to see him lose a few pounds during those months. For whatever homework he did not do, he cheerfully skipped rope as punishment. The dad stopped sending him when he sensed the boy was not interested in improving his English. After LCE (now called PT3) I taught a few children in the neighbourhood for a few months. That was a learning experience for me. As the parents and the housekeeper were supportive, the children did improve  much in English and Malay during that period.

Therefore I could see why Yvonne has such difficulties. Firstly most parents in Sabah just forked out money and left things pretty much to the tutor. Next thing to note is that the children could actually do substantial work during the school holidays if the parents and the nannies are supportive. Let's say the children come for one hour of tutoring three times per week, and they consistently do one hour of home exercise every week day, that would be 8 hours of work done per week. Assuming 6 weeks of work, it adds up to 48 hours of work done. We can see that judicially planned exercises done conscientiously work wonders with some explanation during lesson time.

By the time I was working as a temporary teacher, I realised that 9 years old are not the right age group for me. After strict streaming, 3E as a class is difficult to teach. I used to mark sentence making twice a week and journal writing weekly. The first was tough enough, it is the second that killed a novice teacher. It is funny that I did spend most of my adult life teaching remedial English to either college age classes or one-to-one tutoring to young children. At least it is much easier than attempting to teach a class of 48 children whom each required special attention.

(1246)Triple C

There are three men in my church, all transplants from out of town. One of their wives called them Triple C because all their family names begin with C.

Senior C1 hailed from the Capital city. C2 comes from Sarawak and C3 was born in Perlis. C1 accepted the Lord recently and was baptised. C2 has been a faithful servant of God for many years. It was he who brought C1 and C3 to his adopted church. I met up with C1's wife briefly right before I returned to the peninsular. She related the long story of how her husband ended up working in a plantation about an hour by car from where I live. I must say that it is rather unusual that a transplanted manager from hundreds of miles away would bump into two others to form a tightly knitted little care group for all practical purposes.

When one of the Cs was hospitalised, the second C took care of transportation and registration while the third C cooked for him and sent the food to the hospital. Then when the patient was discharged, he was taken back to the bigger apartment and the other two Cs cared for him until he could return to his working place.

For the current academic term, 3 teenagers from my church are going over to Perak to attend an English intensive course. One of the three Mrs C assumed the role of the guide to help them look for rooms and settle down. This is cultural exchange at its best in a country of two geographical portions separated by the South China Sea.  

(1245)Student housing

My thoughts turned to a young friend from Borneo who is currently studying on the island of Penang.
She paid more than a fair price for her room on the third floor. Since she needed air-conditioning, she puts up with $500 advance payment  for electrical usage. Once the balance dips below $50, she has to top up with another $500. All the electricity used in her room was metered.

The unbelievable part is that while she has no water heater in an attached bathroom yet she is not allowed to use any kettle in her room. For drinking hot water, she has to collect it from downstairs from a dispenser. There are dogs downstairs within the premise and these dogs are bathed in the downstairs bathroom. Since she is not fond of dogs, she is therefore reluctant to be downstairs more than a few minutes at a time. She thinks that the downstairs bathroom is too dirty for human use. Yet that is the only source of hot water available to her. For someone who is thin and with low immune system, she regularly catches colds or flus in Penang. She chose this house to stay in because she doesn't have a car as well as she is nervous about driving on Penang island. Some of the roads in the city centre are rather narrow. From her present abode, she could walk to college within five minutes.
The thing that she mentioned that brought goose bumps along my spine is: there are at least two rats in her building. One fat one that she regularly saw behind the water dispenser. On the very next day after she first sighted the fat rat, she saw a thin, small one staring at her from her air-conditioning unit above her bed. Imagine the first thing one looks at in the morning is a rodent, what a "charming" place to reside in!

There were quite a few of us at the gathering when she related her harrowing experience. Each one came up with one suggestion or another. None could work out for her as she placed quite a number of limitations on her daily life. So it does look like she will have to rough it for all three long years. And this is where a foreign missionary couple could rent a sea-facing condo for $1,200 monthly with four rooms and three baths in relatively good condition in Tanjung Bungah, quite a good neighbourhood to me. Half the condos in that compound were empty, crying for tenants, just one year ago.

(1244) Visiting wet market

Believe it or not, it has been three years since I visited a wet market. Where my permanent home is, the only wet market is miles away and parking is hard to get. For two and a half years I did my marketing in nearby supermarkets.

For the previous two days, I bought stuff from a very small but clean wet market. On the first day, I chose to buy vegetables from the first right hand stall, as I had to break a $100 bill. On the second day, I patronised the third left hand stall. Prices were indeed a little steep in this second stall. I paid 70 cents for each medium size onion. However I found service quick and pleasant. Those who served me were from a country far away. Language had to be hand signals to simple, easy to understand Malay words. There after, for speed I chose the more pricey stall. The first right hand stall also served restaurants and cafes who phoned in orders. Patrons who come in person have to queue for payment. On that first day I moved over to buy eggs and fish from other stalls after choosing and placing my vegetables in a colander provided. By the time I returned to the first stop, all the patrons were gone. Prices were good, I could see.

