Too Many Thoughts

Three days later

2009-11-08T01:16:00.002+08:00

Been busy eating and drinking and catching up with friends. Hoi An is as charming as it was last year, despite the intermittent rain we've been having, and the food is even more splendid than I remember. I'm thinking I need to start running food tours here --- sign up in the comments if you're interested.

So far on this trip, in between restaurant visits and chilling out in cafes, I've attended a "death anniversary lunch" (i.e. commemorative feast for deceased ancestors) and a Vietnamese wedding (i.e. feast for the wedding couple). The home-cooked food has been great --- who knew that bun and beef stew could taste that good --- as has the exquisite restaurant fare, and I'm wondering why I don't just move here so I can have tip-top meals round the clock.

Right place, right time

2009-11-04T22:04:00.002+08:00

There should be some kind of alluring photo of Hoi An here, but the only photo I've taken today is of the cool gadget charging station at Changi Airport. When we got to Vietnam it was grey and rainy, and though we went out and tramped the wet and sandy streets of Hoi An anyway, it wasn't a good day for pictures.

What I really wish I had a picture of, is my expression when I exited Danang Airport. I was peering at the row of men holding cards for the guests whom they were meeting --- and then I spotted, of all people, a friend I had made in Hue last year. A handshake turned into a hug and several moments of my usual rapid-fire chattering. He was there to pick up some guests arriving on the same flight as me, which is pretty random since he doesn't get a lot of custom from Singapore. Hue is also a good two hours from Danang, so he doesn't make the trip down very often.

The sheer serendipity of the meeting left me sitting rather stunned for most of the car ride from Danang to Hoi An. What a great way to arrive back in Vietnam.

There and back again

2009-11-03T13:59:00.007+08:00

Earlier this year, at Pin Pin's invitation I wrote the essay "Once Bonded" for s/pores. It was published in July.

Over this last weekend, the Chairman of the Public Service Commission (the government body which disburses government scholarships) Eddie Teo delivered a speech "Defending Scholarships but not all Scholars" in London.

You may come to your own conclusions.

Edited to add (4 Nov, around 2 a.m.): Apropos, the Economist has a report on "A tough search for talent", with respect to the civil service or public service in various large Western countries (via Alvin on Facebook).

Further edited to add (4 Nov, around 11 a.m.): Today there's a report in the Singapore newspaper Today on the speech: "Young scholars with an attitude" (via Phillip on Facebook).

Neil himself

2009-11-02T23:42:00.004+08:00

I didn't have a plan, but I had the kindness of friends and somehow everything fell into place, better than if I had tried to orchestrate it weeks ago.

The line I paused to scribble down in the middle of the session was Mr Gaiman's description of what it felt like to be in Singapore again:

People in Singapore are enthuasiastic – but you're all very enthusiastic in a quiet, polite and organised way.

We laughed, of course, but in an organised way.

Yesterday the planets were in alignment, the ineffable Mr Gaiman did a rollicking Alan Moore impression, and everything fell into glorious place, including the last few paragraphs of the essay I've been struggling to finish since September. I'll write more about its genesis when it's published, but for now I'm pleased that it's done.

Reading about writing

2009-10-30T15:37:00.006+08:00

The Singapore Writers Festival is on, plus I need to close some my Firefox tabs, so here's a writing-related linkdump.

1. "When Writers Speak" by Arthur Krystal in the New York Times

Excerpt:

... writers don’t have to be brilliant conversationalists; it’s not their job to be smart except, of course, when they write.

This is why I still love blogging and books, of course, while all around me people have moved on to Twitter, podcasts/vodcasts and exciting TV gigs.

2. "Reading Faust in Korean" by Anne Michaels in The Atlantic
(via Qian Xi on Facebook)

Excerpt:

Do we belong to the place where we are born, or to the place where we are buried? When one is dispossessed of everything—home, country, landscape—what is left?

Interesting apropos of the debate earlier this week at the announcement of the new MAC Fiction Prize, about whether only Singapore citizens should be eligible for the prize or if Permanent Residents and/or other residents should be considered as well.

