Beautiful World

A Traveller's Tale: Storing Wine

2012-01-20T20:49:00.000-08:00

Kellie's Castle has a wine cellar and it is no wonder! William Kellie Smith, the Scottish planter who built the castle in Batu Gajah reportedly had meant the castle to be the hub for entertaining wealthy colonial planters in Malaya. The cellar there is a dark place and I suppose all wine cellars anywhere would be dark,too. Wines are supposed to be kept in the dark, away way from light, especially direct sunlight and fluorescent fixtures. UV rays supposedly give wines an unpleasant smell and that is why, I suppose, wine bottles are dark in colour and even wrapped up in a cloth or kept in a box. There is a reason for some of the things we do!

You'd probably want to keep your wine here!

A Traveller's Tale: A Foreign Culture

2011-12-18T23:42:00.000-08:00

William Kellie Smith, the man who built Kellie's Castle reportedly was fascinated with the Hindu religion and the Indian culture. He was said to have even prayed to the Hindu Goddess, Amman so that he would be blessed with a son. His love for everything Indian probably influenced the construction of Kellie's Castle. The castle was to have similar architecture to those of Madras, the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, now better known as Chennai. Bricks and tiles for the castle were in fact all mported from India and a big group of Indian labourers were employed to build the dream house castle. There is nothing wrong with a foreign culture!

Can you spot anything Indian here?

A Traveller's Tale: One Man's Folly

2011-12-07T21:37:00.001-08:00

In the 70s, I remember reading in the local newspaper that Kellie's Castle was unkempt, probably even having been taken over by a primary forest and infested with snakes. That was understandable because tragedies had struck soon after construction of the castle began. . A virulent strain of the Spanish flu from Europe had killed the workers working on Kellie's dream castle and Kellie who had already spent a fortune on his house, lost even more money. Kellie's Castle was left unfinisheed and in ruins and was therefore also known s Kellie's Folly. Today though, the castle has become a tourist attraction and there is a little manicured tropical garden that boasts of a tree with a little bear face. One man's folly attracts!

Can you see a bear somewhere?

A Traveller's Tale: A Natural Moat

2011-11-08T23:16:00.000-08:00

Kellie's Castle seems like a stone throw away from Ipoh, the capital of Perak. Batu Gajah is afterall just 24 km away or about 20 minutes ride away; and nowadays, there is also a nice highway for one to travel on. The castle is not an unkempt place as it was once reported to be and of course not - one has to pay RM 3 to enter and the money most probably is used to maintain the place. Even with its brownish water, Sungai Kinta or the Kinta River that flows near the castle looks like it had been cleaned up too and I would suppose the Scottish planter, William Kellie Smith who reportedly built the castle as a gift for his wife or even as a home for his son, had also meant the river to be a moat. A moat, by the way, is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, dug around a castle for defence purposes. One probably doesn't have to build a moat. God can provide!

Can you spot the tell-tale sign that this is the Kinta River that flows pass Kellie's Castle?

A Traveller's Tale: Spur of the Moment

2011-10-29T23:00:00.001-07:00

Perhaps, it was in the 80s that I first heard of Kellie's Castle, this unfinished mansion built by Scottish planter, William Kellie Smith in Batu Gajah, Perak. Someone had proposed visiting the place but since getting there by public transport was said to be much hassle back then, besides the mansion being said to be an abandoned and neglected derelict, the proposal was ultimately shot down. It must be some twenty years later that I got to visit Kellie's Castle. It was a public holiday and a friend had suggested at the spur of the moment that we drive down from Taiping to Ipoh and then take the highway to Batu Gajah. Sometimes, it pays to make a decision at the spur of the moment...

Kellie's Castle as it is today...

A Traveller's Tale: Castle at the Doorstep

2011-10-23T21:04:00.000-07:00

Did not remember seeing Japan's Himeji Castle(inset) in Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha and Ran but read that besides being featured in the two said movies, the castle had also been featured in many other Japanese and non-Japanese movies as well, including one of the 007 James Bond's movies, You Only live twice. Castles abound in Europe and the Middle East and it is not surprising since the fortified structure is actually a European innovation and had been built since the fall of the Carolingian Empire in the 9th and 10th century. The series of religious wars against the Muslims that had been blessed by the Pope, The Crusades - probably led to many more castles like Syria's Crac des Chevaliers being built in the Middle East. Elsewhere, like in Malaysia, most probably you'd be surprised to hear that the country has her very own castle - Kellie's castle. You don't have to build castles in the air if you have one at your doorstep!

