QQ Chip-Chip

With the influence of Astro Animal Planet series, my kids requested to keep pet dog, alternatively anything to do with furry 4 legged animals such as cat, rabbit, hamster & mouse. I ruled out all the possibilities as I am allergy to fur & dust.

Recently read an article on benefit of children keeping pets will increase their ability to nurture and care for others, have an easier time interacting with their peers, increased emotional reciprocity and sense of responsibility.

With this scientific evidence, I tend to give in and agreed for them to keep a pair of miniature Bantam chicken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantam_%28chicken%29).
On the next day, we were woke up abruptly by the terrible crowing noise from the rooster at 5:30 am, snoozed and repeatedly for the interval of 30 minutes and the last crow was 7 am.
We were so ashamed of the loud noise made in the mid of the quiet Taman, next, we wrap the cage with towel, hoping to let the rooster see no sun, but the rooster never failed its duty and continue to crow.

On the 3rd day, the hen laid an egg, and it continued to have one every alternate day. After collecting of her last egg, she sit on it, the chicks hatched after 20 days, but only 3 chicks made it, the rest were rest in the heaven.

My kids learned and benefited a lot during the 1.5 months period, caring, love & responsibility made them mature.

Cute, lovely and adorable !!

‘Sahara’ Office

Our central air con was not functioning due to certain reason, in exchange was electric fan that we brought from home. The office was enclosed without window and there was no way letting outside air flow in, it was like sauna and we ought to tie through the heat, humidity & stuffiness.

With lightning speed, those ‘candles’ colleagues that melt easily grabbed their shoes and moved down to another office enjoying wearing warmer with hot coffee cup to warm their palms. Left only few of us that wish to impress boss for better bonus, singing and hamming song by Ricky Nelson “I will follow you, follow you whenever you may go, there isn't an ocean too deep, A mountain so high it can keep me away….”

When the temperature raises high at 32.4C, I felt lethargic and mellow, my eyes were getting heavy and heavier, I need to staple my eyelids to stay awake, a long ruler was used to support my chin, to prevent my head from nodding uncontrollably. Crystal salt can be seen on my skin where I collected it home for cooking.

Dressing a little less, thin or light was one of the best method to wand off the heat, the naughty hungry wolves (male colleagues) were licking saliva awaiting and welcoming to see revealing & see thru attire. (Forgotten the risk of heart attack, high blood pressure)

I saluted those working under sun light, respected them for their endurance to weather changes.

For us ? Longing to end the Sahara days in the shortest period ??

Teacher Veejay & His Student

My 6 years old little L was promoted to become teacher Veejay by my Indon helper (my son liked the name Veejay), she was very grateful that my son taught her English & Mandarin, she used a brown exercise book to pen down words and learn how to pronounce it.

Teacher Veejay arranged tuition for her on weekdays and rest on weekend. Sometimes, teacher Veejay got angry as she was absent minded and failed her spelling, she would get 10 times ear squad or 10 times correction as punishment.

On one beautiful fine day, my helper over joy and told me that there was this Malay guy proposed marriage to her. Thunder, lightning & rain showered onto my head, my face was sure longer than Prince Charles, she had breached her promised by befriended to stranger. Being high in EQ I kept the fear inside me, just cautious her to beware of naughty man who seeks for free sex.

A few days later, my helper again confessed to me that she was in love with a Ban-ga-lai (Bangladeshi) , he was very handsome, he would ride his black steel horse (bicycle) round our house during weekend. She was thankful to teacher Veejay as he had bridged both of them together by translating the English letter.

To me I consider lucky that she was frank to let me know the happening, and I had taken drastic action to stop further development. As for Teacher Veejay, he will be putting up in day care from next month onwards, as for mending the house, another mature maid was engaged.

Coffee, Panadol & Cigarette

My 20 years old young helper was with us for 10 months now, we went through chicken & duck talk, miscommunication, surprises & culture shock before we can come to the present stage of understanding.