On subsequent days, I walked out very early, by hurrying with my few purchases, I managed to walk back home way before sunlight hit the streets. Sometimes a few dollars could be spent to buy a little time so that one need not sweat excessively nor even be sun burnt. 

(1243)Tibet's Secret Mountain by Chris Bonington; Charles Clark

It is amazing that the mountaineering bug would bite a person until he would climb mountains into his sixties.

To me, it is like the bug for reading. Once a person loves to read, he or she may read until well into old age. It is eye-opening to read about an outsider's view of China throughout the years of travel and climbing mountains. Tibet, to many of us armchair persons, is a cold and quaint land. It is fascinating to read about it, but I seriously doubt if I would ever travel there even if I have both the budget and the leisure.

(1242) Professional chief tenant

Very often we cannot get something for nothing. For example, I get  a new life in Borneo by adapting to life in two little rooms in commercial quarters with very few amenities in the building.

I look at someone else's life with a nice big house, pleasant and conveniently located. Yet it is at the cost of putting up with six girls young enough to be her daughters. After all, they are like the daughters that she never had. So it is a part of the circle of life nevertheless.

After all, as a main tenant, the stay is free. One has to look after the cleanliness and enforce the rules for the common good. Should all six rooms be let, there is a surplus sum to pay a cleaner weekly, should the purse holder so desires. As she improves the house, she raises the rental accordingly. For two years she had had full house. The task of chief enforcer actually pays a generous food budget monthly.

One room is available for $450 a month in two months' time. Although there is no window facing outside. Guess one could not ask for everything. Getting eight out of ten points usually is sufficient. If the perspective tenant is smart, she should ask for an exhaust fan to be installed.

(1241)Ambience

I am sitting in a harmoniously arranged living-dining area. The three main pieces of furnishing are a glass top long wooden table, six rattan chairs and two long sofas of off-white fabric and beige leather.
On one side, there was a square, good quality mirror with a line of knick-knacks along the lower edge. A vase of bare branch hung with Chinese New Year paper decorations on the left of the mirror. Next to the vase are two metallic shelves of plants in interesting receptacles. On the right of the mirror is a Yamaha piano and right in the corner of a two level stairs is a triangular old wooden whatnot displaying photos and sparking glasses. On blank pieces of walls we see an abstract picture and an old black and white framed travel itinerary in French.

I can't even begin to describe the restfulness of this 17x25 feet high ceiling room. Yet I know  for a fact that most of these items came from various friends and acquaintances as well as sourced from discarded furniture from ex-pats moving out of their apartments. My hostess was a real estate agent before she returned to tertiary education in her early fifties. As a foreign student I have visited 14 families in the United States ranging from graduate students struggling to make ends meet  to very wealthy families. Yet I must say that not in old money nor new wealth have I seen a place so well appointed yet it is homey and comfortable. Of course I have been to my boss' parents home in Houston which would have netted a 4-star rating. And I have been to two rustic country homes in Texas of millionaires, one from oil and the other from beer. Although those two places were something to talk about and admire, compared to the room I just described, they paled in terms of the sense of ease, peace and ambience.

(1240) A thing of beauty

Looking at me, no one would suspect that I love beauty in odd things. The only item in my home that I want to transfer to Borneo someday is a round slab of black marble. Talking about marble, most marble tables are white and green where I come from. We do see black marble with glittering bits in major banks and exclusive hotels. Once my husband and I admired yellow marble in Danang, Vietnam on a flying visit.

Many years ago, an old friend bought the present marble slab for five thousand ringgit. I used to frequent her house to talk, to eat and to hang out as fellow homemakers. When she needed cash, one of her brothers offered $200 for the table. Another sibling offered to take it off her hands for free as the former figured she had to pay for transportation to haul the slab and the heavy stand from one house to the other. There I was, day in and day out I walked past it, touched it with wonder and looked at it with admiration. I actually thought black marble is much more beautiful than the traditionally white marble table tops. When the owner of the marble table finally moved out to one room, she gave the table to me because I love and thought it exotic.

I keep it because I like to look at it and touch its cool surface. Nature produced such pleasant looking things that the best inventors could not counterfeit in completeness. Of course I am aware of its financial value as a second hand item. I would have treasured such a thing of beauty even if it is not worth a cent on e-bay.

(1239)When god doesn't answer your prayer by Jerry Sittser

I am surprised that I finished reading this book in my friend's house. Normally I would grab every opportunity to read and blog on Reader's Digest Condensed Books and most fictions. However, all the books I saw in this friend's house previously belonged to a daughter who has since married and moved away. Thus apart from writing and typing from written manuscripts, I started reading what caught my eyes.