On a separate note, my favourite line in Michaels' essay is: "We are marinated in our childhoods ..."

3. "Writers, Visible and Invisible", a speech by Cynthia Ozick as part of the 2008 PEN Literary Awards Ceremony
(via Dave on Facebook)

Excerpt:

Writers are what they genuinely are only when they are at work in the silent and instinctual cell of ghostly solitude, and never when they are out industriously chatting on the terrace.

Qikly does it

2009-10-28T23:50:00.000+08:00

The thing about having coffee with Kevin Lim at Highlander Coffee, is that you never know when he'll suddenly ask you, hey, do you mind if I grab a video of this conversation? And what he means is: using Qik, he's going to upload the video live from his cell phone onto the web.

Now you can hear how quickly I speak in real life.

Also good if you wanna hear me maunder about writing, travel writing and being a freelance operative.

All it took was a little MacGyvering

2009-10-27T23:53:00.000+08:00

Over a month ago, I ran into vacuum cleaner trouble. Here's the summary from my Facebook status update that day:

[Tym] wonders if anyone can troubleshoot a vacuum cleaner – the motor works fine but the machine (with or without the hose) is not sucking up anything.
Friend #1: change the bag?
ME: Took the bag out to empty it and fit it back in. It seems to be in the right slot, but very little "sucking" power is coming out of the machine.
Friend #2: talk to the fellow, tell him, "oi, work la"
Friend #3: Check for leaks.
Friend #4: check the ports for blockage..
Friend #5: cat hairs wreak havoc with filters ...
Friend #6: It has an exhaust also.. check the machine at the opposite end of the hose end.. to see if it's somehow blocked
ME: Thanks for all the suggestions. I don't think it's a leak and the hose is ok too. I've washed the filter and will try again tomorrow when it's dry. Failing which ... it's time to find me a vacuum whisperer.

Tonight, I finally got the vacuum whisperer to make a house call. That is, I got a friend who used to MacGyver things for a living to come over. Within half an hour he had troubleshot (troubleshooted?) the problem and fixed it with some gaffer tape. Not that I'm the sort of person who ordinarily has gaffer tape lying around, but he bought me some on a previous occasion when he fixed another household hiccup for me.

The morals of the story:

Gaffer tape binds the universe together.
Friends who like to tinker with stuff (and know how to do it without electrocuting themselves) can save you a bundle in either repair bills or a new vacuum cleaner.

Now if only he can get his hands on a multimeter so that he can troubleshoot one of my Ikea lamps ...

The week whipped by

2009-10-23T23:52:00.000+08:00

Taken by ampulets
Earlier this week, a friend posted on Facebook a quote by film reviewer Anthony Lane:

Writers should be treated like rubber plants: lightly pruned, occasionally watered, but basically left to do their own thing in a corner, away from direct sunlight.

Every time I had to gear up for a book-related event this week, I thought of that quote. I mean, I wrote the book already --- now I have to go talk about it? Which is mostly the childish trepidation talking, but still. It'd be nice if one could just release one's books into the wild and let them find their own way, but that's not how the business works.

So --- to business it was. I summed up most of the highlights on our book blog earlier today. I'd optimistically planned to post event updates within a day of each event, but completely failed to account for post-event fatigue, which is why even this blog is only being updated right now (and I'm still short of sleep). I can't imagine how authors on proper cross-country book tours keep up the momentum.

In between all that, I was reading New York Times reporter David Rohde's five-part account of his kidnapping and captivity by the Taliban, watching the awesome Intel "Sponsors of Tomorrow" TV ads, reading Suchen Christine Lim's Rice Bowl and playing with Tweetie (despite sangsara's best evangelisation efforts, I'm still not sure if I want to start Twittering again). Oh, and doing some pay copy work too.

Plenty more ideas swirling around in the old noggin, but it'll be a couple more weeks before I can sit down and think about them properly. Meanwhile, two more book events, ho!

