Un Weekend à Paris

Paris, like its (so that, not to be confused with Ms Hilton) name suggests, is a place where most people love to be. But I never was that person. Paris reminded me of the solemn mood I felt before my Dad's passing. And one of my best friends told me that, it always happens after a Paris trip…

Well, I was in Paris again, a few days ago. I didn’t do much except having a great lunch at Leon Du Bruxeille on my second day there. I had mussels cooked in a lightly-buttered, garlic and parsley sauce and I washed it all down with Alsace Riesling. What a pleasure chewing the mussels that tasted so fresh unlike the ones in this part of the world that are so rubbery in texture!

I took a walk, like I always do and found this little treasure. It’s an Audrey Hepburn themed décor for a living area! I walked into this home décor shop and enjoyed my encounters with so many things in the theme of New York and of course, Breakfast at Tiffany’s! I wish I could spend a little more time there but obviously, I look too poor to own anything there.

I finished my day with Internet surfing and watched endless amount of France 24, BBC and CNN. I could not wait any longer to get out of Paris.

A Country Voted

Very recently, Malaysians cast their votes on the General Election which was held on Women’s Day, a very special day celebrated on 8th March annually since the turn of the 20th century. Clearly, we were all too eager in focusing on the outcome of the election.

For those who voted, I sincerely extend my admiration for exercising your utmost right in the system of democracy. For those who have not been a registered voter, like myself, please ensure we get ourselves registered before the next coming General Election.

The media defined the outcome of the election as shocking and to describe the severity of it, and even labelled it as a “political tsunami” because of the perceived “defeat” by the proponent coalition. I think it is a bit exaggerated to say it as shocked or surprised.

As a 50-year-old nation, this election has only one thing to reveal, her people are very much conscious, involved and the electoral process was transparent enough as promised by the PM. This outcome whether a pleasing one or not, should be taken as an act of increasing maturity of the people and hopefully the politics and politicians as well.

Nanjing of Jiangsu Province

I was in Nanjing yesterday but I didn’t manage to do much which resulted in my solemn mood today. I was really anticipating for this trip to come and I even updated my Tripadvisor World Map on Facebook beforehand, a big deal for me. I would love to see the Memorium of the reported 300,000 Nanjing Massacre victims mainly and of course, the City Wall and Yangtze River would be lovely bonuses.

I arrived in Nanjing, where it had the best weather ever! It was perfect at 8 degrees Celsius and you can practically walk out in the street with just a fleece jacket. I travel light this time around and since, nothing is on my shopping list (well, it’s quite common for me), sight-seeing is primarily my agenda.

My first day there was practically orientating myself to the city, which seems less bustling, less polluted but still as crowded as the rest of the Chinese cities. I love the occasional surprises of finding some Japanese-inspired food outlets, Japanese-originated entertainment; the karaoke and electronic gadgets which I think are inevitable in the world today. We already have a very short-term memory, anyway.

My colleagues and I, as usual, would prefer a really good dinner to celebrate such a rare catch to be able to be here, in Nanjing. Our 8-10 course dinner only costs us RMB 40 each and it came with their local beer and wine known as “Daughter’s Red” literally. I took a shot and really loved it! The dinner consisted of Peking Duck, some fatty pork dish, hot-plated beef, local vegetable fried with garlic, celery and steamed salted-egg taufu dish, just to name a few. The highlight was the dumplings which we all finished the 1kg worth of vegetarian dumplings. What we found quite interesting was that, they served dishes first and the rice almost towards the end. Our speculation was that, only the peasants eat mainly rice with dishes and the rich ones, the contrary.

The very-anticipated next day finally came. To my disappointment, it rained since the day begun. Initially I thought that the weather would not deter my plans but it was indeed very cold in Nanjing when it rains. Because of the bleak day, my colleagues and I had to settle with just a visit to the Confucius Temple area instead. The funny thing was, despite being in the area, we couldn’t locate the famous temple, and instead we landed in the building where the once Imperial Examination was held.

