Let's Go To Poland

Recent rhetoric in the French negative vote on the EU consitution referendum has sparked some defiance on the part of the Polacks - I like how the Polish fight back. I say we go to Poland and support their Plumbers. Uh huh. Maybe discuss how Plumbing skills can be shipped overseas to select female homes to help them with their...plumbing.

Oh it's a rainy day and this made me laugh, cut me some slack.

Extract from BBC Article, and the Polish Tourist Board website:
The Polish tourist board has come up with a seductive image of a Polish plumber to counter negative French rhetoric about east European workers.

The "Polish plumber" - a symbol of cheap labour - became a catchphrase of the French "No" camp during the referendum on the EU constitution.

"I'm staying in Poland - do come over," says the new ad on the Polish tourist board's website for French visitors.

Ties That Bind in a Wireless Universe

I am in Sydney Airport, waiting for my flight. It's amazing that I can blog on my laptop, sitting in an airport, this corner of the world. It's even more amazing that I can see, on the right side of my monitor, who's online or not, available or a chat or not. Wireless Fidelity has changed everything.

Being able to type messages, express emoticons, even chat with voice, across the oceans and hills by sending wireless signals from laptop to wireless card to server to bigger server to satellite, then in reverse order back to another computer gazillions of miles away. Invisible strings, pulling all of us closer and closer in this hypertechnical connectivity.

Can't help but think there's a strange yet sad symmetry in the following scenario:

Sitting in my parents' house in NSW Australia. Chatting with my sister in Melbourne - on MSN. Chatting with J in singapore - on MSN. About my mother, 2 meters away from me. About my grandfather, 7 hours flight away from me. Reading emails on my blackberry sent from the US, HK and Japan.

Yet I can't tell my mother what I really think about her. I can't tell her that she drives me crazy when she puts me on a spot in front of her friends. I can't convince her to leave me alone to my own decisions about my life, whether to do with religion, love, health, career, or children. I can't stop her from telling me over and over again that seaweed pills are good for me. I can't tell her, when she spends my money for my own good, that it drives me berserk. Can't make her understand that a charitable donation of A$300 is MINE to make, not hers.

Yet I don't seem to be able to say no, to rebuff her in front her friends, in front my dad, when it is so clear she is saying and doing these things out of good intentions and love for me. I struggle inside with the words to diplomatically have my own way, to disagree without disrespect. But when I see how eagerly she looks to me to follow on with her promises, when her friends and her relatives watch expectantly for me to act on what she said, I am torn. I feel myself having to bite my tongue and stop the instinctive protest, because if the words that I really wanted to say, left my mouth, there would have been no going back and the rift that exists today would be rendered broken forever.

So I acquiesce, and what she wants done is done. I pay for it - she conveniently points out that a credit card machine is available.

The plastic card is swiped, a digital stream of data tells my credit card company to take a piece of my self-definition and the independence that I fiercely protect. Wirelessly, a small piece of me just went to make my mother feel better about her daughter.

Or at least, I hope. I never know if this is a good step towards building a better understanding between us, or does it just encourage the same pattern of behaviour where I would feel that conflict of trying to preserve my independence and yet preserve her tender feelings at the same time.

I have a feeling it will be a futile resistance. There are too many years of unsaid words, too many instances of misunderstanding and too broad of a generation gap to overcome with one swipe of a credit card.

So I continue to spew my thoughts on this infernal struggle to a wireless universe, whether it's through this blog or through MSN to J or on my berry to my sister - I am counting on my wireless connections to help me deal with the ties that bind me.

Napping and Sleeping Around a Replica

Today's been one of those days that I am torn between the urge to tear my hear out, bash my head against the wall, or burrow my head into my arms folded on the desk and just switch off. (Funnily why do all these scenarios involve my head).

So it is with much relief that I call it a day and browse my list of regular blogs - wyjunkie's being one of them. And lo-and-behold, she has a link to an article about the benefit of NAPS. Gotta love it, this gives me a lot of ammunition to bring to my boss and explain why I need a day off after a 24 hour turnaround flight timetable. Thanks, wy! By the way.. Condi Rice as a political butterfly? But that would be undermining all the good work she has done so far as Secretary of State, and the National Security Advisor prior to this! Oh, the shame! *roll eyes* Heh heh Madeline Albright could probably teach those young-punk Heads of Rome a thing or two.

I've missed the pool opening hours for a swim. And tonight would have been a fantastic night for a swim. And it would have been the only exercise I can do (beyond yoga, kungfu or isometric stretchs) these few days back in Hong Kong. That's cos I'm a lazy bugger and left my running shoes and rock climbing gear at Johann's, so I will use them this weekend when I'm over. Perhaps the replica is the best solution - a copy of my life in Hong Kong, replicated in Singapore.