Reading it right

2009-10-17T23:22:00.006+08:00

At a reading at Books Actually tonight, I ran into a friend who'd turned up 'cause she thought it was our reading for Singapore: A Biography. "Actually, that's on Tuesday!" I told her. But it was sweet, knowing that even though I don't know her that well, she had shown up on a Saturday night for what she thought was our event.

Tonight's reading was by Suchen Christine Lim, for a new 25th-anniversary edition of her first novel Rice Bowl. I haven't read Rice Bowl but now I will, because the narrative includes an account of an anti-Vietnam War march in Singapore, based on her memory of the actual event.

Lim read bits of the book aloud tonight--- for the first time in public since it was published! --- and one of the extracts was a fierce, climactic exchange between two characters: a civil servant and an idealist, the former insisting on pragmatism and realism, the latter upholding some greater notion of humanism. Lim observed by the by that it was an argument that still resonates today, where modern-day civil servants fall back on the same rhetoric her character did 25 years ago.

Afterwards, my friend (a civil servant, incidentally) and I adjourned to Chinatown for a late dinner, during which we waxed lyrical about Singapore, aspiration, ideals, hope and other big words that are more often associated with Obama than with the PAP-governed society we live in. A "typical" civil servant overhearing us would have probably rolled his eyes or muttered something about "high falutin ideas". I prefer to think of it as us considering paths not (yet) taken --- some of which we might consider now before Singapore devolves into a more calculating, consumptive society than it already is.

Hot off the press

2009-10-16T19:09:00.000+08:00

Whee! My very first copy of Singapore: A Biography. Now I have an actual book to show off and paw and fuss over, not just the cover art (which is very eye-catching in its own right).

The book will be in Singapore bookstores from next week. Don't let its heft put you off. It's eminently readable, gorgeously illustrated and does not once refer to Singapore as a "little red dot" (although someone's "little red book" makes an appearance, and I don't mean Mao Zedong).

For those of you who placed pre-orders, the books will be delivered to me next week. I'll get in touch with you then.

Mmmmm ... new book smell ...

Just another day

2009-10-15T23:42:00.003+08:00

Not every day is about writing.. Today was about scratching things off my to-do list, which is scribbled in ballpoint ink on a piece of used paper.

In the approximate order in which they were completed:

Called my mom 'cause it's her birthday. Yay, Mom!
Confirmed a radio interview for next week for Singapore: A Biography and drafted some talking points for it. (First time in my life I've drafted talking points for my own use --- it doesn't get any easier.)
Made loose plans to meet a Lonely Planet writer who'll be in town next week.
Made loose plans to meet one of my best friends' boyfriends who'll be in town next week too.
Sent out an email reminder to a rather long list of friends and associates about the upcoming book launch events (which kick off on Sunday at the National Library --- are you gonna be there or what?). Fortunately I didn't break my Gmail doing it.
Secured a good freelance writing/editing partner for a small job next month that I don't have the time to do on my own (yay for pay copy).
Turned down another copywriting job that totally doesn't interest me.
Shilled for the book at the National Education mothership of Singapore.
Contemplated the niceties of starting a Facebook Fan page for Singapore: A Biography, considering the book is still at the printer's and will only be in bookstores next week (but you can buy it at the National Library event on Sunday).
Made loose plans to meet a couple of Singapore writers at the opening of the Singapore Writers Festival.
Emailed some contacts for a Vietnam trip next month.
Compiled a bunch of information for a government tender and updated a proposal document that one of my collaborators drafted.
Attempted to do a friend a favour and play around with the new Raffles Alumni website, but there was only so much I could do when it didn't send me my password.
Daydreamed (although we did this after dinner and via IM) with a good friend about the Really Cool Business we're going to set up --- someday.
Ignored Ink whining for more food because he's had his full ration for the day.
Bought more bandwidth for the Singapore: A Biography website (I suspect there's a not quite optimised-for-web image that's doing us in).
Scratched Sisu's head till she stopped whining at me (after lunch and now, as I'm typing this in bed).
Avoided finishing that essay I started a few weeks ago.

Pretty damn productive.

I need to be working harder, but ...

