Chinatown Delights, Sydney

A walking tour of any niche cultural district, in any city around the world, is always worth the effort. Forget about structure; sink into the atmosphere brought from places far away and so different from the mainstream; and get absorbed into a pace removed from our otherwise everyday lives.

So-called Chinatowns outside China offer perspectives that may surprise the eye and delight the heart – and we are not just talking of yum cha. Sydney is no exception, although the conglomeration of Chinatown businesses, malls and streets can blend seamlessly into the other major precincts of the central business district. The term Chinatown can be a misnomer, as it can contain things that are not Chinese in origin, but which are brought by already immigrant Chinese from other countries and cultures. The variety of spicy Thai soups, Vietnamese spring rolls, Indonesian salads and Malaysian curries in Sydney’s Chinatown is a good example. More illustrative is the South Indian murtabak available from a Chinese-owned outlet along Goulburn Street – the dish is a lamb or chicken laden rich pancake, originated by Indian Muslims (Mamak) and widely popular in Malaysia and Singapore.

One expects an Oriental theme in the architecture and signage of retail outlets, and this is amply provided when strolling through the Dixon Street Mall. What caught my eye is the prevalence of al fresco styled dining (or lunching) as if one were in Europe.

Off side, towards Harbour Street, I came across a vista of contrasts, with colonial facades on one side and the inevitable red lanterns on the other. Uighur, Korean and Japanese outlets have sprouted on this side of Chinatown as well. In the adjoining Darling Harbour, the Cantonese Gardens (reputedly the largest outside China itself) have matured and host so-called Western fashioned wedding ceremonies and visitors looking for a place of calm in the city. Paddys Market, operating for four business days a week, has a collection of stalls run by as many ethnic groups as the varied population of Sydney itself. The Capitol Theatre is offering a hit stage show from the UK, Billy Elliot, but finds itself surrounded by Hong Kong styled barbecue meat shops, computer retail stalls and over packed grocery shops.

Backpackers still find value in the relatively low cost of Chinatown meals at food courts. So do students from the University of Technology which has its main campus between Glebe and Chinatown. I was introduced by a good friend to a modest Thai café at the junction of Wentworth and Elizabeth Streets (maybe a stretch to still consider it as part of Chinatown). The food ordering and delivery is quick paced with no fuss, and the dishes served have a kick to the palate of those familiar with South-east Asian food. Meanwhile, the big Hong Kong styled restaurants still offer the more expensive menus at dinnertime. The Reading Cinema at Market City offers Mandarin and Cantonese language movies as if you were residing in Singapore, Shanghai or Macau. Freshly baked buns and drinks mixed with milk and fruits seem to dominate the snacks on offer.

When night falls over the gates of Dixon Street Mall, one may hear the clatter of mahjong tiles on gaming tables, the humdrum of muffled karaoke sounds from indoor and closed rooms and perhaps other multifarious deals beyond our imagination. Are the people lurking around tourists, immigrants, visitors from Sydney outer suburbs or long time residents? Who knows, who cares? I just enjoy feeling the pulse of making a living, making a business and making a life in this corner of Sydney.

The Summer Gone By

As I write, it's two more weeks before the festive season here hits its crescendo, to be followed by endless hours of the annual chilling out sessions on beaches and barbecue pits all over the country. Annual report drafts are being written not only for the business, family and self, but also for profession, region, country and world. We spend so many hours devoting ourselves to business and work goals - have we achieved that? Are there things that are not durable - including relationships, consumables and those with a limited shelf life - that we have not already chucked out? Have we completed the more important items on our wish list? There is also the ritual of ensuring that annual tasks - be they renewals or reviews - have been worked through. As with the approach of major holidays in every country around the globe, the timeliness of services get delayed ("come back after January") or delivery of products not fulfilled. Whatever the hiccups in travel, commercial delivery or kpi attainment, the most satisfying fall-back option is to reflect on how the family has grown, how love has accumulated and how much nearer that we can be to reaching our dreams. And to be surrounded by friends and loved ones.

