CNY 2008, with lotsa pics

CNY has always been an exciting affair for me. For me, the excitement itself is actually the preparation in welcoming the new year. However, this year, I only got back to kampung on the eve itself, due to some commitments. Here are some pics showing how I usher in the new year, and also as a reminder to myself on how to keep the traditions alive...

This year's CNY celebration started a few days earlier before the eve, as most of the family members are already working and have their own families in KL, so we decided to have our dinner 5 days before the actual CNY. Here in this pic, showing my grandaunt (standing) saying prayers (my late granduncle was a pastor...). On her left is my other grandaunt (I don't know how to say it, but she's my grandmother (on the standing grandaunt's right) sis in law. The family has grown to having Buddhists, Christians, Catholics members, but I'm still waiting if we can add Muslims & Hindus and maybe some other unknown religion in the family.. maybe in the future.

On the eve's morning, we put food on the tables at the front of the house, inviting our ancestors for a meal. Here, we are inviting my grandfather, grandmother & greatgrandmother (all from my mother's side). I had to help to set up the table, only had a few hours of sleep as I had just arrived that morning itself

Ahh.. the coin throwing ceremony..

Combination of head & tail means they have arrived (and is supposedly sitting on the chairs now!!). Head + Head or Tail + Tail combinations means they're not here yet.

Burning notes for the ancestors...

At 12am.. marking the 1st day of new year, we pray to Thee Kong...

On the 2nd day, we went to the temples to pray.. the place was packed!

the temple sifus checking your DOB (from western to chinese date) & writing them down in a letter to pray to 太岁

ahh.. the black figure is太岁 himself, the sifu is doing the prayers

then we went to another temple.. the buddhist temple...

this tree in the buddhist temple has been here for all I can remember, it was already here when I started coming to this temple more than 20 years ago. I decided to check if there was any description, and.. voila! it says it was planted back in 1887 (or 1889).. can't remember.. fuiyoh!

well.. what to do when all the shops are closed & you got nowhere to go? glad to know I've not lost my skills despite not playing for more than 6 months! siapa mau chalen sama gua ahh?

karaoke back in my hometown.. a dodgy, dark place.. went with seluar pendek & selipar jepun oso can! fuiyoh.. this place even got tiongkok mali punya GROs..

meet-up with some friends..

party.. lai lai lai.. ciak ciak ciak.. lim lim lim.. lim kah toh. Every year, my friend will have a party at his house. This year tells a lot about us growing up. I remember for few years consecutively, I'd always end up drunk. This year, we can actually see the younger generation (my friend's younger brother & his friends) drinking the most. When challenged to drink, I'd always have reasons to "siam" from drinking more.. This is the only year I never got drunk at all since I was introduced to alcohol. I hardly even touch a ciggy... err.. well I had one, but not more than that..

no matter how grown up you are, old habits die hard... probably they'll never die off.. I just watched, as I don't fancy gambling..

How can CNY be complete without talking (eating mostly) about food? Here's a favourite must-have dish.. the Fuchow fishballs. As a Fuchow this is a must & besides this meal, we had red rice wine mee suah as well.


A close-up. Minced pork inside the fishballs. They cost 65 cents per piece this year! I remember it was 50 cents last year.. it just keeps on increasing. We usually order a couple of hundreds of these juicy stuff. I don't eat much of pork, but even so, this is a must!

So far, this has been a great CNY celebration & I hope for the best for this rat year!

Public Speaking

that's me.. top left hand corner

Speaking in front large audience comes with my job as a S&M (sales & marketing.. not the other S&M) person as I have to travel around South East Asia giving presentations to customers. Slowly but surely, after I've gotten used to the situation, the thrill & excitement overcame the fear, and last year after a presentation in Pertronas Kerteh, my reps told me that I just gave one of the most convincing presentation ever. Boy, oh boy.. was I fucking high after that..

Just a week before CNY, I was invited by Petronas to give a presentation in a resort in Melaka with regards to our products. Public speaking has never been a problem for me as I remember winning best speaker in primary school, but somewhere along the way, the guts to do so vanished. I don't know what happened, as I've never experienced anything unpleasant while doing so. I guess the problem is when you grow up, sometimes you become to self-concious. I've read in many articles regarding public speaking, that it is the most feared thing by most people, even more feared than death itself. You can gauge how you performed, by the interest generated after the presentation by the questions they asked about your products. I remember a conversation with one of Petronas' engineer (roughly as follows):

Petronas engineer: Where did you study?
Rockstar: UKM
Petronas' engineer: Oh patutlah.. english you bagus.
Rockstar: Huh? **thinking**
Petronas' engineer: Which part of UK?
Rockstar: Eh.. UKM.. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia... bukan UKlah..

All I could say to myself after that was... "Whatever you need next time.. bring it on" I'm so in cloud nine...

Next stop, singing in public.. kakaka...

Mentally Tired..

strange.. sometimes they do know exactly how I feel.. I turn to them for solace..

Life's sometimes feels like a heavy burden, with all those things you need to juggle, work, life, money... damn.. feels like the world is upon your shoulders. Sometimes, the thought of just letting it go running to some other place (taking my money with me.. hehe) where you can start anew with no worries comes to the mind...