2009-10-10T23:56:00.004+08:00

I've rounded off the week with:

a fair bit of pinot noir,
a healthy list of pre-orders for my soon-to-be-released book Singapore: A Biography,
a preview screening of Art & Copy,
the opening of the wolfnotes art exhibition, and
an old-fashioned cinema viewing of (500 Days of) Summer (thank you, James, for Facebooking the Observer review some months ago)

Oh, and then there was the photo shoot today for an alumni magazine. Let us not speak of that again (except to say that it was absolutely not the photographer's nor the magazine's fault fault – I am a horribly self-conscious subject and I do not wish the task of shooting my portrait upon any photographer).

I have to do prep work this week for the upcoming book events, as well as other pay copy work – but in a few days, I should have Singapore: A Biography in my hands. If you haven't read the book previews yet, now is a good time to start. So far we've released 'Farquhar and Raffles fall out' and 'The education of Singapore girls'. Look out on Monday for: 'Captain Mohan Singh's dark night of the soul'.

Coming soon to a bookstore near you

2009-10-06T23:56:00.001+08:00

Singapore: A Biography
by Mark Ravinder Frost & Yu-Mei Balasingamchow

Ladies and gentlemen, may I humbly present to you the book Mark and I have been working on for the past two years: Singapore: A Biography. After we worked together on the Singapore History Gallery of the National Museum of Singapore in 2006, we proposed turning the material into a book --- a lively, substantive yet eminently readable book that would do justice to the stories and make people, you know, dig Singapore's history a little more. Our narrative kicks off in the Temasek period (13th century) and winds up around the 1970s. Yes, we've got Raffles and Lee Kuan Yew, but a whole lot more as well; just take a look at the people I name-checked in a recent post on the book website.

Anyway, writing this book took, um, a little longer than we bargained, but the book is at the printer's as we speak and our publisher has promised that I will have crisp new copies in my hands in one week's time. Hurrah!

If this sort of thing interests you, please come and hear us talk about history, literature, Singapore and our book at the following events:

Sun, 18 Oct 2009, 2pm, National Library: "History as literature: the writing of Singapore: A Biography" (registration required)
Tue, 20 Oct 2009, 7.30pm, Polymath & Crust: "Singapore: A Biography – a reading & discussion"
Sat, 24 Oct 2009, 2pm, National Museum of Singapore: "Heroes, villains and ordinary citizens: a short history of Singaporean dissent" (registration required)
Sat, 31 Oct 2009, 11am, Singapore Writers Festival, at Earshot, The Arts House: "Finding the Singapore Story"

For more event details, check out this lovely e-direct mailer (thank you, ampulets!).

If you're in Singapore, you should see the book in stores in about 10 days or so. Outside Singapore, the book is schedule to hit Hong Kong, China and Australia in late October. It'll be distributed in the US and the UK in early 2010. For pre-orders (20% off retail price, i.e. S$40 instead of S$50 for a hardcover 400-page book) or other inquiries, please contact me.

Am I excited? Oh yes. I think I will squee when I first see the book, and possibly a few more times after that. I was just reading several sections aloud to myself today (test-driving them for the upcoming readings) and I'm so pleased with the book turned out.

Please tell your friends and please come to a book event! We promise to pronounce "Farquhar" correctly.

Kick-starting the week

2009-10-05T23:56:00.000+08:00

Every Monday morning should start with Monty Python: "On comedy's flying trapeze" (thanks, sarah!).

Every Monday evening should end with drinks at Majestic Bar and making new friends (or even just one).

(I can't believe it's October already. Where did the year go?)

Southeast Asia's having a bad week

2009-10-01T23:16:00.001+08:00

Typhoon Ketsana barrelled through Luzon in the Philippines, then hit Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. I've had word from a Vietnam contact that the small town of Kon Tum, which I visited last November, has been cut off by landslides and river flooding. Excerpt from his email:

Crops have been wiped-out,the rice-crop was about to be harvested.
Animals washed away and drowned.
Water supplies contaminated.
Villages abandoned;VS2 Orphanage also.Many people have now moved to the Seminary,Wooden Church and Convent etc.
Food scarce,much has been damaged by flooding in shops and stores.
Many families buy their food fresh (i.e. daily); they don't carry food stocks as such.Many cannot afford to buy rice in wholesale amounts!