Sunday 9 December 2007 in Sydney and Wollongong was muggy, hot and overcast. That it was, until mid-afternoon, when the skies played havoc with the residents of the suburbs north-west of the cbd. Hailstones rained down in spectacular fashion across Castlehill, Baulkham Hills, Cherrybrook, Hornsby and Wahroonga, breaking car windscreens and making dents of every kind where they hit. In country NSW, around Lithgow, the New Years Eve fireworks came earlier than thought at Howard & Sons, where a supposedly unmanned set-off of the products destined for around Australia in January had produced a Saturday night show visible from 30km away, and which had the undesired effect of blowing out windows of nearby residential homes. Road rage copied in violent fashion on one of the Sydney main freeways, the M4, with an altercation involving around six men and the accompanying two women - one young man is in serious condition as we write. Unexpected developments came in the collapse of a wooden balcony in inner-city Surry Hills, resulting in five blokes injured, one badly. An Alsatian police dog named Carts was knifed by an 18 year old in an altercation in Corrimal, a suburb north of the Wollongong CBD - he was named after an honoured NSW police officer who was also killed in a crime incident. Finally, if you have some spare change, organisers are asking for AUD 830 for a night on Fort Denison under the stars and fireworks on New Year's Eve in Sydney Harbour - the price includes a four course meal, valet parking, champagne and open air ambiance.

The VItal Link

Singapore Airlines is my personal favourite and one of those unique corporates which has worked magic in delivering both world class customer service and financial outcomes to its shareholders.

Last night, I had the opportunity to once again experience its service as a passenger, on both a short haul and longer haul flight sector. In all these past years, its ground crew at departure lounges had always impressed me as being top notch in ensuring an orderly entry of passengers to its aircraft, whether for full capacity of travelling passengers, to ensure compliance with requirements of foreign airports or under extreme customer handling pressure during festive and holiday periods. So it was interesting to observe the handling of two full flights on entry to the 915pm Penang to Singapore flight on 23 February and the 1230am Singapore to Sydney flight on 24 February.

Before the longer flight, the microphone facilities at Boarding Gate B5 in Changi Airport's impressive and recently opened Terminal 3 had broken down. The sole staff member attending to a full capacity passenger group (although this was not the Airbus A380 waiting for us) was obviously stressed out at having to shout out the necessary order - first class/business class/club members having priority, followed by specified seating rows. He was mumbling his dismay whilst walking around the waiting passengers - it was clear he needed a back-up microphone or at least another staff member to help him out manage the situation. At Penang International Airport, microphone facilities were working but four winding queue rows had formed, out of which the non-business or non-club member passengers again suffered some disorientation as to which passenger row was allowed to line up first.

Call it the weekend rush to Australia, but the overnight flight was so packed with customers that SIA cabin crew had to double up efforts to cater patiently to each passenger, whether for the expected drinks, meals served on board or for specific other off the cuff requests. Some past menu items are gone, like the Streets ice cream replaced by Ferroro Rocher chocolate balls, which may not be a bad thing. What has not disappeared, thankfully, is the dedication and care shown by on-board SIA cabin crew in dealing with individual passengers. This applies in the liberal dispensation of drinks, the ensuring of continuously clean washrooms, the offering of choices of served meals and the conduct of the duty free sales - in whatever class you choose to sit. More important is how each on-board staff member spoke to passengers. The quality of effective training and attitude of every cabin crew member showed through, whether with a strong tail wind pushing towards Sydney or through turbulent flight paths. These are all signs of the company's focus on the customer, instead of just on shareholder price, top management rewards and national pride. I do hope that SIA ensures that the vital link - operational staff motivation - is also thoroughly supported.

At Terminal 3 in Changi, one must visit the Ferrarri and FIFA clothing and accessory outlets - to me, they stand out in presentation and unusual choice of retail fare amongst a very competitive and varied selection of shopping offered at the literal mall in an airport. Hong Kong's Chep Lap Kok International is a strong rival offered by Cathay Pacific, but I think Singapore Airlines can be serious about kaizen, the art of continuous improvement.

The Amazing Race

Call it a challenge, term it as self-imposed or think of the whole experience as letting go in holiday mood, but to me it was more an amazing race back in my home island of Penang. There were new things to discover, long forgotten dimensions encountered again and an unrelenting pace. Mix it with high humidity in the afternoons, late nights out and meeting various people. At times, things never change and on other occasions, I realize things have. There were pit stops met, quiet moments of reflection, spectacular views seen and quick decisions required.