Uggghh.. heavy load..

what i want for 2008...

I know new year resolutions sounds cheesy, but hey, no matter what, I see it as a good start to anything and everything. I've decided that my life this year is going to follow the directions of a six year old kid, yeah you heard me, a six year old kid.. and his stuff tiger. So here are some of my resolutions for this year.

i'd like to have much more exciting times this year. yeah, i guess there will be times where i'm going to be impromtu, not following the rules or do things the way it's usually done. hell yeah, i'd like to add some zest into this year!

I'll learn to be more forgiving this year. yeah, why do we hold grudges? Sometimes people do things that might hurt us in someway, but they don't mean it and I guess they're only human and no one's perfect. Just forgive & forget and bury the hacthet. And in saying so, I hope those around me will forgive me too, if I ever did, or will do something that hurts them.. especially when I learn to more impromtu (as per above's resolution)

I'd like to keep things simple, so to say.. the KISS method meaing Keep It Simple, Stupid. I'm not going to overanalyze a situation or something like that. Let's just weigh the simple good and bad in a situation & decide on it.

Further to the earlier strip above, to not to complicate life, I'm going to accept certain things.. which seemed unexplainable. Kinda like girls with shoes.. never seems to be enough for them, which I've mentioned in my earlier post. I'm just going to accept the fact and not question why.

I'm gonna learn more on how to appreciate the present moment, rather than looking back in anger or looking forward in fear.

This is tough, but I'll learn more on how to balance things in life, such as money, love, fun, health, carreer etc. Tough job, but someone's gotta do it.

There are no materialistic kind of resolutions for this year... hmm.. although getting that 2nd house might not be a bad idea, but that all depends on the ecomonic situation. There are some skills I want to learn.. hmm.. I'd like to get that damn digital piano that I've been putting off for so long and learn how to play some tunes on it, and also be a better cook. So, you know my resolutions now, so if any of you noticed me wandering off from it, you guys can slap me to remind me. Don't worry, I won't karate you.

Wish me luck!

reflections of 2007 (warning: very long post)

2007 is nearing it's lifespan. As much as I hate endings, somehow it opens up other doors. So I guess we should look forward to what the new year has to bring us. Here're some moments in 2007 that I managed to capture:

gathering with old friends during cny. talk, talk & talk.

gathering with newer friends. eat, eat & laugh.

I've to handle the Taiwanese market starting 2007. Had to do some business trips there. The reps insist on me giving presentations to the customers in Mandarin. Anyway, managed to do it in mixture of Mandarin, Hokkien & a little bit of English. This was taken during mins before the bullet train ride from Taipei to Kaoshiung. First time taking a ride on the bullet train. There's a display that showed the train's speed during the journey. My balls shrunk a little when it showed 290 km/h.. and going faster & faster... I survived the ride.

After dinner at some restaurant up in the hill in Kaoshiung. My chinese ain't that good, what does the 5th word mean?

My surprise birthday celebration with my adopted Taiwanese family. I've not seen them for 2 years. I know I looked like shit, but I had to wake up early and just travelled from Kaoshiung to Taipei to meet them.

Finally found the time to be back for Ching Ming this year after after missing it for the past few years. Well, someone's gotta keep the tradition alive. Also, I have to be respectful to the elders, whether they are still around or not. Takut nanti kena strike by lighting. Will promise to go be back every year for this...

Dinner & beer with the sales reps in Manila. Had a great time there as whenever I'm in a foreign place, I've always wanted to experience what the locals do, and not to some fancy restaurant. This is a place by the roadside where they serve grilled seafood. The reps insists on taking "Red Horse" beer instead of the usual "San Miguel" which has higher alcohol content at about 7-8%. The place was packed as it was end of the month & everyone just got their salaries. Adds to the atmosphere!

Made a couple of trips to Taiwan this year. View from a hotel in Kaoshiung. My rep booked me into a >100 storey hotel. Taiwan's full of earthquakes & luckilly nothing bad happened. The hotel only costs USD110.00 per night, and it's cheap considering the quality and service there. Also, I experienced how Taiwanese partied the night during this trip. The rep wanted to introduced me to his staff, so we had dinner, and during dinner we were already drunk, and when we checked in the hotel, he insists on drinking again. So we drank in the hotel pub. I tought I could get some sleep after that, but NO! The night is still young, we're going to karaoke! So we went, and it was not like our usual Redbox where we had our own room. It was open-type and everyone had to go up to stage to sing a song. Well, what the hell? When you're drunk, you have the courage to do anything.. so up the stage I went.. haha...

This laughing buddha pic was taken during our drive from Kaoshiung to Taipei. We drove this time, and in between that journey, we went to couple of kampung areas. There, I saw the girls selling "pinang". Fuiyoh.. they were practically wearing nothing! I wanted to take pic with them by my rep stopped me..

I insisted on having traditional Indonesian meal when I was in Palembang, Sumatera. That's my Indonesian rep in the pic.

I wanted to take this pic in front of this Indonesian university when I was in Palembang.