For one who has sat in church long enough, the common answer is that God could say yes, no, or wait to any prayer. The single prayer I have prayed over the years regarding my father's salvation took 26 years to come to pass. I am thankful that after waiting a long time, God did say yes so graciously.

But of course for anyone who prays earnestly through the years over many matters, some prayers were not answered. In this book I learned that prayers were not centred on the answers, it is centred on our relationships with God. For a person who faithfully prays, it is he who was changed in a manner that enables him to help change the world in his corner. In other words prayer is a "dangerous" thing, it changes us, takes us out of our comfort zones to work out the matter we pray about.

(1238)Shaking hands with death by terry pratchett

As part of the Baby Boomers generation, I am seeing more and more cases of Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, dementia, ... in folks mainly older than I. But sometimes in a few who are younger than 60.

A family friend, Fillip, recently died from some urinary ailment. His main complaint was he could no longer chew solid food. A soft diet of porridge and milk simply could not deliver enough nutrients to keep his body functioning. But what could a 91 year old man expect? Many parts of his aging body were almost worn out. He was getting increasingly forgetful, when he could no longer sign a legible signature to cash a cheque, he had to resort to transferring all his funds to his wife's account. His daughter and nephew would prefer to send him to a nursing home, he objected. His wife valiantly soldiered on...

My uncle was 89, suffering from Alzheimer's, when he fell and injured his head. He did not wake up from surgery. His brain was sufficiently affected by the disorder that his wife had to whisper to my mum and I not to believe what he claimed. The last two times we talked to him, facts essentially changed enough in his memory that we had to listen to things that were not true and we tried hard not to argue with him.  

His elder sister of 92 was hospitalised last December. Her muscular-skeletal system was good, but sad that the part of the brain that help her balance malfunctioned. She would wake up and struggled to stand up, yet failed to do so and fell. Her short term memory was reduced to a few minutes at best, thus the constant struggling and falling repeated itself.

My sympathies go to the overworked caregivers. A person who has lost his or her mind is no longer the person we knew them as. The third person mentioned above recognises no one. She is blissfully happy living in her own made up world. The second person was a little paranoid  about others poaching on his property or his cash, one had to humour him to get along with him.

I have a lot of respect for Pratchett to bring up the no win topic of a good, dignified death. It is much needed in every country where the life expectancy of people crosses 72.

(1237)Playing for pizza

After living a few years in America, I fully appreciate the place American football occupies there. For secondary school children in Sabah, it is Rugby. In Peninsular Malaysia, it is soccer.

It is therefore interesting to find that folks actually play football in Italy. The idea that they have a Superbowl there boggles my mind. Lately Italy is one of the countries where Corona virus seemed to pass from village to village killing many people. Perhaps one of the Chinese Medical Team's observation of Italians wearing their outdoor shoes indoor giving the virus unbridle means of infecting more and more persons is the crucial difference between European and Asian culture. It has been said that the mountainous terrain of Italy tends to make one area isolated from another. Then the longevity of the aging population possibly make the country a prime target for the relentless attack by the fast mutating virus. The western concept of personal freedom being supreme made it difficult for public order to be enforced. All these factors are contributing causes to the rapid spread of disease in that country.

Would Italy be the same joyous place I read about in this book after this pandemic ends? 

(1236)George Muller by Janet & Geoff Benge

This is the second biography of Muller I have read. The first one I borrowed from a church library probably 20 years ago, that dealt with his life work of opening orphanages and bringing up orphans in a big way.

This book, however, uses 5 chapters to show us the earlier life of Muller. Apparently, he was quite a scoundrel before he followed Christ in Theological Seminary. It was in Herr Kayser's Bible Meeting that he met God. He went there to get ideas on how to preach, after all, he was being educated to become a pastor. Apart from bible reading, hymn singing, it was the sermon reading that brought about his abrupt change of heart. After that conviction of heart, he became a new person mightily used by God to improve the lives of thousands of orphans. Amazing achievement for someone who depends only on prayers.

(1235)contrasting living conditions

As I walked from the kitchen to the dining and the sitting room in the mornings, I get glimpses of the individual rooms of tenants as they move in or out. Since the chief tenant and I would use the public space at will, I wonder what it felt like to be confined to a 10x12 feet room outside of class or work time? Most of them, I notice, eat their meals in their individual rooms.

In comparison, I am fortunate to have the space of 30x65 feet in Sabah even though the work and bed rooms cover perhaps one third of that area. In spite of the fact that the landlady's miscellaneous equipment for a defunct restaurant and a thriving catering business is scattered outside of the two little rooms, it is still wonderful to have the run of the entire first floor except for the daily visit of the landlady in adding or retrieving ingredients from the deep chest freezers for her business. She cooks either in her apartment or her sister's big wooden house in the outskirts of the city. The same sister rears 200 chickens for sale all around the spacious house. Their 82 year old mother, still plants and harvests vegetables for sale, lives next door to the said sister. Talk about the long and active  lives of the seniors living in the land below the wind. 