Which brings my tired brain cells to wonder - if each of us could replicate our current lives to a different location, what would I replicate? Certainly not my French Country-house nausea-inducing-make-my-friends-laugh-at-me furniture (it's a furnished rental, people. Cut me some slack.) Or my 16-hour workday. Or my idiotic neighbours that play mahjong with the door open and don't invite me to join. Most definitely my friends.

Kinda forces you to think about what you like in your life, and whether you like it in context of the environment you're in, or on its own merit.

Sigh that's too much deep thought for such a shitty day. Off I go. The diner with its late night value set dinner and the Asian Wall Street Journal awaits.

Up Top and Down Below (II)

DOWN BELOW

Seoul continues to be a culinary adventure. This time, your friends introduce you to a sinus-running, eye-watering, face-flushing, tongue-numbing trip into Indigestion-Land. The vehicle that takes you on this rollicking journey, is what’s called bool-dak. Enterprising Koreans have set up a website for this lovely dish, on http://www.booldak.com .

BOOLDAK is pronounced almost exactly as it’s spelled. Bool means fire, and Dak means chicken, in Korean. No, we’re not talking about Turkey. (Footnote: In Chinese, “Fire Chicken” means Turkey).

BOOLDAK is chopped up bits of chicken (usually tender dark meat that absorb flavor better) that has been marinated in the world-famous hellfire Korean chilli pastes, then barbequed on aluminium foil, basted with more of the same world-famous hellfire Korean chilli pastes.

BOOLDAK is served sizzling and smoking to unsuspecting diners who think the mountains of serviettes provided on the table is just good service.

BOOLDAK’s first mouthful is hot to the bite but very quickly the flavor of the chicken overtakes the spice and we naively think, “Hey, this isn’t so bad”. Beer is poured, the visitors’ first bite deserves a toast.

THEN it hits.

As the beer leaves the tongue and makes its way down your throat, you’re wondering when beer started leaving a trail of fire in its wake. You take another draw from the chilled metal flagon – and it feels worse. You look around in bewilderment at your Korean friends who are trying not to laugh as your face turns redder and redder, and your eyes start to water.

You eat another piece of booldak just to prove yourself wrong. See, yummy – munch munch, swallow. Here’s another toast, just in case they thought you couldn’t handle it. After you swallow your beer, your Korean friend kindly hands you a serviette. “Hey, sweat is dripping off your forehead.”

This is the secret weapon of booldak. The spice lingers, grows, and grabs on to your tongue, tingling every nerve and chafing at every available tastebud. Intuitive reactions to swallow cold water, cold beer, rub at tongue with serviette, will only make it worse. Then the helpful Korean friends, who had already replenished the rapidly depleting serviette supply, point out two sources of relief – burnt rice water, and sweet pickles. Burnt rice water consists of the bits left at the bottom of a rice cooker, rapidly boiled with water – a flatly flavored soup base that, if you believe in that stuff, has “cooling” properties. Frankly, disbelief is suspended when your tongue is flaming – anything to tame the heat, you’ll take.

Quite surprisingly, sweet pickles DO work. Not local pickles, but sliced “bread and butter” pickles that used to accompany deli sandwiches, the ones that are ubiquitous all over New York. The first contact your tongue makes with the pickles, there is the welcome relief of a doused fire. You start to feel your mouth again.

Of course, then you think you can try another piece of the Fire Chicken. BOOLDAK is not for the weak of heart.

Booldak remnants



Cooling Element



Another Korean delicacy – BBQ Octopus

Up Top and Down Below (I)

UP TOP

3 minutes after take-off
I’m sitting in a Cathay Pacific flight bound for Seoul from Hong Kong. Already I’m dreading arriving at Incheon airport, which is a long ways away from the city. A disturbingly expanding trend that is affecting major cities all over Asia – Beijng, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Taipei. In a way I’m thankful that Singapore is tiny – airport can’t be too far, or it’ll become Johore Bahru International Airport. (Gasp! Shock! Horror!)

10 minutes after take-off
Irritated at the passenger behind me who liked to shove things with thinly veiled violence into the pocket of the seat in front of him i.e. MY seat, I leaned forward to prepare to turn around and deliver a cool setdown. I had taken the aisle seat as usual, and there were 2 empty seats next to me. In that split second, halfway through the turn, my eyes glance out the window –

And I glimpsed heaven. I saw the most amazing cloud formations, ever. Indigos and periwinkles and azure and white tinged with silvers and greys. A sundae of cotton topped with a dollop of whipped cream. An ocean of white foamy nothingness, so solid to the eye it belies the collection of tiny water droplets that it really is. A bed of softest white for heavy clusters of grayish moody rainclouds to lie on, then eventually sink through to let loose their watery tempers on the world below.