After she had completed her routine, she would come round to tell me tales of her village, her brought up. She would pour out her true feeling towards her family, her divorced husband, relatives and her friends. I must be motherly enough for her to behave like a daughter than a helper. I am also trying to empty out her sad soul so that she can work whole heartedly & happily for two years.

At her young age, she had developed some habits that annoyed me, first was her addictions to coffee, 1 mug every 2 hourly or 8 mug in a day. Anything less will cause her to have severe headache, and panadol will be replacement of coffee. Lately, she had cut down coffee intake to 2 mugs, but the panadol increase to 8 tablets daily. Oh yes, too much coffee will cause constipation, and she need banana, papaya or medication to help in easing or ‘pang sai’.

Secondly, she was a chain smoker, there was once, she hopped in front of me, putting two palms together begging for 1 stick of cigarette, ‘Madam, please please, I just need one stick, maybe it will cure my headache, please lah, madam.’ She knee down and begged. “NO” was the stern response, she was a bit upset and said, “This is god will, Jesus disallows me to smoke, Jesus uses madam to guide me.”

Sigh… will I be able to tame her wild soul that she had suppressed for months? I doubt and started to bit my nails ….

Working Life as a Secretary - Contd Part 3 Final

Thing turns sour when the stalker came to know about the police plot. I am planning the worst, started to think of how to co-ordinate funeral ceremony & pek kim collection.

I am suspicious on all the incoming parcel, maybe bomb was attached in it, and I would be blow off together with my boss. I avoid walking with boss for fear that the gunman gun me down wrongly. I brought my own water for fear the pantry water was poisoned.

To my very surprised that the phone went quiet and my boss still alive and working everyday, the police no more showing faces. I am like riding the roller coaster up in the peak and suddenly dropped on the ground. I was puzzled and started my back lane investigation.

Later, some news leak out that the whole things took over by our HR Manager, the bargaining went on and we had the good deal of paying 4-figures instead of 6-figures ransom.

Our HR Manager was asked to bring the cash in newspaper wrapping and put into brown envelope. He was asked to go to a few destinations to wait for calls, later, he was asked to go to Komtar car park.

“Mr xxx, now that I can see you in 2nd level car park, walk in between the white cars, drop the money down to the ground floor, don’t look down, walk away and don’t look back. I will give you a call to confirm the ransom”. This was the instruction given by the stalker on the last move.

While I am busy typing my meeting minutes, unexpectedly I received the call from the stalker, my heart pumped 100 times faster, but this time, he was in joyous mood, he thanked me for the co-operation, and sorry for all the troubles he had caused. He passed message to my boss, saying that my boss will be ‘protected’ and everything was over.

True, the whole thing back to normal, my boss was free of mental harassment, but he wasn’t ready to stay any further and went back to Taiwan for good.

Here ends the final part of my life as a Secretary. Interesting ? Perhaps not, I am stressed out during the 6 months period.

‘Thing’ that haunted me for years

When I was in primary school, we gathered and whispering about the long hair white gown woman in the toilet. No one had ever seen her, but my classmate said, ‘my friend saw her’, and another friend confirmed that her friend’s friend saw her too. Since then, we went to toilet in group, avoid using the cubicle next to the locked cubicle, which we believed that something was inside there. More so, some blood stains on the floor makes us believed that she did something to the student. No matter how, I will not do my big business in the toilet for fear of meeting up with her.

During secondary school, our classroom was 20 feet next to the Chinese cemetery, where we can see clearly the names on the tomb stones, our classroom was dim and cooling, could be caused by too ‘Yin’. After the final school exam, the teacher was busy marking the paper, we were playing the coin spirit game (Ouigi Game) at the back. White sheet paper was prepared, “Home” was wrote in the middle of the paper, the rest will be some wordings, numbers, and depending on what question we asked. We will had our index fingers put on the coin and start calling ‘spirit coin, please come out, spirit coin, please come out’, the spirit coin would move and we were excited to raise questions. Sometimes, the coin moved so fast that made us feel scared and we signal each other and sent the coin back to its home. At times, some passed away celebrities liked singer or film star would join us in the game.

