Ramadhan Market And Aidilfitri Open House

To me who fast as a Christian, there is no special dish on my dining table when I break fast. We are only urged to give the money that we have saved by skipping meals to the Kingdom of God. So there is no extra money spent on anything.

The Muslims' fasting month began about one week before the end of the NECF 40-day fast & pray this year. I went to Ramadhan markets three times at Kampung Paya Rumput, Cheng and Alor Gajah respectively. I was always impressed by how much food and beverage were communicating through their quantities,

varieties,

and colours.

Today is the first day of Hari Raya. After the church service, I was going to start driving back to Johor when Sarma said to me, "We're going to the Aidilfitri open house organized by the state government. Let's go together!"

Apart from the ones at my working place, I had never been to any official open house either in Batu Pahat or in Melaka. As Sarma told me it was being held nearby at Ayer Keroh, I decided to postpone my return to my hometown to more than one hour later in order to participate in this event. When we were driving into the Melaka International Trade Centre (MITC) parking, I realized it was very close to the Planetarium that I had visited with Vince exactly a week earlier.

According to Kee Ming, the open house was from 10am to 3pm. When we arrived there,

it was around 1pm. Some were entering the hall while others were leaving. By looking at the pots of Christmas tree without noticing the hanging decorative ketupat, one might think that it was a Christmas celebration.

I imagined many people had already rushed to the venue in the morning. My thought was confirmed when I read Vince's blog entry and learned that he was among the first flocks to shake hands with the Melaka Chief Minister, his wife and other VIPs. The Chief Minister was wearing a baju Melayu in fluorescent green which reminded me of a drink sold at the Malay market. He must have been standing for hours and shaking thousands of hands.

The RM5 I received was in a green packet without picture. Besides the greetings and the money, the third attraction of this event was of course the free food. Again, one needed the patience to queue up to be served.

Those who prepared the food and drinks

were as important as those who cleared up the dirty dishes to allow new comers to be seated comfortably.

Local artists sang, danced or played musical instruments on stage

to entertain the public who were enjoying their performance or savouring mee hoon soto, satay, roti canai, chapati, mee goreng, nasi lemak, nasi briyani, rendang chicken, cendol, etc.
Some of our church members were also there, either before or after us. We had a short fellowship for the second time. When it was our turn to leave the hall, fewer people were lining up.

Finally, instead of driving back with an empty stomach, I added more load to my car...

He Spoke Those Love Languages To Me

Yesterday after lunch at Jalan Gajah Berang, I headed towards "Popular" Bookstore. This secular bookstore attracted me less and less since I had discovered three Christian bookstores in Melaka. Nonetheless, it was a good place to learn about general Malaysian readers' tastes. After buying quite a number of books, CDs and DVDs at a discounted price during the sales at "Su Fes" last month, I did not plan to return there so soon. So, instead of sitting and shivering with cold another two hours in the air-conditioned library or the computer lab of the campus building, I preferred hanging around at room temperature in the bookstore.

Needless to say more, the book shelves were conquered by cuisine recipes, fiction, new age theories, ideas to get rich, etc. Under the topic "Religion", less than ten books in Chinese were about Christianity and all the other books in Malay were of course not for Christians either.

I was hoping to find an unwrapped book of John C Maxwell when I came across an English title "God Speaks Your Love Language" under the topic "Self Improvement". I did not know the author Gary Chapman. But out of curiosity, I took it and started reading. I immediately recalled one of the sequences of the marriage counseling on video we were shown at Calvary Life Assembly (CLA) several weeks ago to encourage the participation from married couples of the congregation. While I was surfing this book, I realized the five love languages were biblical and could perfectly apply to my past life in order to understand why I was specially close to someone. They could also be developed in my present relationship with God as a child of His, as well as my daily communication with my surroundings as an individual.

I grew up in a non-Christian family. Before I knew God loved me, there was a man who had first spoken those love languages to me. That was Dad.

Words of Affirmation:
Dad often showed me verbal approval when I gained fame for our family by winning a prize, having my article published in the newspaper, being appointed as the representative to give a speech in school, etc. When I first arrived in France, Dad sent me a letter from home. As soon as I read the beginning where he was addressing me as "Good Daughter", tears just rolled down my cheeks. When I was already a working adult, he would give me advice based on what he had learned from the media about other single ladies.