We walked everywhere under the rain and our umbrellas proved to be redundant sometimes as the area was quite crowded with people. We just don’t want to risk hitting people with our umbrellas due to our height. At last, we spent the rest of the evening at Haagen-Dazs ice-cream parlour for some hot chocolate and a good chat. Our hot chocolate costs as much as our dinner the night before.

My disappointment in failing to visit the Memorial proved to be a blessing in disguise, trying to comfort myself. I would have gone into depression if I came to visit such a place that was daunted by so many gruesome murders. A colleague asked me, why visit such a place that bears hatred and is practically a graveyard of a mass killing? I couldn’t answer that. Perhaps, deep inside me, I have a sense of curiosity of wanting to know what exactly had happened. Perhaps, most people do. Don’t we all have the motivation to know something that had left a significant mark in human history?

2nd Weekend in NY

Another weekend in NYC was spent rather recently. Once again, my wish was granted. This time around, I wasn’t lucky enough to patronise another weekend market but I managed to witness something quite rare.

I was there when it was the Academy Awards weekend. Although it was happening in Hollywood, the strong presence of such an event was felt in the eastern side too. Well, felt in the rest of the world too actually, I almost forgot.

When I took a stroll in Time Square, I was privileged enough to witness an exhibition of Oscar, the very well-known statuette that signifies the best performance to the beholder in the pre, post and most importantly during the production of what we call, movies. I remember, walking in to this loosely guarded venue (one of the shop lots, next to Swatch) and found out that it was the last day of the exhibition.

There were about 5 items on display. Firstly, a giant Oscar, about 8 feet in height. Then there was this process of coating the statue with copper, gold etc. There was also a display of tens of Oscar statuettes that were so sparkly in gold. I think the best was the red carpet that leads to the podium where one could have an opportunity to hold a real Oscar with their picture taken. Plus, with the backdrop of what we use to see on E! Entertainment when they show the celebrities posing for premieres and many other “important” events (pun intended).

Everyone seems to be very eager to do that, a chance of a life-time to feel like a real Oscar-winning celebrity. One quite elderly Chinese lady made an impression. She has a comical face and when she grabbed the Oscar and place it near her face, wanting to kiss it, she accidentally blurted “ gee, didn’t know this thing is so damn heavy” in Cantonese. I burst out laughing in my heart! She smiled broadly, her eyes almost disappeared and her friend snapped a photo of her, both quite ignorant about the surrounding people laughing at how funny she had been on that podium. Ignorance is truly bliss sometimes.

I also took a stroll in Central Park where it was in white. The snow was not melting at all at 4 degrees Celsius. I also walked to Apple on 5th Avenue and played with the various species of iPod to make some sense of out technology.

Lastly, I took one of the photos above as I am ever-eager to get Carried away…yes, that’s the tagline of my favourite Sex and The City, soon to be on the big screen!

Something Lighter

If my previous posting proved to be a little provocative, please, I beg your pardon. I wrote that when I was awake at 2.30am and couldn’t wait till the morning to record the feelings I felt and the thoughts running through my head after a heavy read on Revolutionary Wealth by Alvin and Heidi Toffler.

Something lighter here, I promise… It happened around a fortnight ago. I was surprised by a promising-looking birthday cake from my lovely buddy. It says, “Happy Birthday Babe!” a lingo commonly used among us. I closed my eyes, blew the candles and forgot what I supposed to wish for. I think I didn’t manage to make a wish as my mind was just not in the wishing mode. Maybe I am contented already and glad to let fate to take over sometimes.

I also remember having to spend an extra six hours on my birthday due to the time difference in Johannesburg. I arrived there in the morning and rested till it was time for an early dinner. I craved for seafood and headed to Ocean Basket for a Seafood Platter for one. Yes, it was for one as I wasn’t in the mood for any company at that time. I had the usual, semi-sweet wine, a Sauvignon Blanc if I could remember correctly. I savoured my food and read Off The Edge. What a perfect evening for me!