I was away to put up in hostel during my college time, I was terrified to stay alone in a room, I would keep the music and lighting on for 24 hrs. Avoided ghost story movie, ghost story book, ghost related conversation. No drinking at night to prevent walking in the corridor to the toilet, I would not answer or look back if anyone calling from behind during night time. No mirror after 12 mid night.

The fear kept inside me for years, I will not look into rear mirror if I am driving at night, my house lighting will be turn on at 6:30pm or even earlier, my house will be painted in white nothing but white, once a while, I would sprinkle salt in every corner of the house to chase away the bad vibes. To my kids, I never mentioned or frighten them with ghost, they were much much more braver, they sleep alone, walk in the dark, and foremost, never believe in ghost.

Two years back, I went for hypnotherapy to get rid of the illusion of the long hair white gown woman that haunted me for years. Now, I am much braver than before, and the therapy serves the purpose.

Working Life as a Secretary…. part 2

I was shivering upon reaching my boss, telling him about the 4 coffins he needs to prepare. His face was black with char burned smell.

Police was invited to join in and made things more complicated. My phone was installed with recorder machine. I lost the privileges of spot checking my husband where about, teaching my son on mathematics, giving recipe and coaching my maid how to cook.

Some gossip and reliable source told me that boss was being stalked and asked to pay RM100K for his life. The whole thing was run by a syndicate that targeted the expatriates in Malaysia.

My duty as a gate keeper had provoked the anger of the stalker, I was warned of my in-out safety, feeling disturbed and wanted very much to move my home next to police station.

After a few weeks of ding-dong, negotiation had came to the stage of settlement, our HR Manager impersonated by police to hand over the ransom, the Hollywood play cast came into the real life, a few check points was planned, but in between the police failed to answer some questions correctly whereby the stalker called off the plan.

Immediately, I received the ferocious call in the office, ‘Your boss is asking for trouble by involving the police, get his wife to collect his death body soon !!!” my ear was deafening by the loud slammed on the phone.

To be continued…. Part 3 final

Working Life as a Secretary…. part 1

For god know what reason I ended up as a Secretary, this is not the ambition that I used to fill in the student survey form throughout my school days neither did it appear in my assay writing. (or karangan)

I worked for this Taiwanese but not so Taiwanese boss from US, his English was above excellent. Giving us the illusion of seeing teacher than boss, and we started to use dictionary for words that he said and wrote.

Everything went normal for a year, but, things went wrong somewhere after that, boss had reacted strangely, he become suspicious and sensitive, he gave me a name list on the phone call that he wish to answer, other than that I was given opportunity to practice my creativity on how to lie. My mom once told me that I will go to hell and get my tongue cut repeatedly if I lie, I hope I can transfer this to my boss.

Later, an ex-army force officer was engaged as driver cum bodyguard, more so the driver was armed with short gun to execute his job.

Upon screening the calls, I noticed this Chinese guy used to call up at 3 times daily. I went on with my routine “boss in meeting, boss went out, boss outstation, boss in the production, etc, etc..”. And my list was long enough for me to lie continuously 5 days, soon, this guy went on impatient.

On one beautiful fine day, I got his call when I was in the mid of polishing my nails, I was asked to take down the message for my boss, “ Please get Mr XXX to prepare 4 sets of coffins if he did not answer my call”. Click, the phone went off, my nail file dropped, my jaws dropped and I freeze there for more than 10 seconds without heart pumping…..

Dear readers, interesting right ? to be continued, kekeke…

Wheels Power

A family (2 adults, 3 school going kids & a house helper) had the following luxuries:-





1. Sedan car for husband to work
2. 4-wheel drive for wife to work
3. MPV (minivan or multi-purpose vehicle) to ferry the whole family on Sat & Sun
4. Motorcycle for nearby or short distance conveniences

The above arrangement sounded nearly perfect and draw envy from contiguous even car enthusiasts.

The untold true was it could become burdensome to the car keeper. Refer the following to-do-list behind the wheel.