(1234) Being green

As I listened to the sound of hair dryer in operation, I thought of two men.

One is a bright spark in Thailand. He is very careful of his carbon footprint. Hair dryer and air-conditioners are deemed non-essential. But his wife and daughters keep long hair. Without the use of a hairdryer, washing hair at night would not be easy.

 The other is my cousin. When he is at home, each member of the family and a hapless visitor like me  would have to turn off the fan as soon as we stand up to leave the room. Else we risk his ire and we would see a black face for a while. One January I saw the electric bill was $18.96. He need not pay that bill as the city council waived payment of any bill below $20.00. The following month the bill was even lower, $12.07, as the family was away for 7 days out of the preceding 30 days. I marvel at the low power usage of a house with four bedrooms, three baths, two air-conditioners, 4 adults living full time within! Unbelievable!

(1233) Living in a borading house

It is interesting to be downstairs, cooking fish porridge as I observe the tenants who are getting ready to go out for the day. By the look of their attire, most of them are probably students with their backpacks.

Each girl is different in their morning routines. One boiled an entire kettle and brought it back to her room. Two collected cooled boiled water from the jug or dispenser. Two girls shared one bathroom upstairs. Each of them paid more than the others who shared the one downstairs. For a house with seven rooms, three bathrooms seem inadequate. But they know each other's routine and the downstairs bathroom usage worked like a choreographed dance of ballet.

I realise by looking at them, I was extremely fortunate that I have full room and board during my college days. For the interim between graduation and marriage, I was back with my family. Hence this studying or working from a rooming house is new to me. I guess my youngest is very blessed that she roomed with a wonderful family near the train station a stop from University. She was there for 5 years for her Bachelor's and Master's degrees. Now she is back at home within walking distance from a newly minted train station on another line. Thus she too was spared from a boarding house experience.

(1232)Sunset industry

Talking about artificial intelligence, I think of how self driving vehicles would make the jobs of drivers obsolete.

There is a father, who is a well-paid accountant, told his 13 year old son that his profession would be progressively taken on by computer programs. If any accountants are needed in his son's generation, it would be few and the nature of the job very different from his. He told his son who is good in science to aim to be an engineer.

Yesterday I found out that Zelda's god daughter was qualifying as an accountant. Now I wonder what the 22 year old young person would face in her next 38 years of employment? This young lady is in her final semester before graduation. Then she would face a much higher hurdle to pass her professional exam.

I remember how I heard that work in the electronic factories in Malaysia would be considered sun-set industry in the 1980s. Yet I know personally a man, who is the husband of my office manager in a private college I taught in, worked in his one job since graduation. He actually retired from that same job in the same department after 4 changes of ownership in 2018.

Of course his university mate moved from quality assurance to banking. Another colleague of the husband mentioned in the above paragraph took a voluntary resignation with compensation and changed line to real estate. Yet the interesting point is that at least one person did stick to and actually finished his working life in a sunset industry. 

(1231)Thinking out of the box

In a lovely garden of varied plants, we find boxes of papers immersed in water. It took great self control on my part not to ask. Slowly, the story unfolded: a friend who had accumulated boxes of correspondence was planning to leave the country. She no longer worked therefore had no access to paper shredder. Daily she worried about those documents as we are all concern about digital identity and security.

Out came our heroine who produced a neat solution. She noticed that water removed ink and dissolved paper. Hence wet documents would disintegrate and all confidential information would be safe from any prying eyes. As the paper fell to fragments, pieces of plastic from official envelopes could be easily picked up from the mixture. Then our resourceful person dried them in batches in the tropical sun. These paper pulp was then added, some to line flower pots bottom, some to the trash. Voila! Problem solved! Talk about thinking out of the box!

(1230)Crystal's friends

Many years ago, it was reported that two corpses, a mother and her daughter, were removed from a Canning Garden house. The daughter happened to be a member of Crystal's old church. The former lived in a double-storey house with her bed-ridden mum. There was no helper. Mother and daughter would eat packed hawker food daily.

People in church would kindly drop old TV or whatever mum and daughter lacked in their bare house. Crystal was by no means rich, she too bought slippers for the daughter when the old ones gave way. When neighbours complained to the police, a team came to break the locks and remove the decomposing bodies. It was found by autopsies that the daughter died of a massive stroke while watching TV. A few days later, the mother died of dehydration.

After the news broke, various relatives turned up. Apparently mum and daughter jointly owned ten shop buildings in town. Rental collected monthly reaches $30,000. There were $10 millions in fixed deposit in various banks. Yet the "poor" old lady could not shout loud enough to get help. The land line was ten feet or so from the hospital bed in the sitting room. She literally starved for a few days until she died of thirst. Imagine a millionaire died like a beggar in any fourth world way side.
Millions and the love for it could be a terrible slave driving force. Both mum and daughters were slaves to their hidden millions. They lived like paupers throughout their lives.