Can you identify which is Malaysia's very own Kellie's Castle?

Beautiful on the Outside

2011-10-07T22:01:00.001-07:00

I remember being in a long journey in New Zealand's South Island once and our bus stopped for us somewhere to visit a lady selling preserved fruits or something. Our guide told us the lady who owned the place was a miserly person and even went to the extent of calling her a witch. Traveling so far and in such a cold weather had then taken its toll on us and I, for one could not help but help myself to the loo there. I remember the loo to be one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. There were rose shrubs outside and the branches creeped on the walls. The best of it all was - it was the end of spring when we visited New Zealand but the roses were still blooming. Could you imagine how beautiful a toilet with roses on the walls could be? Never mind the inside, for most of the time it is the outside that impresses!

Some loos could be attractive on the inside though!

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World's Oldest

2011-10-01T21:57:00.001-07:00

Never mind if USA's Walter Breuning or Japan's Tomoji Tanabe is the oldest man in the world. Both the man cannot beat the oldest trees in the world even if their ages are added together. The undisputed oldest tree, the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine is 4,844 years old. The Alerce which stands at number 2 is 3,622 years old. The Giant Sequoia which comes next is 3,266 years old. The Sugi and the Huon-pine are number four and number five, being 3,000 years old and 2,500 years respectively. There is no end to comparing!

Marked

2011-09-26T21:05:00.000-07:00

A rare species of crab with a cross-like mark on its shell last seen in the Straits of Malacca in the 60s had been caught by a fisherman from Tengkera on Sunday. The crabs had caused quite a stir among the people, especially Christians. Legend has it that in the 16th Century, Saint Francis Xavier, a pioneering Roman Catholic missionary and co-founder of the Society of Jesus who has a role in initiating the Goa Inquisition, was caught in a storm in the Straits of Malacca. He dipped his crucifix into the sea and prayed to God to calm the raging storm. When the crucifix slipped from his grip and fell into the sea, he prayed that he could get it back. And that he did when he reached the shores of Malacca. A crab clutching his crucifix had crawled on the beach to welcome him . St Francis blessed the crab and the sign of a cross then appeared on its back. Locals had now rushed to buy the crabs, not to eat, but to preserve the shell which is considered sacred. It does not pay if you are marked!

Mommie Dearest

2011-09-17T20:47:00.001-07:00

Malaysia's richest man, Tan Sri Robert Kuok Hock Nien's revelation about his mother during his recent CCTV interview invariably reminds me of Mommie Dearest, the book written by Joan Crawford's adopted daughter, Christina Crawford in which the latter had claimed that the Hollywood star was more concerned about her own career than her childrens' welfare and that she was a victim of child abuse during her mother's battle with alcoholism. Unlike Christina Crawford, Sri Robert Kuok actually has nice things to say about his mother, Tang Kak Ji. His mother, Tan Sri Robert Kuok said taught him to remember his roots and always advised him to be humble and to help the poor, and be a businessman with good ethics. He professed that he would love his mother forever. Some people love their mothers, some people don't!

Remembering 11/12

2011-08-22T00:03:00.000-07:00

It was a fine morning when I woke up this morning. It was raining the night before and the morning air was cold and crisp. I remember being on holiday in London one winter and being told by the hotel receptionist that the weather was good when it was so terribly cold and terribly crisp outside. It was different here at home. Perhaps, it was the tropical environment which gave one a different perception. Anyway, a fine weather would prop up anyone's mood anywhere. Having looking forward to a Liu Chia Chang's concert which was scheduled to be in TV on the 12th of September, I had then asked my niece for the date. It was 11/9, she said; and that reminded me immediately of the day the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger jets and intentionally crashed two into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Some people could just spoil our day!