It commenced with the prevalence of fried rice served on the plane. Changing seats at will with my elderly second cousin, we realized too late that each of us were served each other’s requested preferred meals. After arrival at the international airport, I could not resist immediately partaking in its unofficial hawker dish – stir-fried rice noodles ala Penang (1) – even before reaching home. Three middle-aged cousins were visiting when I dragged my luggage in. As I write at the close of this holiday, I see on the desk things to pack for my other home in Wollongong – baked bean paste biscuits (2), books on the culture I grew up in, freeze dried white coffee beans and more.

The sheltered Penang Straits look uncannily molten still when compared with the big waves of the Tasman Sea. Beaches are narrower with coarser grain. The city comes more alive in the evenings, especially with the approach of the first full moon since the advent of the new Lunar Year of the Rat. Fireworks and fire crackers were inadvertently lit on two auspicious nights – that of offering homage to the Emperor of Heaven (ala Beijing Forbidden City style) and that of Lantern Night, when in more socially restrictive times, one spotted the love of your life for the very first time. A much sought after fruit at this time of the year are cousins of the grapefruit – the pomelos – and they are sweeter than what I had remembered.

Irrespective of whether it was a school or working night, crowds still gathered in malls, cafes and shops to have supper, wi-fi browsing or face-to-face relationships. Georgetown remains an eclectic mixture of old and new, of Victorian architecture and faceless modernism, of East and West. With May, I attended a public lecture on the current race towards the American Presidential elections by Professor Bird Loomis from the University of Kansas. Post lecture, we could still have a Thai fish-based delight (3) served with focaccia in a trendy club that was still open around midnight on a Tuesday. On another day, I had the opportunity to visit the world-renowned Snake Temple and then seamlessly drop by a shopping center the size of a cruise liner at Queens Bay Mall, with familiar retail outlets like Borders, Harvey Norman and Dome. In the heart of the old city, I could walk protected from the equatorial sun in sheltered five-foot ways lined with food and products from my childhood, and bump into visitors from Australia. More old residential mansions were maintained and prolonged in heritage by commercial use. A favorite aunt took upon herself to cook, on the same dinner night, two key dishes from the South Indian and Malay cultures – tomato-flavored rice served with spicy curry and nasi lemak respectively. And yes, we are Chinese in descent and cultural heritage.

An earthquake had struck a small island off nearby northwestern Sumatra on a Wednesday afternoon, while I relished in a vegetable-prawn wrap dish called the poh piah on the edge of a field still named after a colonial British Governor. The newspapers reported of consequent tremors in high-rise buildings on Penang Island and which had caused the evacuation of office workers to the nearby streets. I did not feel any tremors, only how good authentic street food can be in Penang. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii had actually issued possible tsunami wave warnings for two hours after the quake struck at 7.6 on the Richter scale.

For me, I only felt the tsunami of tasty food at reasonable prices in various surroundings, from restaurants to the stand-up partaking of a coconut-based dessert (4) in a narrow but busy lane. Crabs were served in unusual sauces; vermicelli were stir fried with the full force of wok heat; the compulsory chili-based concoction of Malaysia and Thailand (5) was more tangy and hot than I ever remember; a succulent garoupa fish lightly cooked with ginger and soy sauce was memorable; Straits Chinese herbal rice (6) topped up with dried shrimps gave a rare kick to the taste buds; soul food egg-based jam (7) from the Continental Bakery melted in the mouth on any bread; home made moon cakes had a subtle light feel in contrast to commercial ones; fish head curry was lovingly made two times with a heady mix of spices from India and Straits Chinese cooking; and fresh ingredients in southern Thai food made a remarkable impression. With so much choice of food, one had to be quick in selecting samples and not over indulge. At times, there was no choice – I must have had at least three occasions to eat the festive salmon salad (8) only available at this time of the year.