(1229) Sticky end?

My eldest child has this theory that old folks with too much money would face difficult ends.

In Mei Lian's case, it is quite true. She has outlived her husband and all her sisters. As she wanted, she accumulated lots of money in the bank. Yet, for what? To make enemies of kind church members who took her in? To have a "rubbish" house for the Filipino maid to treasure hunt in? To leave the entire caboodle to the trusted lawyer who is rather high-handed to her nephew and nieces?
Mrs Lee, who lost time and money for meals who tried to sort out Lian's financial affairs, finally threw her hands up and refused to be involved anymore. Just as well the former is selling her Silver City house and stay on permanently in the capital city with her daughter. If not Lian would continue to take advantage of Mrs Lee and foul things up for any kind bank officials. Apparently Lian made a formal complaint against a very helpful and honest bank officer. Mrs Lee said that unless the officer with the complaint as a black mark change job, she would not be promoted throughout her working life.

Lian would sleep on the sitting room sofa with all the lights on in her inherited house. Perhaps she was afraid of her three deceased sisters coming back to take her to task. After all, she left two sisters' urns behind a coffin shop open to the elements. The life of a wealthy woman with a few millions in the bank is not good. She eats take out food. All the rooms in her house are full of her dead sisters' old things. That house was filled to overflowing with three spinsters' frugal living. Nothing had been thrown away for the past 30 years. The house was dim, dusty and dirty. I remember I had to remove things from a chair if I wanted to sit down to wait for Lian to get ready for an outing. I used to car sit for her whenever she summered in New Zealand. Her car had been a great blessing to my family. She has been a most fair car owner and treated me well. I guess I took very good care of her cars for a few stints. It ended when my family moved away.

Money is a good servant but a terrible master.  

(1228) Merry widow

There is a widow who lives a few doors from me. She knows everybody in the neighbourhood. As things go, she is one of the most friendly persons I've known these thirty years or so.

It is a good thing that she is shrewd and manages to hide the fact that she is an heiress. Even her husband did not know of her trust fund income. She has a good friend who allows her to use the latter's mailing address for investments and bank statements. There she is, an ordinary middle age woman who drives a tiny car. While her children were schooling, she was a transportation lady for school and tutoring classes. After all, might as well pick up a few hundreds while ferrying her children around.

After her husband passed on rather suddenly due to respiratory problems, folks were recommending her part-time jobs left and right. It was out of good intentions to help her as she looked distraught and haggard. Little did others know that it was not finances that caused her stress. It was her three children and her mother's disagreements that caused her much headaches until the legacies were safely banked away. Then she bounced back to her happy-go-lucky self. The last time I met her, she was back into her swing of ballroom dancing classes, line dancing mornings and other social whirls.   

(1227) Fishes

I was sitting outside watching my friend emptying muddy water and removing fishes from one container to another. While all the tenants enjoy the sight of the water plants and flowers, there is actually much maintenance work involved.

She kept two bottom feeders in each big receptacle, she calls them "Bandaraya" (Malay word for city council refuse removal). Then about two pairs of ordinary hardy fish we called drain fish. That way the fishes would eat up the ever present mosquito larvae. It is then a necessity to have a lot of floating plants to hide the fishes from king fishers. I remember my Silver City neighbour who took the trouble to net up her ornamental pond for the protection of fishes from birds. Another neighbour spent thousands to buy fishes that are too big for birds to catch.

While I enjoy observing cats, my friend loves flowers and beautifully shaped leaves.

(1226) Visits to China

Mum's earlier visits to China were with my cousin, father or eldest brother.

In 1998 I saved up some money from home tutoring. With substantial help from my brothers, I went for my first visit to China with mum and my children. Since the early years of communist rule, China had come a long way by then. In 1960 my grandma had problem finding sufficient acceptable food to eat. That was the year she was 55 according to the western calendar. Chinese babies at birth were considered 1 year old. Therefore by the Chinese lunar calendar, grandma was 56 when she could apply to the Home Office to visit her youngest son for the first time. She bought a sewing machine and a bicycle vouchers in Hong Kong and my uncle collected the items in Kwangchow. Actually that was her first flight ever, thirty six years ago she arrived in Singapore by ship.

Grandma related how my uncle queued two whole hours to buy two miserable looking pineapples. While he was jubilant, she did not have the heart to eat any piece he offered. Uncle ate one whole fruit in record time. He saved the other for his buddies. The pineapples were sour, picked before they were ripe. Yet these were rare delicacies from Hainan Island. It was seldom seen sold in the tiny town two hours north of Kwangchow. There was one visit my grandma came back with only clothes on her back. She gave all her spare clothes away as she could not bear seeing her loved ones in tatters. Even her old battered cardboard suitcase was toted away as a winter clothes storage container. She related small incidences with tears in her eyes, my dad explained that years with no extras actually impoverishes the people to the extent they have nothing except a change of rags and daily food. He said it was not greed, it was a great need for daily necessities when folks are barely surviving.