Quality time:
Dad actually desired so much to spend his free time with us but he often had functions to attend in the evenings. And he was so committed to his job as a journalist that he never took leave even on weekends. However, when he was chatting with me at the breakfast table, on his armchair or on the sofa, I enjoyed the moment a lot no matter how brief the conversation was. I would wake up early in the morning or stay up late to wait for him to come home from his functions to have his presence in the living room.

Receiving gifts:
I always remembered one Christmas during my childhood, Dad gave me a toy ambulance as my birthday gift, making up the story that it was from Santa Claus who had passed by our house calling my name the previous night while I was asleep. When I grew up, Dad did not give me presents anymore but while he was living a very simple life, he was very generous to invest his money in my education and to sponsor things that he judged necessary for me.

Acts of service:
They were many times related to the transportation. As a rare species who did not know how to drive a car, Dad left me a memory of fetching me home with his scooter from my flooded primary school. He would always buy tickets for me when I still travelled to Melaka by express bus or arranged my brother to pick me at the airport when I was back from overseas. That was how he took a good care of my safety.

Physical touch:
Dad was a typical Chinese man, so physical touch was minimal. Since small, Dad always called my nick name with an affectionate voice while caressing my head or slapping my back lightly.

If I rank the love languages Dad spoke to me, the first scene that always comes to my mind is when he brought Ping and me out for a night walk, holding our small hands. We would buy a white loaf from the coffee shop nearby and sit on the bench of the Shell petrol station behind our old house to watch the traffic lights changing colours at the intersection. Then he would decide a colour when it was time to stand up and go home.

Every time I drive past that road and that petrol station in Batu Pahat, I still feel strongly Dad's love.

Melaka: Planetarium

Many months ago, while I was stopping in front of the traffic light at Ayeh Keroh, I saw the electronic sign board announcing the soon opening of a planetarium in Melaka. When Vince asked me if I would like to visit there last weekend, I was interested to find out what it was like.

As Vince knew better the location of the planetarium, I went with his car yesterday afternoon. When we were at the Melaka International Trade Centre (MITC) compound, he said, "This is the one." I glanced at the back of a white building while we were turning to look for the access. It was like a mosque more than anything else! When we finally stood at the parking in front of the planetarium,

I was still not convinced that it looked like an adventure science centre.

Vince was wondering why there were almost no other cars. Based on my experience at Mini Malaysia & Mini ASEAN, I was not expecting a big crowd. A Chinese man brought two little girls to enter the building while we were taking pictures. But they came out immediately and were walking down. I was planning to go to the flute music festival at Mahkota Parade in case the visit was not available. When I asked the man, he confirmed it was open.

So we went to the reception. The tickets cost RM15 for adults and RM8 for students, children and elderly at 65 and above. I guessed the man must have left disappointed with his daughters after finding out the total entrance fees too high for his whole family. I also imagined some sixty-year-old people, after sweating and breathing hard to climb so many stairs up there, were stunned to learn that they were not even qualified to be considered golden aged to have discount.

As soon as we paid, we were led by a receptionist to a theatre with a 250 seating capacity. I told her inside the lift, "The entrance fees should be lowered." She answered, "Ya. We have received a lot of feedback like this."

When we entered the theatre, Vince said, "Luckily I didn't come here alone." I thought the same. At Mini Malaysia & Mini ASEAN with Kimly, although the cultural show was performed for two of us only, at least it was an open space and dancers were human beings. In this dark and close theatre with half-lying seats like lazy chairs, we were waiting for a 3D documentary on the universe to start in ten minutes. Different images were projected on the 15m internal dome. When I photographed the screen with my camera, their colours were more highlighted.

It was as if we were lying on the ground to watch the night sky to witness the mysteries of the universe revealed one after another.

Two Malay guys also entered the theatre after awhile. The documentary began with an introduction of the way Egyptians worshipped the sun. We felt some real life movement experience when it was showing the inside of the pyramids. Later, it talked about the planets, the solar system and also stated that the beginning of the universe had taken place approximately 13 billion years ago.

The previous day, I had started reading the volume 8 of the creation science series by Dennis Linsay which I had bought after attending a related seminar at Calvary Life Assembly (CLA) last year. It was about the birth of planet Earth and the age of the universe. To me, it was obvious that this documentary had been made by evolutionists. However, the truth of the matter was that the time measurement was made on the basis of assumptions which could not be tested or proven, no matter how sophisticated the technique those scientists claimed to have. As a believer of the Creator God, I rather supported the theory based on the biblical accounts that our universe was a recent creation of about 6 thousand years' old.

