singlish/singnese

a debate is roaring in sgp in re chinese language learning in schools. in essence, it's the be-reasonable-and-reduce-the-overweening-importance-of-mother-tongue camp versus the don't-you-tinker-with-our-cultural-heritage-and-bilingual-strength camp.

what they forget to discuss is, why is the sgp brand of mandarin chinese so unlike that of other native users of the language? our diction and delivery are so often subject to incomprehension abroad as to be practically pidgin. this, together with our mutant english, makes a mockery of our bilingualism. we are not bilingual really. we are local.

grrrrrr

today i:
1. trawl through the blogger help forums,
2. activate the quick edit function everywhere,
3. squint at the html codes,
4. allow third party cookies,
5. restore default settings,
and i AM STILL MISSING MY QUICK EDIT PENCIL.

hi def

the view from my new side mirror, courtesy of ebay.

and from my old mirror.

which goes to show that a bit of quality can make the difference between vision assisted driving and driving by intuition.

times of our lives

i stand in line at the grocery store for the third time because J2 has remembered one more ingredient we are short of for her next batch of cupcakes. is this disorganization or simply an over-privileged upbringing?

today i notice something about my fellow shoppers. at the evening rush hour, many of them are sharply dressed good looking gentlemen with wine, berries, olive oil and bread in their carts. it is a sign of our times that my first question is directed at their sexual orientation, and i freely admit this is grossly unfair to gentlemen of all persuasions.

grocery question

there's whole. 2%. 1%. skim. chocolate. vanilla. original. plain. almond. lactose-free. half-and-half. gallon. quart.

all i want, and cannot find, is unsweetened soy. what is so difficult about stocking the non-sugared version when you already have everything else?

finlandia

this is my song, oh God of all the nations,

a song of peace for lands afar and mine.

this is my home, the country where my heart is;

here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.

but other hearts in other lands are beating,

with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

beautiful words, i sometimes tell myself, perhaps too pretty for the childish melody. today i hear the orchestral version and admit i have been deaf. it's the chords. they flesh out the simple uncatchy tune and make it soar and then plumb the depths and make you want to be nobler.

solomon's splendor

the iconic question of our times, per alain de botton is, what do you do for a living? these days i say, i am a lily of the field.

this is an answer that separates:
1. those who read from those who do not*,
2. the lady catherine from the rest**, and
3. the conversationalist from the curious inept***.

*within the western judeo-christian canon of course, which is where i hang out myself.
**de bourgh, again, from the above canon, who equates toiling and spinning with good character.
***thus providing diversion either way.

used books

my favorite stores:
1. that musty one on the sukhumvit just opposite the emporium, bkk,
2. the hole in the wall one in soi buangkok, pattaya,
3. one tucked into my remote memory in the n.y. chinatown,
4. the corner store on ground level of bras basah complex, sgp, and
5. the book section of unique thrift store, va.

my current wish list:
lady precious stream - s.i.hsiung
the judge dee books - van gulik
the eve dallas books - j.d.robb

favored hunting grounds

1. thrift shops
2. used books stores
3. garage sales
4. estate sales

there is something indefinably delicious in trawling someone's junk to uncover a new treasure.

crab dinner

on a whim, we head for a maryland crab dinner. it's almost a smelly shack. brown paper on the table. crabs by the platter. personal mallets. fingers and paper towels. crab detritus on every personal surface. très authentique. at the end of the night we head to the place next door for chinese takeout to supplement our dinner.

in order of excellence, my best crab memories:
1. steamed flower crabs from thom had, off pattaya beach.
2. chilli crab from any east coast joint, singapore.
3. the jumbo crab cakes from the falls church farmers' market, va.
4. deep fried soft shell crab from silver pond, nj.

odyssey

expatriates most likely to return home eventually:

1. china born chinese.

2. taiwanese.

3. penangites.

expatriates least keen to return home:

singaporeans.

the nationality least likely to become expatriate:

japanese.

china has a mysterious magic. despite every painful memory, a thousand years of culture still exerts an inexorable pull over the dreams and hopes of her scattered diaspora.

singaporeans, on the other hand, are almost afraid to return. home, when you are an older singaporean, can be too costly and unforgiving to retire to.

world wide shops

our online acquisitions:

vacuum cleaners

my coach bags

textbooks

story books

electronics

the ipod

computer stuff

side mirror for my toyota

it's going to be tough when we repatriate back to sgp, and actually have to venture into the store for more than groceries. park the car. stand in line. speak to salespeople. physically shop.

fed up

i am stuck in traffic for over an hour on a trip that takes twenty minutes on a good day, in pursuit of something precooked from the chinese supermarket that i can simply present for dinner.