By the time my mum was old enough to visit China, things were much improved from my grandma's days. Yet I still hear of door less public toilets in the rural area. President Nixon made his historic visit to Beijing. Dr Mahathir, the then Prime Minister to Malaysia befriended China the economic powerhouse. Finally China is opened to a relatively young person like me. When I first mooted the idea of visiting my uncle, I asked people if I need to prepare an umbrella for toilet visits. Folks had a good laugh and asked if I was planning to go to the countryside miles from the city. I said, of course not, if I wanted to rough it, I might as well go into Division Four of Sarawak to get close to nature.
So we departed and my children were dazzled by the huge four storey bookshop in Kwangchow. My youngest was excited about the first photo she captured of a long tail jungle fowl in a park reserve near my uncle's town. My eldest was happily occupied reading the English translation of all my bi-lingual selections bought as gifts. I had a smashing time selecting fitting presents for adults and children from those very economical range of books, from proverbs to folk tales to classics.

Quite a few years later, my youngest was no longer seven years old. She was a strapping young lady strong enough to carry my mum's luggage as well as her own. With my language skills (I had six years of Chinese elementary education) and her muscle power, we did quite well. This trip we did not eat a single home cooked meal, even though my uncle was still cooking for his own family before and after our visit. My aunt explained that the per capita income in China doubled and tripled through the preceding 8-10 years, my uncle and her still kept their thrifty way of life. They hardly spent a tenth of their combined income monthly. Hence every meal was eaten in some famous restaurants. Images of those banquets were in some computer's hard discs or external drives. Ever since hand phones come into vogue, every meal of significance was immortalised in digital form and stored away.  

After we returned, my mum declared it would be her last trip to visit her brother. Since then, my uncle and his son came to visit us on three separate trips. While I am not mercenary, I should mention that my uncle was dispensing cash like Santa Claus during his last trip. Just about every grand-niece and nephew each received RMB1,000. These days China dollars strengthened against the Ringgit and that meant on certain days, the exchange would be close to R$600 for 1000 Yuan. My youngest kept hers for a planned visit to her fifth grandaunt on my husband side, of course she would keep one meal that she would have with my uncle and family. After she handed in her Master's dissertation, she deliberately made up days in her part-time employment to allow herself a short visit to Kwangchow. I declined going on dietary grounds. My husband went with her and they had a wonderful time with the grandaunt's family. Matriarch Ho, eldest son, eldest daughter-in-law, eldest grandson and great-grandson. Unfortunately, the timing was such that while they were in China, the eldest grandson was in hospital because of an occupational eye-strain. Even the eldest grandson's brother -in-law who was waiting for results was pressed into night duty looking  after the critically-ill young man who needed complete quiet bed rest. 

Even though my youngest was "banana" through and through, her smattering of "Mandarin", gestures and mimes got her through the 5-day visit. They laughed and laughed over the language gaps. It sounded like a really fun visit. My daughter is a person with charisma and she received favours everywhere she went. Her grandaunt enjoyed her piano playing so much in her second trip that she was invited to visit again. During her third visit it was the eldest son and daughter-in-law who invited her to visit again and they said make it a longer visit so they could take her to more places of interest.
This is 2020. Sometime right before Chinese New Year, I was mooting about taking some savings to send my youngest and my mum back for a 4-day trip to Kwangchow. I was planning on business class tickets and 3 nights in a 3-star hotel close to my cousin's condo. Alas! Corona virus struck. I kept quiet about the outlandish idea. Only my eldest heard about it way before the lock down in Wuhan. He warned me that such a pandemic would make a social visit impossible for 2 to 3 years. Which by then it would be too late for my mum to fly, she is already 88 this year. Anyway, it was a wonderful brain wave while the idea lasted.

(1225) clothes for attending graduations

The year I graduated from college, my mother was 51 years old.

It is interesting that I am far older now than she was then. Things often look different further down the road in life. Age and experience do change a person's perspectives. Had my mum and dad been able to come for my graduation, I would have been overjoyed and delighted at their presence. Had I been ethnic Indian, my mum would have come with her best sari. Were I Malay, it would have been ornate baju kurung. Since we are Chinese descent, the formal attire for her would be cheongsam, also called qipao.

Looking back, my mum-in-law went on repeated shopping sprees to buy western co-ordinated blouse and skirt sets in solid pastel colours for her daughter's graduation in Boston. Of course the choice of attire for an important occasion is a personal one. I, however, like to think of the reason I was given scholarship and financial aid to attend an exclusive liberal arts college is to add diversity to a homogenously white student body. I would imagine what my mum and dad would choose to put on for a landmark occasion like graduation would be somewhat educational to most American youth.
When my youngest child graduated, I actually wore a nice blouse and pants - which was what I normally wore for that period of my life. A few years after that I lost like 35 pounds due to an illness, for close to a year I wore skirts with rubberised tops. After gaining back 15 pounds or so, it was not so difficult to acquire fitting clothes. All the sizes 5, 6, and 7 were given away at the recycling centre. It is a wonderful blessing to be able to fit into a size M, quite easy to shop for clothes in most places.