1. MUST warm up the MPV weekly
2. MUST warm up the motorcycle weekly
3. MUST clean it at least once a week
4. MUST maintain & service the vehicles quarterly
5. MUST have enough space for parking
6. MUST prevent from exposing to sunlight
7. MUST earn enough to pay for road tax, insurance, maintenance, fuel & other hidden cost

TINSTAAFL or there is no such thing as a free lunch.

A story for everybody – Apology Ceremony

Late 30s couple were surprised that their 5 years old son walked back home from kindergarten (6 houses away) after school, obviously, the school was to be blamed for the safety ignorance. With the hot steam sizzling out from the wife's head, she dragged her son walked marching angrily towards the school, and the school principal get these types " #% % ^&&@ $+ $# " of complaint, the last few sentences ended clearly with “ You people don’ t know who my husband was, he will not let anyone of you at large, you will be sorry for it !!”.

An apology was needed for the negligence act. The principal & her husband were requested to come forward for the apology "ceremony", auspicious day & time were chosen from the 'Tong Shu' book (Chinese Almanacs), the principal needs to provide mandarin oranges, red cloth, Kim hua' (praying ornament) and ‘ang pow’ (red packet) for the ceremony, the apology will have to make towards the 5 years old boy, not the parent.

This had become the hot talk in our Taman (housing area), lots of caring and concerned friends, neighbors, Mee seller aunties and kuih seller uncle chip in their opinions, lawyers were consulted to give professional view. 2 weeks later, the couple changed their mind and agreed to waive all the requirements except the apology & mandarin oranges.

The story ended with the couple stop their kids from schooling in the kindergarten. The principal had her school security beef up. And I had my little L study in the same school with better security and safer environment.

Milk Buddha at Mahindarama Buddhist Temple

PMR, SPM & STPM exams are round the corner, fingers and toes are enough to do the count down. All students, teachers, parents, aunties, uncles, grandpa, granny are equivalent worry & panic. Even the gods can not be spared but to do the helping as well.

I had visited the popular Milk Buddha in Penang, most of the students shall make the trip before their exam, bringing with them are bottles of milks for the offering, and the exam time table with their name, school, class, dates of exam plus their wish (e.g. 12As). Tuition centers will normally organise bus load full of students to the temple for the blessing.

The examination blessing has 60 years of history, a massive blessing will be carried just weeks before the examination. The blessing will enhance and boost up the students confident level, and calm down the butterfly in the stomach.

Mahindarama Temple had a library, kindergarten, cafeteria, clinic, old folk home, monk quarters & lecture hall. Environment is calm and peaceful.

Wind-Water

Both of us decided to get ‘nest’ of our own after years of ‘parasite’ on my in law home. We finally agreed on the semi-detach property, I was busy dreaming of how to decorate it to become the model house of the whole BM or at least the whole Taman.

My pillow partner came round to tell his concern on Feng Shui (The words 'feng shui' literally translate as "wind-water"in English), I was kind of getting cold ice showered in the winter, feeling furious as to why he still didn’t believed the astronauts in the moon ? There were no ‘Chang Er’(Chinese fairy), neither do there had the tree and rabbit in the moon.

Coincidently, Lillian Too the Feng Shui master was in town to promote her books, I decided to bring my hammer to tear down her Feng Shui signboard, I want to see and know how the Feng Shui cheat all the people especially my so called ‘Educated’ partner.

I went with my brother, at least two people do the tearing job easier. There were packed in the hotel seminar hall, Lillian Too introduced Feng Shui in a scientific way and manner, everything was so true, so real, so promising and yet there were evidence of Feng Shui.

Yours truly was totally convinced in the short 2 hours talk, both my brother and myself had forgotton our mission, and ended up buying more than 8 books each, waited like the little fans in the queue of 1KM long getting Lillian to autograph. I left the hall without bringing the hammer back.

Now, my brother was a staunch Feng Shui practitioner where I had decorated my home according to all Feng Shui aspects. And I also become 10 times more Feng Shui than my partner.