I have to climb up (well not really climb up, but there was a lift) this stack (about a 100 meters high) to show my commitment to the customer so they'll buy our product..

Looking like a complete dork with the safety helmet on with the customer up in the stack

Sept 2007... we had our Asian Representative meeting in The Laguna Resort in Nusa Dua, Bali. All our reps from Middle East, Northern Asia & South East Asia attended. All about 50 persons attended and we had a wonderful time there. This is a pic after the meeting, just before the dinner where some reps started to get drunk.. haha..

During dinner in Bali by the beach. We asked the hotel to prepare seafood BBQ by the beach for us. Persons sitting in this table... reps from Taiwan, Korea, Singapore - very lethal combination. The person in pink is the one responsible for showing me how Taiwanese partied in Kaoshiung. The person in red shirt's from Korea, starting to turn red 1/2 way through dinner because of all the alcohol.. haha.. By end of the dinner, he was as red as his shirt! They wanted to get me drunk.. but..

... my saviour was sitting next to me! My Malaysian customer who used to work in a beer factory.. beat that! haha! He helped to drink for me that night..

My 2 good buddies from Manila were here too! They can drink all night long. I was with them on a trip in Philippines last year, and they even had beer for lunch & tea break time. They could still continue work after that! Girls & beers are on their mind 99% of the time..

Visited Kuta Beach too during my trip there

Managed to find some time to paint the apartment this year. A lot of my friends asked me to hire a painter. Besides being kiamsiap, I just felt like doing it myself. Damn! It was hardwork, but I'd do it again if there's a chance. There's nothing like the satisfaction you get from knowing you did the work.I know a professional painted can do it in 4-5 days time, but it took me 2 months. Still, I've yet to paint the masterbedroom & 2 bathrooms.

My first trip to Kalimantan. Touchdowned at Balikpapan's airport at 4pm and had to drive 7 hours to Bontang where I have a presentation to make the next day. This is the only thing we can see during the drive! My camera ran out of battery, but I had to be on the stack again (like the picture way above).. and I got the chance to see the Sulavesi Sea when I was on top of the stack... man.. it was beautiful.

ahh.. beautiful Los Angeles. Have to be here end of every year for our annual sales meeting.

Having dinner with my colleagues. I don't need alcohol. I was already drunk from the jet lag. Workwise, we had very good year this time. Increased in fuel price has increased our sales as well as many oil companies have the budget to spend. We broke our sales target and this is our best year in history.

Early christmas celebration in Los Angeles (taken early Dec)

Beautiful Palm Springs in California. We stayed at Westin and had our sales meeting there. I got up at 6am for an early morning walk. Air was cold and calm, felt so good & free. The hotel resort had some Mexican architecture, as the California state belongs to Mexico long, long time ago. I want to climb that mountain one fine day.

I finally found out what Christmas shopping is all about in US. The long queue to pay your stuffs.. etc.. man.. crazy. There are many outlets here, from Levi's to Addidas to Coach etc. I only got some Levi's stuff, but did not get any Coach stuff (I don't know about the price difference in US & M'sia, but after checking it out later when I got back, they were real, REAL cheap there) as the queue was was toooo loooong in Coach outlet.

Oh yeah.. went to this place where they serve real American meals, meaning 1 serving is good for 3 Asian. Served with waitresses on roller skates in mini skirts. Hell yeah.. next year, I'm gonna have to ask my boss to take me to Hooters..

My favourite ice-cream shop. I have to have this each time I'm in the US. Rain or shine, tornado or earthquake I have to have this. It gives such orgasmic pleasure that words cannot describe.

watching MCR concert, fun to be wiht the rockers and all rocker-wannabe that nite. ROCKERS, UNITE!

Making new friends & watching hip hop dance competition at RUUMS, KL. Fantastic experience. Made me think of the old days when I was into breakdancing 20 years ago.. wah damn malu just to think of that. **this pic, stolen from Vivienne**

Spending some fun time with loved ones. she's going thru some shit situation with her job, but I guess she'll pull thru. **this pic, stolen from Erika**

It has been 1 year since, & still going on strong on the mandarin course..

year end dinner with malaysian reps

Busy year, but managed to read some good books. I believe somehow knowledge gives me some personal satisfaction. Some titles include: Gengkhis Khan - Life, Death & Resurrection; I'm Not Sick, Just A Bit Unwell; Personal Financial Planning in Malaysia; Maximise What You Have, No Matter What You Have Now; The Chinese Dilemma; The Google Story; The Rules Of Life; The Long Tail; Repacking Your Bags - Lighten Your Load for The Rest of Your life, An Illustrated Cycle of Chinese Festivities in Malaysia & Singapore. If anyone wants to borrow these books, then I charge a minimum fee of Rupiah 0.01 per day.

It has been a very interesting year so far for me. I hope it gets better in these last few days, and next year. Things might not go with what we have in mind all the time, but I'd just like to take a moment here to be thankful that I'm still healthy, I still get to wake up to see the morning sun each day, I still have the eyes to see, hands to play the guitar, I can still smell & taste food, voice to sing, I've still got my legs to carry me, I still get the chance to earn a living, and still be with wonderful friends & families. Hats off to 2007...