(1224)The lot of a chief tenant

It was a long time ago that thirteen female shared a medium-size fridge in a Senior's dormitory in Virginia.

I occupied a room on the top floor that faced the stairway. To avoid any petty conflicts, I normally kept any food in my room in sealed bags. Things that required chilling would be kept on the outer ledge of the wide window. Old buildings tend to have very long and wide ledges. Temperatures in late winter and early spring were as cool as the fridge anyway. Whenever the maid screamed and yelled, I was definitely not the source of her ire. You can bet that whatever teenage to working age girls do with the fridge which won't meet with the approval of their mothers. So I often ended up listening and sympathizing with the help.

Now it is almost as if I have travelled in the time machine. It is my friend bemoaning the antics of her six subtenants. This time I am roughly the age of that maid in 1983. After having housed a few young girls, I see things with a less rigid standard. Of course I am not saying the careless, thoughtless, and often a little self-centred girls are right. Mind you, these are girls in their mid-twenties. And some of them actually cook breakfasts and dinners daily. Whatever the reasons are, whether it is the purse or the waist-line, they took the trouble to cook for one individually. Whatever the misdemeanour, I see it as either you resolve it the soonest or choose to let it go. There is not much point to be irritated and fume over it, it simply is not worth letting such a little thing spoiling the day. Most people would grouse. So it is to be expected that any visitor would get an earful of complaints. Thank goodness I am not a landlady or a chief tenant.

(1223)Financial reputation

Young girls who first come out to work renting rooms know little about building good financial reputations.

I see an example when I sat down with an experienced chief tenant who have had tenants for five years. A girl who has flawless complexion, much above average looks, dresses sassily may be late most months in paying rent. I guess all that expensive make-up, skin care and costly clothes make balancing the monthly budget difficult. That was until the day the chief tenant related how she had an unbeatable record of paying rent at least a few days before it is due. All the neighbours knew about her prompt payments. At least three other houses within hailing distance have been offered to her at matching amount. She then went on to tell her pretty tenant that beauty is important to a young woman, but a good reputation is important too. People tend to talk, not only the inmates of one house, but if one person stays more than a few months, her reputation might travel. Neighbours would match face to car, perhaps voice with occupation. The world can be a very small place. It is therefore smart to build a flawless financial reputation from day one.

After this chatty lecture, the pretty one reformed and pays on time monthly. Once she even surprised her chief by paying a few days early. Now I can see why my eldest became the favourite tenant of his landlord. Within his slim means he habitually pays his rent a week ahead, summer and winter. No wonder soups came weekly, extra food of all kinds travelled from the landlord's bountiful kitchen often. I am fortunate to enjoy this favour when I visit.

(1222) Renting a room

I am visiting an old friend who runs a rooming house for six girls. It is interesting to see the interactions among the inmates as well as the relationship of each tenant with the chief tenant.

One would imagine that students or working girls would group together and rent an apartment. Not true for this house. Each girl independently found the house, stay happily until it is time to move on. Although they are happy to make this gracious location their domicile, they would not recommend their friend in, not even when friends are interested and there is a room about to be vacant. With two months deposit, the chief tenant has at least two months' notice before anyone moved out. Any other scenario would lead to forfeiture of deposit, month for month in hard cash!

My friend's theory is that friends of most kinds could not withstand the daily grind. She thinks it is smarter for most girls to live apart from every one of their friends and live with virtual strangers. Perhaps that is generally true. But, I do have an exception to the rule. My mother lives next door to a house owned by three people: husband, his wife and the wife's best friend. Lately the middle age husband who is a citizen of Australia works out of town. We seldom see the wife, she probably relocated periodically to be with him. The other female part owner retired from school teaching but still keeps herself busy with other jobs. Previously the building was used as a counselling house run by three women: the two joint owners and one other from their church. With the current situation, my mum hardly sees the third woman.

Now and then as I visit I would notice all three of them going out in one car for most of the day, possibly running or attending a seminar on counselling. 

(1221) Campus life

I was sitting in the kitchen cutting papaya. It is wonderful to stay in a place that is within walking distance to a wet market.

Seow came in, collecting boiled cooled water for her trip to Universiti Malaya for an one hour lecture. I mused that my youngest spent 5 years of her college life there. She loved that campus. Had she the opportunity, she won't mind living on campus for the rest of her mortal life. But the catch is she didn't want to continue onto a PhD, academic career is out. Still, if she could find a job as a dormitory warden, she could work and live on campus. No, she said the fact that the warden's apartment was built to accommodate a good size family preclude that. Those slots were hard to get. Usually way before a family moved on, many others would vie for the post.