It's now reported that Typhoon Parma is headed for the Philippines (via Mugilan on Facebook).

Sumatra in Indonesia got hit by two earthquakes in less than 24 hours. The town of Padang, which I wrote about almost four years ago, is in very, very bad shape.

Singapore-based relief organisation Mercy Relief is sending aid to the Philippines in the form of:

10,000 packs of rice sticks
3,000 packs of porridge to the very young, sick and elderly
medicines (painkillers)
blankets
water purification tablets

Oxfam is sending a relief team to Kon Tum, Vietnam.

I've donated. Please help!

Mercy Relief is accepting donations via telephone/cheque/ATM or internet bank transfer.
Oxfam is running an East Asia Disasters Appeal (phone/credit card/cheque/in person).

Play nice

2009-09-29T17:47:00.010+08:00

One of the unexpected perks of where I live now, is that there's a playground and basketball court right beside my block, and every evening there are boys playing soccer or basketball there. Even though I live on a really high floor, I can hear the ring of kids' voices every evening --- I can hear them now as I type this --- and it makes the neighbourhood feel lively and lived-in more than a dozen "grassroots activities".

To my knowledge, there are no rules about having to book the playground or the basketball court for games. Every evening, kids and teenagers just show up with their mates, and they knock a ball around for a couple of hours. There are no referees, supervisors or security guards, but there is some form of organisation. The boys have figured it out themselves --- they play in teams and it's not a wild free-for-all. One weekend there were more than 30 young men at the basketball court, playing in some kind of tournament of their own. I have yet to see or hear of any fights, though sometimes the younger kids will squabble lightly among themselves.

Build it and they will come?

* * *

Last week I passed a beautiful wide plain in the middle of a residential area. It was the kind of wide plain you can imagine dogs bounding across, which I hear is what you'll see there on weekends. There are no paths, no benches, no "landscaped areas", no signs because there's nothing to point to. Just plenty of space for all to run.

Is the place havoc on the weekends, then? From what I understand, no. People walking their dogs make sure the animals don't bother people out for a walk or a jog. There's even a regular coterie of hobbyists who show up with their remote-control planes and conduct themselves over in one section of the field, without endangering any passing cars or passersby.

Space. If you've got it, use it (nicely).

* * *

Given all the recent hand-wringing about race (ethnicity) and social integration in Singapore, it's also nice to see that the main group of soccer-playing boys (primary school-aged) in my neighbourhood is an ethnically diverse group. Nobody appears to be forcing them to play together; they just are.

On the other hand, the basketball players are pretty much all Chinese (by which I mean their apparent ethnicity, not country of origin). They're also older --- at least 16 years old, if not up to 20 or so.

The older you get, the more you stick to your own kind? I hope not. Plus I wonder: where have all the girls gone?

* * *

Of course, I'm not advocating that someone march up to the basketball players with a Golden Baton of Racial Harmony and force them to "integrate" their games. They're not doing anything socially disruptive, and if hanging out in a monocultural group were ever considered disruptive behaviour in Singapore, there'd be many larger groups (and some of them less tractable) that would need policing too.

Mostly, I think, it's such a novelty to find such dedication to play --- particularly from young people of school-going age --- that it'd be great if they just carried on. They're not going jogging because it's good for their health. They're not taking up a sport because they might win gold medals for their school or want to "learn to work as a team and to be resilient". They're just at play, 'cause it's fun and they like it.

Play on.

Do you believe

2009-09-26T17:05:00.000+08:00

Twice recently, friends who don't know me super-well have been surprised to hear me profess to being an atheist. On the first occasion, a friend --- a lapsed Catholic whose grandfather had been an avowed atheist and promulgator of atheism, no less --- said something along the lines of, "Wow, really? That seems so ... bleak."