Double Trouble

2011-08-21T23:59:00.000-07:00

Former International Monetary Fund chief, Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn (inset) reportedly was a president hopeful but had his dream dashed when a New York hotel maid, a Guinean immigrant Nafissatou Diallo, accused him of attempted rape. The maid had claimed that Strauss-Kahn had forced her to perform oral sex and tried to rape her. Strauss-Kahn had since then quit his job, spent almost a week in jail and six weeks of house arrest and barred from leaving America before Manhattan prosecutors dropped the case, saying they no longer trusted the maid. In his own country, Strauss-Kahn faces another investigation for attempted rape, this time, involving a French novelist. No one could be trusted!

Dog Lovers Tips

2011-08-21T23:54:00.000-07:00

Dog lovers may want to know this: I read that when walking dogs, a person must show compassion. The dog is afterall on a leash and one has to be kind and supportive. The dog may also not know what to do and it has to be shown the way. Walk the dog slowly and let it lead you. at first. You can lead the dog later on and don't forget to always praise it for just walking with you and doing their business. And you are to take your dog out to a fun place like a park, a lake, a pet store etc but definitely not to the vets. The dog may get scared or upset. Dogs are human too!

Stoned

2011-08-16T00:37:00.000-07:00

A 34-year old woman in Keningau, some 135 km from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah came home and heard noises coming from the bedroom. On investigating, she found her 33-year old husband in bed with a woman. She was incensed and started to argue with her husband. Instead of repenting, the husband had then slapped the woman on the face and hit her on the legs. There have been many adulterers since Israel's great King David had his fling with Bathsheba. You'd probably remember Bill Clinton making it out with Monica Lewinsky in the White House or Woody Allen in the limelight with an adoptive daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. Some of these adulterers just stoned you!

Swept Away

2011-08-11T00:58:00.000-07:00

The papers reported that he looks like Hong Kong actor David Wu and Chinese actor Chang Chen but you'd be forgiven if you think that Sin Chew Daily's former columnist, Ou Yang looks more like the late actor, Yul Brynner who played King Mongkut in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I. Ou Yang who is a pastor at the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) in New York is set to marry his Broadway musical producer African-American boyfriend. Ou Yang who grew up in a conservative Christian family is a self-confessed gay pastor at a church which reach out to all, including homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals. His boyfriend had gone to church, sang a song which he had written and proposed. Men, I suppose, get swept off their feet too!

Daniel Wu...

Chang Chen...

Yul Brynner...

In Love

2011-08-02T20:27:00.000-07:00

Seventeen-year-old Rafi and Halina Mohammedi were working at the Herat ice cream factory. The former wrote her phone number on a piece of paper and purposely dropped it for the latter to pick up. Soon, the two Afghan teenagers became an item.They talk through the phone every night, fell in love and were set to marry. On their wedding day however, a group of people accused them of adultery.They dragged them out of their car and demanded that they be hanged or stoned to death.Even the girl's uncle was not on their side. The latter had reportedly said that the young lovers had brought shame to their families. Not everyone cares if you are in love!

Always a Man

2011-07-30T19:50:00.000-07:00

In Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia, the doctors at the Sultanah Nur Zahirah Hospital just pronounced 25-year-old, Mohd Ashraf Hafiz Abdul Aziz (inset) dead. The deceased had had a heart problem. Mohd Ashraf, incidentally, had been in the limelight before this. Having undergone a sex change operation in Thailand two years ago, Mohd Ashraf had applied to the High Court to change his gender and name to Aleesha Farhana Abdul Aziz. The judge Datuk Mohd Yazid Mustafa said that a person’s gender was determined at birth and could not be changed through surgery. Adhering to the court ruling, the deceased had therefore been buried as a man at the Kampung Seberang Takir Muslim cemetery. Operation does not change thoughts!

God's Gifts

2011-07-25T00:57:00.000-07:00

Whose nose looks like Pinocchio's? The newspaper seems to think that Hong Kong actress Tavia Yeung Yi (inset), the villainess in TVB's Beyond the Realm of Conscience (宮心計) has Pinocchio's nose. The buzz is around that the actress has a nose job done but Tavia said that she had merely gone to see the doctor to get rid of her birthmark. Just the other day, I met a twenty something local guy who was back from Korea for his semester break. Inadvertently, I started to talk about how beautiful the Korean stars are. I remember even a friend saying that Britain's Prince Charles had once commented that the girls in Korea are by far, the prettiest. The young guy had however told me that 60% of the people there had actually gone under the knife to improve their looks. Not everyone appreciate God's gifts!

