Memories Are Made of These

Rohan with Kev

(Image credit - K Singh)

Rose chicken curry with side serves

Gaduh leaves for Straits Chinese dry salad (ulam) and juice from kumquats for garnishing and drinks

 Snapped at work - discussion at a forum.
(Image Credit - Mark Newsham)

Luv or dislike them - the king of fruits - durian.

Another Day

Aiya, don't forget dinner, I mention to Bee as she untangles tax related intricacies for her employer , still in the office.   On my side, I am trying to figure out how to download images captured on my Iphone to a computer, another kind of headache, as I seem to cannot locate the cable in the IPhone delivery box from mobile phone to a computer!

John, one of  my colleagues, kindly came to help me set up the monitor on my new tv cabinet - it needed a longer aerial cable. This was done under the suppression of the high of the Australian summer heat, amidst the joys of living in a small town....yeeya! Now the monitor sits nicely a bit higher on the pine wood cabinet, and I am half-watching a China movie on SBS 2. There are now 13 digital free to air channels in Oz.

Luckily Wollongong is near the ocean and around sunset (830pm currently here), more than a breeze blows in. I am half tossing about putting an air conditioner, but its only used for such few hot days in summer in the Gong. The daun gaduh in the garden has been observed wilting if I do not hose them with water every 3 days these past few weeks. I think of some individuals I know who make a fuss about leaving carbon footprints and go gung-ho about environmental sustainability - and then without remorse go home in this heat to air-conditioned comfort. Here I am resisting hooking up air-conditioners, whilst at work I wilt like the gaduh leaves as the old air-conditioning tubes  in my office building do not have sufficient capacity for the new work station lay outs below them with increased numbers of staff.

I had a chance to visit my local fav butcher, Paul's Meats, in Fairy Meadow this evening on the drive home from work. Hey ya, this is as if I live in a small town in the sixties in peninsular Malaysia. It's liberating to be able to get fresh quality meats fifteen minutes before I cook dinner and tonite it is kong tau yew bak, juicy, lean pork neck cuts dowsed in soy sauce, livened with a dose of oyster brew, marinade with garlic and garnished with a small roll of cinnamon. Goodbye Woolworths and Coles, eat your heart out. This is what I mean by, and enjoy, living in a village.

Gong Xi Fa Cai - The Lunar Year of the Tiger

Golden kumquats in Balgownie garden

Roses are red in Balgownie

Verdant green of the daun gaduh, an essential ingredient of Straits Chinese salads and the colour for calmness and harmony.

Goldfish are a sign of energy and plenty - denizens of Balgownie tank

A pot of jade plant

The ever useful bamboo

Flowing water and growth - good chi

Christmas Giving

A few work colleagues thought it was just the festive Santa in me which drove the provision of  gifts in the run-up to the most recent Christmas. What underlies the real spirit of giving?

Gifts, when shared or made, are best from the heart and obviously need not be material.  They can at least be gestures and tokens of the feelings they try to express,  at most are true sacrifices of time, sweat, concern and effort and, at best, be unseen and anonymous. Some of the fellow beings I am surrounded with have me amused, suggesting a myriad and complex framework of obligations that gifts must only be amongst family and those who decide or support their pay packet, or only when the giver gets something tangible in return, with the bathwater thrown out with the proverbial baby for others.  This makes culling easier for most, but to me is very short-sighted.

I feel strongly in making an expression to show appreciation for those who have been kind and helpful to me in the past year, especially to those I do not have to or those who do not expect anything, and to send a strong and clear mesage to those who fall in the opposite dimension. It is not a gift, in my view, when one can authorise and/or organise a paid another to do the work and arrangements in one's name.  A gift is  making time and effort for another in a personal way.

To acknowledge thanks and recognition to a well deserved person only once annually, and near the commercialisation of Christmas time, can be just in bad and insincere taste. How have I been treating the person the whole of the year, and have I surprised such recipients of a gesture in a smile, a word of grateful expression or some unexpected act of reaching out,  especially when it is least expected, at a point of time before the annual holiday season? Has this person reciprocated likewise? Gift giving at best can be a mutual exercise, a real process of give and take and enhancing the magical circle of enjoying each other's company in simple understanding.

Gift giving is not linked to a chain of outward expectations. The nature of gifts can be especially delightful when it reflects an innate understanding of the both the recipient and the giver.  True gifts can outlast temporal vibes and be appreciated even if given only once.  They are not subject to trappings, diverting appearances and need not be wrapped in glittery paper. Gifts are essentially tokens of  conduiting and reflecting larger feelings.  A gift that nurtures positive things in recipients beyond the seasonal hype lives up to the original meaning of the action.  True gifts accentuate what is already encouraging in the recipients and make their star shine even more.  They never pose a further problem but help to resolve partly what the recipient may be looking for.  Reflect on this, you may have actually received a more valuable and unique gift, even when it was not obvious, not initially tangible and when it was not even Christmas.

The Migrant

It is said that each of us lives on a so-called island, that the grass looks greener on the other side and a man's home is his castle.

The quest for improvement - personal, family and community - never ceases to flow strongly in the human bloodstream.  With better technology and movement across borders, human migration patterns have become more intense, frequent and much easier.  Human community conflict - whether they be outright wars, incessant discrimination or religious beliefs clashing against each other - are the source of dissatisfaction, physical and/or mental suffering and the stirring of anguish. No one wants to leave his or place of origin, where childhood memories develop and where the senses of a rooted anchor begin. There may come a time when the three questions are confronted, even if one does not want to uprooot one's self - should we fight the injustice, or should we tolerate it, or should we flee?

Recently, Tamils from Sri Lanka were seen  in detention in Lenggeng outside the Malaysian capital city of Kuala Lumpur. Ghanaians were taking bus to Libya overnight. the more things seem to change, the more they actually they can remain.  In my youth, I read the experience of refugees from a  Vietnam divided into two, where brothers and  sisters fought each other in the name of different political and socio-philosopical regimes.  How different these are from the experiences of a Londoner coming to Sydney to work and talk of aspirations in an affluent, protected channel of existence?  How different are these from the experiences of a China national settling into a Western nation, where capitalism, morality levels and sensations of individual freedom are of another dimension?

When one arrives in a new land, are expectations met and fulfilled? Reality usually has another shade from the hype, imagination and hear say. Challenges are the flipside of opportunity. Comparisons run automatically in the subconscious of the new arrival. Reaching out and pondering within happen concurrently. What have I given up to come here, and what have I gained for overcoming settling in hurdles? There is no white and black, only a stream of maybes, compromises and occasional delights. What is certainly liked int he new environment helps to relive the pain of giving up the familiar and in adjusting to adopting the new.  One has to build new attitudes, habits and parameters.  One has to also let go of what was once dear or still is close to the heart at times.  It helps with networking and diving into positive diversions but the grass is just different, not necessarily greener.

And then one builds the castle again. Dreams and hopes are articulated and realised. Love and friendship ease the path. Sometimes, new mates are never the same as those from younger days and who still keep in touch, and sometimes they are better.  We may hop from isle to isle, but at times we have formed a chain of pearls along the way.  A sense of adventure helps, even if there has been sacrifice and loss  along the way.  The future is never certain and always changing - the children of first generation immigrants may migrate themselves.  The new island of hope many years ago may have changed as well. Improvement may not only be seen through materialistic ways, but also in the enrichment of heritage, the inner soul and in personal happiness.