Nowadays, celebrating birthday is not as gung-ho as before when we were younger. The key numeric codes of 1, 10, 16 and 21 that represent major ages of human lives seem to just remain as the only legitimate reason to celebrate. Other ages are simply to celebrate without any significant reason except the occasional wanting to have a party. After all, we human won’t deny ourselves some celebrations anyway and birthday tends to be the best excuse.

Once we passed 25 years of age, it makes celebrating birthdays like a reminder of how OLD we have actually become. I certainly don’t want to think about it and would be happy to continue to lay low on these days… oh yeah, I would like to thank my loved ones for their ever-thougtful cards and pressies for me!

p.s : I especially love all your messages and wishes in writing, text messages and cards.

Scary World, Scary Values

I always have this thought in my head, how will the many generations to come, know about this period of time that I’m living in? Wouldn’t it be so cool if they, in the very future in time, able to have some piece of information that can be part of their missing puzzle in figuring out what have made 21st century, a 21st century through the eyes of me? I know this sounds very narcissist and who cares about me when there’s so many millions out there who are probably doing the same thing, heck more dependable than my pretentious sociological account.

Well, maybe what I’m trying to prove here is that, in this time of my life, media has empowered us, ordinary human beings so much that made us seems relevant, given us identity and treat us as individuals without the de-personalisation of the mass industrial era. Welcome to the Third Wave as the Tofflers said.

Well, in my very own worldview now, it seems to me that, in this period of time, it is harder to be good than bad. Good and bad in their very own plain definitions and not, divulging into philosophical debate of the degree of goodness and badness. I believe that, we’re living in the century where the good old values of hardwork, loyalty, righteousness, honesty and kindness are being replaced by current imperatives of money, ego, pride, luxury, heighten pleasures, smartness, aggressiveness, stress, instant gratification etc. All these post-modern “values” I believe are derived from the very fact that the circumstances of practicing the good old values are constantly disappearing and what makes more sense today is how much we have accomplished in material sense or in egoistical sense than in giving back to humanity.

Modern technology has progressed so much that we no longer need to plough in manual labour but gradually replaced by the brain power. Rational and analytical thinking has dominated so much of human mind that make it even harder to give kindness as we often think of the various consequences first before helping. Whereas, what constitute helping should be, giving without expecting at the first place. It is harder to appreciate the basic humanity that exists in the origin of us, human being and using our emotions sometimes. We are getting more intelligent each day in every way but not very much in the way that benefits humanity sometimes.

What has gone wrong? Is it because of technology has made it so easy for us that instead of spending time sweating out over something that, it can now be done with just a push of a button or a click? Is it because that we rely so much on technology that we no longer need to put in effort and as the old saying goes, we won’t treasure what we can easily acquire? Maybe it's also because of money or our ability to acquire wealth today.

I live in the world today that I witness the planet is getting so wear-out that we are still not doing enough to minimise or even to reverse the effect. Well, I have little faith that this generation of mine can ever accomplish such miracle feat. I often wonder, if we can put our brain power to certain technological breakthroughs, why can’t we be committed in protecting more of our debilitating environment? Maybe some good works are working-in-progress and I sincerely hope the wait will soon be over.

I am also living in the era where I can no longer make sense out of the younger generation, whatever they’re known as. I don’t seem to “get it” and I believe the sentiment is vice versa. The iPod and PSP-carrying individuals seems to be so attached to their virtual world and second life that what is real to them is so different from mine. I can never be as techno-savvy, as I treasure too many things in concrete format.

Infidelity is also another plaque. I know it is as common as forever, I mean, what is wrong with the world when it glorifies it? It has made being monogamous as being almost a freak. It could be that infidelity has existed since the beginning of human race but because human beings ( I mean, women here) are getting smarter, they too maybe are beginning to accept the various theories of men infidelity and heck, they are catching up now too.

It is so scary to think of the world like me.