I deserve the Best DRESS Award

Dressing accordingly is important for work area, when I was in the college, we were taught on grooming and deportment, to make sure that we don’t wear bikini and pyjamas to work.

Since then I change my wardrobe to office wear, blouse, shirt, skirt, scarf, accessories and pantyhose -> (guys, I hope u know what is this).

Of lately, there was this engineer commented that I have wrong color matching, maybe at times, I just overlook. So, I just be a bit cautious and spend some time in front of wardrobe.

Not long later, I put on brown turtle neck long sleeve blouse where the fabric had some glittering gold line, and the same engineer smiled and told me that I look like the person working in the bar (or bar girl in the good old day). I am cursing him in my mind that he gets strike by the signboard on the 5 foot walkway. So, I spend a little more time in front of wardrobe again.

I love being look slim when the weighing machine doesn’t co-operate with me, I dress up black with black panty hose, here comes the fat engineer popping his head on my cubicle, smiling with naughy look and said ‘mommy, I will present you a broom.’ ‘You look just like the witch’. Before I could respond he zooms off with hehehehee…. Sounded very much like the wicked wizard riding on the broom. If I am the real witch, I will turn him into big big and fat fat mee-ku bun (Chinese pink bun), throw him in Somalia and save the people there with no famine for next 5 years.

Years later, I started used to the comment given, ‘looks like principal, butler, spinster, cow boy, stage performer etc. etc’.

Being able to dress for many characters, I truly believed that I deserve the Best Dress Award. And if I have the magic wand, I will make sure famine free in Africa, India and other part of the world that need me.

916 Gold or ??

When women mentioned 916, it means gold, but when men mentioned 916, it means political restructuring.

Today is 916, where it was a great day everybody looks forward, I went out to do marketing, everything seems peaceful and calm, except the uncle and aunties pointing at the newspaper talking about 916.

I was advised to stock some dry stuff, hmmm… just in case something turns up to be not so pleasant.

Over the dinner during Mooncake Festival, 916 was our dessert, the kia su me speaks like the expert telling how I help boost the economy by buying excessive food to weather the unforeseen circumstances. My brother said loudly with surprise, ‘huh ?? You are still talking about storing food yah ? We are talking about keeping cash and passport to get out of the mess.”
I was stunned and got caught over their advancement in Crisis Management, yah wor… just like the Vietnam war then, everybody got excess to overseas with their accumulated wealth, those poor one will have to stay put and suffer.

I sink down and rooted in the chair silently thinking how to cash out my account, sell share, sell unit trust, sell house, sell land, buy gold, renew passport, book air ticket, etc & etc. Haiyoh… too much of thinking caused my brain to shock the brain waive circuit, putting extra weight for me to shoulder over 916 visions.

Sigh… we are just the commoner where we just merely hope of peace and stability.

Hot or Very Hot

Our office temperature was set high to conserve electricity, some kind of costs saving project initiated by some kind of nation from desert. Our complaint will be either hot or very hot.

The females will be seen as dressing less, lighter & thinner, from long sleeve to short sleeve, from thick to thin, from broad strap to spaghetti strap, from maxi to mini skirt. The male had no way to change, but to let go a few more shirt buttons to expose the non sexy hairy chest.

For female, no point putting on make up as it will get melt, the mascara will flow down like river, the face compact powder will get soak and crack like the desert floor.

This month – September, we experienced frequent rains, this is the first time in the year where we actually get the feeling of “cold” in the office, super nice temperature of 22.8C, and just like spring in Australia, (minus the flowers)

We were seen in long sleeve and some of us were putting on warmer.

We happened to bump into the ‘desert nation’, where he questioned us with cared and concerned, ‘you people feeling cold yah?” Without hesitation I answer “No, just that I got fever.” Another colleague of mine answered that she had Hypothyroidism. So, it is common to feel cold despite the hot temperature.

No matter how, we will never admit that we feel cold for fear that the temperature will be adjusted higher and hit further cost saving target.