Seow was a little taken aback. I guess she just saw the campus as any collection of buildings of learning. Now that she is in her last semester, any learning period is less hectic than a working life. She had a tough time during her internship previously. As a modern educated female, working is inevitable unless she chose to marry a man of substance and decide to stay at home. That too brings along its own set of challenges.

(1220) The road less travelled

The Road less travelled

I count on my fingers:
1. my friend from Thailand in a Petaling Jaya church
2. a lady from a small church with 4 children
3. a friend who moved out of the neighbourhood
4. a newly met friend who is retired and going back to her home country

1 is still suffering the after effects of divorce and missing her two grown children living in her husband's country. 2 - I see her swollen wrist valiantly painting her gate, although her husband offered to pay a man to do it. 3 - her swollen wrists after months of gardening and all kinds of DIY projects to beautify a rented house. 4 - her uphill and windy roads after a perfect youth - able to travel the world with more than enough pay and wonderful benefits that come with the job (being an ex-pat).

These are professing Christians and I could see much suffering. They each carry their respective cross. Is suffering and pain the only way to learning to hear God and obey him? Is human nature such that under normal circumstances few would need God?

Yet I see another group of people:
a. My millionaire well educated former classmate that chose western Buddhism
b. An elder cousin who seemed so self-sufficient and does not need God whom he is angry with
c. A neighbour who enshrines travelling and house cleaning after retirement
d. A cousin who is happily saving every penny. But as long as her mom with dementia is alive, she could not travel at all.

I would not say that the second group is any happier than the first group. Nor could I conclude that the second group suffers from nothing. Perhaps life is what one makes it of.

(1219) landlord-tenant relationship

I was visiting at a friend's when I met her downstairs tenant. We'll call the landlady Betty and the tenant Cathy. Cathy looks like a physically rather short cover girl. She is well groomed. She rushed into the kitchen while I was almost done cooking my simple meal.

During our leisurely lunch, Betty related her year-long relationship with Cathy. Apparently Cathy rented the room fresh out of college and sweet-talked Betty into giving her an extra month's grace in complying with the 2-month deposit and one month advance rule. She was given a special concession to move in after paying one month deposit and one month advance. By the end of the first month in house, she paid 2 months' rental to make up for the late deposit. Perhaps that was the circumstance that led to a later conflict.

Being new at work, she was bullied by her boss. One day Cathy found herself jobless as she was wrongfully dismissed. Betty, being older and more knowledgeable, wrote a letter like a lawyer that managed to have Cathy reinstated. Cathy worked long enough to get her rightful month's pay but left anyway. She whiled away her free month before reporting for work at a new job. It was around Chinese New Year, she left the rented room and spent three weeks at home with her parents in another state. A simple whatsap message requesting permission to pay the February rent slowly over the following few months. After all, Betty wasn't born yesterday. She shot back a long message giving many reasons why Cathy could not be allowed to do that. She mercifully gave Cathy 5 days' grace to pay up. The amount was banked into the correct account within 4 days.

After all, a landlord-tenant relationship is financial and contractual. One can be kind but it is madness to be knowingly taken advantage of. And it is just so easy to be kind once and the other party not only take it for granted but expect further leniency.

(1218) three dates soup

A phone call came to me while I was travelling between Perak and Perlis. My daughter asked me the recipe for making 3 dates soup for an anaemic patient.

Many years ago I visited Amy during her confinement period for her second child. She had her first child's first month in her mother's home. After that it was agreed among the in-laws to rotate to her mother-in-law's home. However, while she was carrying the second child, her unmarried brother-in-law passed away. Since a happy event would clashes with a tragedy, she opted to hire a confinement lady to help her the lunar month subsequent to the second birth.

Her confinement lady boiled a most palatable 3 dates soup for her to consume throughout the 28 days. As one of the few who were admitted to see the mother and new born within that month, I was given the same drink made for the convalescing mother. There were three dates used: red, black and blue dates. I have forgotten her exact ratio, after all it was 33 years ago. However I vaguely recalled it was in proportion to the taste and value in money spent purchasing those different dates. It could have been 4:2:1, red dates are the cheapest by weight and the sweetest; it was followed by black dates and then the rare blue dates which would be the most pricey.

Depending on the means of cooking, by gas it was to bring it to a rapid boil, simmer for one and a half hours. If one was to use charcoal, it would be on medium heat until the volume of water halved. Using a slow cooker, one switched from high at a rolling boil to slow or simmer for two hours. Since the instruction was given a third of a decade ago, no one in the country then had induction electrical cooking yet. Any reader keen to try this recipe would have to improvise.

My daughter took down the instructions and accordingly boiled the first batch for her friend who was discharged from the hospital. The patient was being treated for leukaemia. We'll see how the patient fared a few weeks later.

** The blog was hand written three weeks ago. Finally I got to a place I have internet to post this. Am happy to report the "patient" found enough energy to plant a plot of 4 vegetables 10x40 feet in front of her house in Pahang.