There were unplanned encounters. When I closed a bank account, the authorizing officer turned out to be a dear colleague from days when I was fresh-eyed out of university. On lazy afternoons, I dwelt in dreamland snoozing without a care in the world. I walked into the Hardwick to see if it was still open at 10pm one evening and was reunited with a dear friend whom I thought had relocated to Kuala Lumpur. A lovely bungalow perched on an outcrop so perilously close to the sea. The rush of activity at the Celebrity Fitness Gym, in one of the island’s premier shopping centers, offered a glimpse of the rising importance of exercise routines, an important supplement to the constant eating that may describe the social pulse of Penang. An efficient method of order taking and customer invoicing was noted being practiced at a Shanghai Ding dumpling outlet at the revived New World Park. When a Sydney friend’s mother treated a group of us to lunch, I was introduced to a Straits Chinese dish I had not known before (9).

In any so-called race, there are moments of restoration. They may be having good chats with a close cousin in an apartment, or enjoying a new dessert (10) concoction made by a sister-in-law. My eldest niece is on a hiatus from Auckland and was spending quality time with family and dabbling in making hand-crafted bracelets. I recall a lunch gathering beside a quiet green-blue bay and watching small sampans still going out to catch fish – it was only ten minutes by car from the central business district of Georgetown, but it captured an essence of a simpler time. To celebrate the end of the customary fifteen-day period to celebrate the Lunar New Year, I had opportunity this time to enjoy the pungat, another coconut cream dessert cooked with bites of bananas, sweet potatoes and so forth.

National elections were announced in Malaysia when I was there, and with a short political campaigning period of under two weeks, some things indeed do not change. With limited time, I did not manage to catch up with everyone I was aiming for. So it had been a race in time to do everything diverse and to savor as many experiences possible – hey, that does sum up my holiday.

References in Penang lingo:

(1) Char Koay Teow
(2) Tau Sar Pneah
(3) Otak Otak
(4) Cendol
(5) Belacan Sambal
(6) Nasi Ulam
(7) Kaya
(8) Yee Sang
(9) Binchee
(10)Tako

Welcoming In The New

It has been only the second time since 1989 that I have spent the start of the Lunar New Year in Australia, and also the second time in my life that I had to work on that special day. Never had I seen and heard so much rainfall in this festive season. This festival has always been associated by me with the heat of summery temperatures, but the start of a new zodiac cycle currently has also coincided with the possible breaking of the drought in eastern Australia.

Whilst most television screens in both East and South-east Asia go agog with a Chinese theme this past week, it has been interesting to note the screening of the finale of Survivor China on Australian TV to coincide with the weekend. The festive day is also marked by a significant parade down Sydney's main CBD thoroughfares from Hyde Park to Chinatown. Last night I was attending a dinner and function near the Queen Vic Building - amongst the 176 guests, it was good to see some familiar faces dining and dancing. Food choice is important during this season - it seems to emphasise that we are what we eat, and we were served fish, chicken, prawns - those dishes with auspicious names. Being Australia, there were the unavoidable dim sims and fried rice.

Personally, it has also been a time to close off matters of the past year and go on with the new. That is partly why I love the New Year - it provides a symbolic demarcation. An uncle in Vancouver had just sent an email anecdote about idealy having the gratitude in experiencing past unpleasantries, and then the trick is being able to jump on to the next dimension. So I am using the festivities as a kind of tool to jump over into the next phase, and take the next train, so to speak.

To welcome in the new is to think, do and enjoy new things. I have a new team at work. As the symbolic Rat scurried in with the new calendar, I am fortunate to have four colleagues join me as speakers in presenting some perspectives of my business function at a mini forum. It must have gone well, I guess, judging from the feedback received and the countenance of the listening guests. I love the audio-visual facilities of small lecture theatres and held this event at a Graduate Business School. An audience has to be kept motivated and captivated, even with token fortune cookies served in a traditional Straits Chinese basket. Each of us in the five-person speaker group has unique delivery styles, but we still managed to weave some continuity and informality into the whole package to make our listening audience relax (or so I think!) I then thoroughly enjoyed the subsequent four multi-media shows, coordinated by Lauren, which served to inject a bit of fun and reflection to close the forum - but primarily as a way to acknowledge the contribution of some individuals to my business unit and as a way of saying how much I have learned from each of them.