ideas of rebellion are best not served on a friday evening.

the metamorphosis - kafka (1915)

i am gobsmacked by the analysis J2 produces. my baby! do they read such, and do they analyse such these days? in my time we read lady precious stream and discussed marital fidelity.

back to kafka. horrific piece of work, this. he uses the simplest most mundane language to describe an awful irredeemable process of depersonalization. do you find the ending abrupt, J2 asks. certainly not, i say. as the story unfolds the end cannot come quickly enough because what is happening is so dreadful. death is seductively logical when life is an ugly unwelcome atrocity.

cultural cupcake

i maintain that J2's cultural food club is simply a legitimized fortnightly party on school premises. the only connection between her latest batch of cupcakes and our culture must be our genetic fondness for any kind of food.

i rescue these from the batch that goes to school.

thrill

step 3. over. cleared. buried. wheeeeee!

i am so thankful i will not be doing this again, and equally thankful i suffer through it.

what i can say is, the years make an enormous difference to attitude. the fearsome finals back in the day are a little lower on the pecking order now, behind the groceries laundry weather parenting and recreation.

i will also venture that it is good for the mind to be forced through the krebs cycle every twenty years.

unsolicited advice

the giving of which is a cottage industry.
categories that i attract:
1. how to have my babies toilet train 'em n bring 'em up,
2. how to cook such and such for whom,
3. what to wear read watch do, and
4. where to go on vacation.

but the most appreciated category is this:
what not to reveal on my facebook page.

corporate uniform

like the cat that swallows the cream, HOM returns from the corporate sales event with two white and four blue shirts and three identical looking ties in shades of blue. if you ask me the new looks just like the old, which totally defeats my purpose of shopping, which is to acquire something recognizably different.

current affairs

summary of this week's news:

european governments' ponderous response to the air travel fall-out from volcanic ash.

u.s. federal government's continuing mishandling of the 2008 financial crisis.

the vatican's bumbling cover-ups of priestly sexual misconduct.

the red/yellow debacle currently paralysing the thai government.

bombs and threats of bombs and violence in the middle east and neighboring places.

i see a pattern. today's sale-by-soundbite media empowered world is governed by incompetent irrelevant bureaucrats. it begs the question: if everyone is inadequate, who are we comparing them to?

not a p.c. posting

which is more bewildering: to know that one's son has discovered girls, or that one's daughter has discovered boys? perhaps gratitude is the appropriate accompaniment, inasmuch as it is the opposite gender that has been discovered.

purity

if anyone is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!  - gal 1:9

perhaps it's the crabbiness of age. HOM and i have become less tolerant of spiritual licence. social programs. loving compromise. optimization. business model. cooperation. non-alienation. God forbid that we should forget the price by of our purchase amid the busy satisfactions of outreach and affirming cheer of ecumenism.

may our children's generation learn in time to guard jealously the gospel they receive.

spring fever

a jaunty cardinal owns the tulip tree. his prosaic cousin the robin stakes out a patch of our backyard. there is a family of squirrels who bridge their territories.

this is the first time i realize there is a difference between the red bird and the brown bird. rather amazing, considering my interest in nature is actually limited to pretty flowers preferably in a vase.

ménage à beaucoup

read this. i am flabbergasted.

in summary:

two married couples who have their own apartments together with their offspring and another adult sibling squash themselves and a live-in helper into their parents' three bedroom apartment and happily babble about the cozy convenience of family support and home cooked meals.

i say this is pure exploitation of elderly parents by adult children who need to leave the nest to make their own mistakes forge their own identities and build their own sanctuaries.

new word, new trend

spidiot n. mentally deficient person who unblushingly sends unsolicited emails. [f. eng SPAM + IDIOT]

i want to know why the spidiots have all taken to peddling the little blue pills. the ol' nigerian (and hk) sob story has practically disappeared, replaced by sildenafil in multiple incarnations.

precious mem'ries

day trips to tariq's rug shop on soi 39
cliff richard singing in bangkok
in pattaya watching formula one over sunday dinners
supporting shoes'n'socks at the acsian idol
saturday afternoon baseball in southlake
HOM and J2 in iron chef knock offs
chili cookout in whbc
building cecilia and fwedewica
shopping san marcos outlets with Dog
verde riverwalk & gatehouse marriott
discovering penang in bethesda
sharing sashimi for breakfast at tsukiji
long running louis cha marathon
going to pittsburgh in the driving snow

harlem globetrotters game

the westminster confession (1646)

i speedread the entire thing because, i tell HOM, at forty six i should be able to handle a primary source rather than the wikipedia summary.

i am glad i do so. the foundational document of the protestant faith should not be relegated to theological dissertations alone. a pity it is that time and mind are so limited! but a glory it is that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of [the holy scriptures]. (chapter 1, article vii). in other words, fortunately for us who do not plow through the thirty three chapters, the ultimate primary source is the one we are already using.

the westminster confession (1646)

thirty three chapters.
several hours a nap and a walk.
the foundational document of the protestant faith.

nothing new, yet everything in a newer light.

in summary

sola scriptura

sola fide

sola gratia

sola christus

sola Deo gloria

1 peter 1:17-21

eccentricity

this rather redefines the concept of gravity.

role reversal

i have an unavoidable engagement and am already late.