I was entranced with the vertical buildup of florets of cauliflower clouds, one stacking on top of another, like a farmer’s project gone awry. They teetered this way and that way, impossibly building and building, my eyes followed it all the way to the top until the sun’s rays made me blink.

I wanted to reach out through the window to touch the different textures in front of me – plush luxurious white fur, smooth soft white silk, squeezable squishy white pillows. So near some of them, so clear every nook and cranny. I could even pick out the little ones that try to hide behind the large fluffy ones, from my little window in the middle of a 747.

I had crept into the window seat. An involuntary sigh escaped from my lips, as the deceptively slow pace of the plane gliding through the air took me further and further away. As the distance grew with each illusory millimeter, the sense of yearning in my throat made my eyes water. I blinked swiftly to clear any tears away, because I didn’t want to lose a second of this beautiful wonder of nature, drinking it all in with my eyes, imprinting these images in my brain.

Looking further ahead, it was an endless vista of white white prairies, with little cotton balls of cloud-lambs that were frozen mid-prance, their dainty hoofs barely touched the silver linings. Purely brilliant cloud-trees seemed to turn slowly to look at me while I gazed out of the airplane window, and gusts of whispy cloud-breeze wove their way in between to drift farther and farther away into the horizon of never-ending dreams.

I had forgotten about the passenger behind me.

Hand Luggage Must Fit In Overhead Compartment

I travel a lot for my work. I remember I counted the number of days I was actually in my apartment in Hong Kong over a 2 month period.. and I can safely say that number hovered around the teens… I got a little confused when I tried to keep track of time zones and half-days in the air followed by half-days in the office.

Today I am doing another mad dash. Departing from Hong Kong to Singapore on a Friday, returning to Hong Kong the following Tuesday. Then back to Singapore the upcoming Friday, to be followed by an onward flight to Sydney the upcoming Wednesday. Flip right around back to Singapore the upcoming Sunday, for an onward journey to Hong Kong the following Monday.

And it all starts with a frantic run through Hong Kong International Airport in high heels and a rolling executive case, which is suitably sized as cabin baggage, with ergonomic handles, slip-proof wheels and hard-knock-withstand-disgruntled-baggage-handlers-titanium casing.

Too bad they couldn’t make it roll on its own with a homing device to just follow me around the airport, and automatically leap, through a cunningly implanted air propulsion jack, up and over into the overhead baggage compartment.

That said, this case has followed me for almost 5 years. Bought at a sharp discount in a Walmart somewhere outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania, it’s neither the most stylish nor the quietest bag. Matter of fact, I still cringe every time it rolls across a corrugated surface with the embarrassingly loud ripping farting noise that comes out of the wheels.

But it has withstood my rigorous travel schedule, abusive luggage-packing practices, kicks from high heel shoes when I’m pissed off at airport staff, not to mention Herculean efforts tugging at zippers and sitting on top of the case to make it close. After 5 years, I think it’s time to retire this loyal companion. Rest well, old friend.

I am starting the process of shopping for a new case. What will it be? A stylish red with modern art overtones that Samsonite calls the “City Traveller designed for the Stylish Female Sophisticate”, which not only fits as cabin baggage, but also contains a makeup compartment, cellphone pocket, and hanging key loops? I’m not sure what woman would keep a cellphone and keys in a rolling executive case, but hey, there’s no accounting for what Style and Sophistication can do. I have a feeling I’m going to pass on this one.

One curious point though – as I browse through the Samsonite website, my eyes are reading “upright business case” for the collection of wheelies that they’ve got, yet my brain registers “uptight business case” – is there an optical equivalent of a Freudian slip?

This Pointing Finger is worth US$4.6 billion

I work in an evironment where finger-pointing, blame-storming, ass-covering are all par for the course. Generally the higher up in an organization you are, the more is at stake, usually for actions and events that are beyond your physical control. All we can do is try our best and stick to the bright side of the line the separates good and evil.

Then I read this article about the Bank of Thailand (the central banking authority of the Kingdom of Thailand, for those who have been living under a rock). Am I glad I don't work there, or at least, am stepping anywhere close to being its governer.

Excerpt from the BBC, full article here:
A former Thai central bank governor has been fined 186bn baht ($4.6bn; £2.5bn) for his leading role in the country's 1997 financial crash. ... The Bangkok Civil Court has now ordered that Mr Marakanond must reimburse the Bank of Thailand within a month. / Otherwise he will face the seizure of his personal assets. ... The ruling means that Mr Rerngchai is in effect being held personally responsible for the meltdown.

That's going to be some fancy fund-raising that he'll have to do in a month. Net of his personal assets, of course - yacht in the Bahamas, perhaps? Chalet in Switzerland, maybe?

Good luck, Mr. Rerngchai.