Is it? Unrelated to that, I stumbled upon "ProAction Cafe Singapore- thinking collaboratively", which described an event whereat, among other questions, this one was discussed: "Are atheists basically religious at heart?" I can't speak for others --- actually, I don't know for a fact if I know any other atheists --- but I think if one were to seriously describe oneself as an atheist, it's probably not out of a flippant attitude to religion or religiosity, and hopefully out of a genuine consideration of ideas about religion and faith.

The second time I happened to mention being atheist was last night, at Zouk waiting for John Digiweed to show up. You could say that a dance club with pounding music too loud for you to talk is an odd place to have a conversation about religion --- or you could say that given the moments of communion one might find through that music, with it, that it's perfectly apropos.

Some assembly required

2009-09-23T20:00:00.007+08:00

Speaking of pay copy, today I completed a project report for a corporate client --- executive summary, appendices and all. I think this is the first formal report I've written since I left the civil service almost four years ago.

In terms of style and tone, it couldn't be more different from the personal essay I've been working on since last week. The latter is growing very much organically and I'm learning what the argument is as it goes along, whereas with today's formal report, all I had to do was slap on the standard headings (executive summary, introduction, some chapter titles and conclusion) and everything fell into place. Just add page numbers, numbered paragraphs, list formatting and stir. Having a rigid structure to fall back on was almost therapeutic.

This is why I used to enjoy mathematics in junior college, I suppose, which was rare for an Arts stream student. No reading or essay-writing or struggling find the words required --- just apply the formula (assuming I'd understood it in the first place) and go.

I'll be writing another report next week. Perhaps I'll be tired of the format by then.

Bits and pieces, here and there

2009-09-21T00:45:00.005+08:00

A week ago, I was getting very, very drunk on beer and soju. I blame it on the Korean friends (old and brand-new) who were in town. As I wrote in my "Food & Drink" chapter for the Lonely Planet Korea guidebook update, "Koreans drink enough soju that the brand Jinro Soju (the green bottles are everywhere) is the top-selling brand of spirits worldwide."

A day (er, night) ago, I was at HOME Club, people-watching and catching up with old friends. It's good for that, plus right around 1 a.m. on Friday nights, they like spinning The Killers.

A month ago, I was madly writing about Korea.

This past week, I've been wrestling with the essay that is taking shape oh-so-slowly. It's a spot of pro bono work, so I'd better load up on some pay copy after this.

A little fogged up

2009-09-15T22:42:00.006+08:00

As I told sarah earlier today, I spent this afternoon trying to write something, a very nebulous idea that is taking its time to unfurl out of my sluggish brain. The idea is going somewhere, but very much at its own pace. It will not be forced, only coaxed, and I am a little afraid that at the end of it, it will be a very bad piece of writing despite all this hard work.

Oh well, you never know till you try.

In other news, for a weekday there were a surprising number of people flying their kites at the Marina Barrage this evening, and quite a few of them were teenagers. As the haze settled over the city, it was all so very surreal.

On peering at the Dead Sea Scrolls

2009-09-08T23:28:00.007+08:00

On Sunday I took my parents to see the exhibition The Dead Sea Scrolls & the Ancient World, which as I remarked on Facebook, would more accurately have been titled Cool Old Copies of Biblical Scripture and Other Ancient Texts. Because while there were many old copies of Biblical scripture, including many olde Bibles themselves, of the Dead Sea Scrolls there were truly only four fingertip-sized fragments, and not much to go on by way of historical and cultural context.

As I anticipated, the exhibition was filled with church-going folks, a number of whom were talking about next week's worship session or pointing at extracts from the Biblical book of Isaiah with sagacious expressions. What I didn't anticipate was that after one of the American exhibition curators delivered a short lecture on the place of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the context of the history of Judaism and Christianity, a young man next to me muttered, "Interesting --- the guy is not a believer."

So only believers in the Christian faith (who tend to use that term "believer" in the first place) would be interested in an exhibition on the Dead Sea Scrolls and other cool antique Bibles? Admittedly the curator did refer to Jesus as something of a mythological figure, depending on what you believe (I'm not quoting him verbatim here). But for someone to think that without some kind of religious connection, academics or curators or ordinary visitors like me would have no cause for seeing or studying these very old and precious bits of writing --- argh. I can't even begin to articulate why overhearing that kind of parochialism bugs me. It just makes me arghy and --- argh.