Who do you think has/have gone under the knife?

Sex Education

2011-07-18T00:59:00.000-07:00

A decomposed body of an infant floating in Sungai Ramal Baru had been sent to Serdang Hospital.It is not often that babies dumped lose their lives. In Malaysia, it has been said that in 2005 alone, 472 babies had been dumped and of these, 258 were dead. The Federal CID director Comm Datuk Seri Bakri Zinin blamed this on pornography which he said weakened family ties. Women’s Aid Organisation executive director Ivy Josiah however disagreed, citing that women were unable to get their male partners to use contraceptives. We need sex education!

House of Cards

2011-07-12T00:12:00.000-07:00

A house of cards is but a flimsy structure and the phrase often refers to an arrangement or a situation that is in danger of collapsing or failing. You'd not like that perhaps; not just the flimsiness in a structure but the thought of something collapsing or failing is too much a turn off. Then, there is probably a House of Cards which you may like - the 1990 critically acclaimed BBC political thriller television drama serial that was set after the end of Margaret Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. You may like something sometimes!

Which of the following is flimsy enough for your liking?

Hard Job

2011-07-05T00:37:00.000-07:00

How many pig/s is/are there exactly in the 1995 Australian-American film Babe? If you remember, there is a cute little pig that wants to be a sheepdog in the Chris Noonan directed movie. I remember reading somewhere that at least two piglets were used to shoot the movie; so, if you were to ask me how many pigs are there in the Oscar nominated movie, I would say there are two. And mind you, how many pigs are there in the accompanying picture? I would say there are three here. Counting is never easy!

Grandmothers' Tales

2011-06-28T23:35:00.000-07:00

It is not unusual to read of grandmothers becoming victims of snatch thieves or even murderers in the papers. Some grandmothers' tales however come with a difference. Once, in Dungun, Terengganu, a 65-year-old grandmother put up a fight against a snatch thief. She slapped and kicked him before finally surrendering her handbag containing RM250 in cash and personal documents. Then, there is this 63-year grandmother in Kuala Lumpur who was jailed for four days and fined RM800 for stealing a handbag and a pair of sunshades. She pleaded for a lighter sentence, saying that she was always forgetful and had forgotten to pay for the products. Being forgetful does not pay!

Which handbag would granny prefer?

Cry Freedom!

2011-06-18T22:17:00.000-07:00

You'd wonder if the famous Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island in New York Harbour actually means anything to the Americans. Said to be the icon of freedom of the United States, you'd wonder if there is real freedom there if you were to ponder over the antics of an actor impersonating President Obama in New Orleans not too long ago. The actor, Reggie Brown, had drew applause from the audience when he projected lewd photos of disgraced Democratic US congressman Anthony Weiner who had posted sexually explicit text messages and suggestive pictures of himself to several women. However, he reportedly had also mocked the Republican presidential hopefuls, joked about President Obama's biracial roots and about the Mormon faith and polygamy to a room full of conservative activists so much so that he was ushered of the stage. In America or elsewhere, there is no freedom to mock!

Sleeping Beauties

2011-05-29T00:03:00.000-07:00

You may have watched the 1959 Walt Disney movie Sleeping Beauty (inset) but do you know that it is based on the classic fairy tale La Belle au bois dormant by the French author, Charles Perrault? La Belle au bois dormant is French for The Beauty asleep in the wood. Disney's tale about the beautiful sleeping princess Aurora was actually drawn from Tchaikovsky's ballet which premiered at Saint Petersburg in 1890 but the ballet itself was adapted from Charles Perrault's La Belle au bois dormant which appeared in 1697 in the author's Contes de ma Mère l'Oye or Tales of Mother Goose. While this work laid foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, the tales featured which include Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots and Cinderella are by no means original. They were derived from pre-existing folk tales. Good things get copied!

Sleeping Beauties...

Under Lock and Key

2011-05-28T23:47:00.000-07:00

Under lock and key means securely locked up. In Kuala Lumpur, a robber said to be in his 20s, ordered a female clerk of a bank in Taman Tanming Jaya, Seri Kembangan to fill RM 80,000 into a bag and then escaped with his loot on a motorcycle in merely five minutes. All this while, he was just armed with a toy pistol. What could possibly be safe under lock and key?