J1 and J2 have a youth meeting and custody of the car keys.

HOM has headache nausea and fatigue and heads to bed from the garage.

to my surprise, J1 and J2 do not go to their social. to keep an eye on the pater, J2 explains later. i am touched and grateful and proud. it amazes and thrills me that my children have become young adults i would be happy to call friends.

milestones

my first hair perm. high heels. dating. driving lessons. wedding invitations. wedding! babies. birthday parties. preschool. school. travel. dreams. hopes.

and now has death started knocking, not just at geriatric or ill-favored doors, but ours. my cohort has perforce begun to look mortality in the eye.

he has made everything beautiful in its time. he has also set eternity in the hearts of men.  - eccl 3:11

remembering E.K.

my old friend dies. we go back to salad days in high school. we torment each other through medical school. i remember a brash youngster with a buzz cut. bitter disagreements. praying together. losing touch. how do i distill almost thirty years into one memory?

i remember his uncompromising love for his God. rest now, K.

trick for the day

¿ɥnɥ ןooɔ ʎʇʇǝɹd

entropy

this is an intimate view of our front yard, which quite clearly obeys the second law of thermodynamics.

we no longer have a yard. it has become a meadow.

rebellion

there is an unexpected cluster of tulips pushing up amid the weeds in our front yard. just as mysteriously there are some wayward daffodils peeping through. apart from these acts of defiance we mostly have dandelions.

signs of new times

the a/c is on. every available fan is on. the clothes are off.

what happened to spring?

signs of the times

1. i expose ankle calf and arms,
2. i volunteer to walk Dog, and
3. i switch the heater off! today!

what winter?

easter

HOM's baptism  & church membership 1984,

my church membership 1985,

J1's confirmation 2009,

J2's confirmation today.

i am grateful for calvary's incomprehensible love, and for redemption's continuing grace.

love that will not let me go

o cross that lift'st up my head/ i dare not ask to fly from thee/ i lay in dust life's glory dead/ and from the ground there blossoms red/ life that shall endless be.  - matheson

i am grateful that my liberty is purchased by calvary's incomprehensible irreconciliable extravagant love.

to my daughter

J2 is confirmed tomorrow, as J1 was last easter. as you take your place as an adult in God's church, i want to tell her, this is what i pray for your life:

i pray that you may know the hope to which you have been called, the riches of the glorious inheritance you share with the saints, and his incomparably great power in us who believe. i pray that you may walk joy-filled all your life in the path God marks out for you, and i pray that you may be faithful to the end.

good friday

Christ hath regarded my helpless estate/ and hath shed his own blood for my soul/ my sin, not in part, but the whole/ is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more/ praise the lord, praise the lord, oh my soul. - spafford

the holy for the profane - my God for my depravity. praise the lord, o my soul!

a doll's house - ibsen

J2 says i will enjoy her reading assignment, and she's right.

in summary:
1. an insufferable self-righteous prig of a male chauvinist husband,
2. a smart loving woman, stronger than she herself knows,
3. her tired older and wiser friend,
4. a villain redeemed by love, and
5. one superfluous foil.

my questions:
1. why the foil? the story runs as well without him.
2. do you get congenital syphilis from the father?
3. is congenital syphilis terminal?
otherwise, a thumping good play with a roaring good ending. you rock girl!

maundy thursday

but the other answering rebuked him, saying, dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?  - lk 23:40

in arrogance ignorance or in omission how often do i partake of the jeering at calvary! when i forget to fear, i forget myself and my God.

agony's end

the college application process is over. J1 receives his final admission decision today. it is humbling that out of the profusion of applications sent amid waves of panic God whittles down our options to J1's original first choice and his original safety. the doors close one by one, except the best ones. we would save much money in application fees in remembering this verse:

unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain.  -ps 127:1

we are grateful he watches and builds.

dash it

a dash is an unfortunate term. when you say dash i need to process through various horizontal symbols, the slash (because it rhymes), as well as space (courtesy of the incredibles kid dashing through space i suppose), before it clicks as a hyphen.