Writing, ideas, ideology, even one you don't agree with --- the evolution thereof matters, particularly what scant evidence has survived to this day. Religions and ideologies have an impact beyond that on their adherents. People don't pack the National Museum to see Greek Masterpieces from the Louvre because they believe in Zeus or Aphrodite. You don't have to be Christian or Jewish to be curious enough to shell out $20 to see remnants of the Dead Sea Scrolls. And likewise I'd like to think that more and more, people are willing to see examples of other faiths than their own, because faith is this thing that takes so many forms, and --- argh.

And the fact that the curator speaks about the Scrolls with such enthusiasm and respect, the fact that people with no faith (i.e. me) show up to wait their turn and squint down at these iddy-biddy bits of animal-skin parchment --- does that not suggest that there is a place for faith but also for those without faith, that there are many levels on which words of faith can be appreciated and valued?

I get why the exhibition was advertised as The Dead Sea Scrolls. I get why the church groups show up. I just wish more people would get --- argh.

Fire bad, tree pretty

2009-09-04T15:12:00.002+08:00

My brain is so tired, the first time I typed that, it came out as: Tree bad, fire pretty. I'm not sure Buffy would have approved.

Anyway.

Korea done. Writing good. Sleep better. Brain dead. Oh, said that already.

Readers' poll #4: Chopsticks are lots of fun

2009-08-29T22:44:00.003+08:00

I'm writing about Korean food right now, which begs the question of why Koreans use silver chopsticks, which got me thinking about how globalised Asian food has become and wondering how common it is for anyone --- not just Asians --- to know how to use chopsticks these days.

So here's my readers' poll: How old were you when you learned to use chopsticks? Feel free to embellish your answer with tragic tales of food dropped on the floor or being rapped on the knuckles by your elders, if any.

Also, I'm interested to see if anyone says, no, in fact they have not learned to use chopsticks.

My story: I don't remember exactly when I was taught to use chopsticks, but I grew up first using the fork and spoon --- to eat Asian meals, yes. Even today, at home I reach for a fork-and-spoon combination before I think about chopsticks, unless sushi is involved. I suspect I must have been six? seven? years old when I could use chopsticks competently in public (i.e. my parents didn't have to request for a fork and spoon if we were at a Chinese restaurant).

But my parents always lamented that my brother and I learned the wrong technique. To this day I can't control my chopsticks in the traditional fashion, where the chopstick closer to the body stays static while the thumb, index and middle finger lever the other one and keep it moving. I can still pick up most food and I did okay with those darn slippery silver Korean chopsticks for almost two months, but the occasional quail's egg or soft tofu still eludes me.

Oh, but the tearful tale of how I had to sit at the dinner table and learn to cut steak properly ... That's a story for another day.

So, do tell: when did you learn to use chopsticks and do you have a story to tell about it?

One gunkan to herald them all

2009-08-27T23:54:00.000+08:00

I'm a week late to the party, but congratulations, Howard!

Is there a nicer thing to do with a good friend than to sample sushi and sip sake? No, not really.

Remember:

It's in the basement of OUB Centre.
Try their versions of the tamago sushi, the tori kara-age and the enoki mushroom stir-fry.
Tell the cashier you're a fan of the Facebook page and get a 20% discount until August 28 (tomorrow).
Don't steal my bottle of sake.

What pets these creatures be

2009-08-26T15:28:00.003+08:00

Wil Wheaton's dog Ferris died suddenly yesterday, which made me feel unaccountably sad. I say "unaccountably" because it's not like I'm friends with him or his dog. I guess I've just read his blog long enough, wherein the dog often made guest-star appearances, that I can't help feeling a pang at the awful news.

Then today I read (via Joan Walsh on Salon) "Night of the Hunter", Gwen Cooper's amazing account of how her cat-with-no-eyes --- well, go read it for yourself.

And now it's time for a picture of my cats, taken a few months ago.

I still feel a pang.