The two guys sitting in front of us were apparently bored with the documentary in English. They started to play with their cell phones and left a few minutes before it ended. Despite the content which gave me no inspiration, I quite enjoyed the technical part.

The ground floor was the exhibition of the history of the astronomy, famous astronomers, modals of equipments, stars and planets in satellite pictures and "spacecraft" machines to experience driving into the space. There was also a board showing that the universe had probably begun with a "big bang". As photographs and video were not allowed, I kept my camera in my bag even though I had a lot of opportunities to take pictures secretly since Vince and I were the only visitors there and nobody was watching us.

When I came out from the Planetarium, I still firmly believed the Bible that the "big bang" would come at the close of time rather than at the beginning. That is when our Lord Jesus Christ comes to this young Earth again with all the glory for the Judgment Day.

It Was Only The Third Dental Clinic

This morning when I woke up, the first thing I remembered was not the eighth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, but my appointment for the eighth visit to the dentist's this year. Since I already knew the location of the Community Polyclinic at Durian Tunggal, I only started driving after 8am and reached there five minutes early.

As I was entering the reception, I saw several people at the waiting lounge. At first I thought today was a very busy day. When I showed my visit card and took a seat at the back, I realized only two of them were quiet patients with their mouths covered with masks while the rest were the staff chatting among themselves in front of the television!

I stood up again to look at posters on the wall. I particularly liked one with a slogan "Reduce sweetness in drinks; Add sweetness in smiles." I had no problem to practise that. But to smile sweetly, I must have good teeth. That was why I had been touring Melaka to receive treatments for a decayed molar of mine since last February.

I was called to the dental room very soon and recognized the young endodontist, despite his mask, who had spent almost two hours patiently scrapping my infected pulp out of the root canals during the previous treatment. He asked me if I had experienced any pain since then. Everything had been fine except that the temporary filling had been a bit cracked.

Special big sun glasses were placed on my eyes and rubber sheet on my mouth. This time, the dentist did not inject anaesthetic as the whole procedure was not going to cause me great pain. He only rubbed some cream on the tooth area and removed the temporary filling. He then injected medicines to the root canals.

I was comfortably lying on the dentist's chair facing cute animals stickers on the wall and scary tools hanging on the bracket.

After he had filled the cavity with an inert material made of rubber, the dentist asked an assistant to take a burner. It was a machine which heated up a drill. When he used the hot drill to cut the extra cavity filling, smoke literally came out of my mouth! He finally placed the permanent filling and took an X-ray of the molar. I thought it was the final procedure and was glad that it had only taken about an hour. I was about to thank everybody and get ready to leave when the endodontist said to me,

"After the root canal treatment, your tooth has become fragile because there is no more blood to supply nutrition to it. We usually advise our patients to have a crown to protect the tooth. If you agree, we'll send the impression of your tooth to the lab to make a crown. It'll cost RM135. You'll get it next year. We'll have moved to Ayer Keroh..."

Hoping to keep my smiles sweet for a longer time, I let them put me in the list and started counting down to visit the fourth dental clinic in Melaka in February 2010.

Surprises In My Garden II

Back in 2006, I planted my first leaf vegetables in the soil next to the wet kitchen. The results were extreme: While sawi grew so well until I got sick of it in my meals, the whole batch of kailan seeds did not even develop to germs.

I had brought back some gourd seeds given by VC's mother from Sarawak which grew as vines. They climbed everywhere, started to invade the kitchen and attracted ladybugs. When Mum saw the horrible scene during her visit in Melaka, she commanded that the vines be cleared. So I had no idea what kind of gourds they would have produced, if any.

The later experiment was lady's fingers. A thin plant was pushing from the ground but it died soon after producing a few miserable lady's fingers which were not enough to fill a plate. During the same period, VC introduced round brinjal from his home state to me. Unfortunately, the plants were also attacked by the same white tiny pests which had caused the death of the lady's fingers. Thus, my dream to have this Sarawakian speciality in my garden was shattered.

After numerous unsuccessful attempts, I knew I did not have green fingers and I no longer imagined I could proudly show my friends a variety of vegetables in my garden. In the reality, only kangkung (water spinach) and pucuk manis (sweet leaf) which I had bought from the night market at RM1 a bundle were surviving very well with minimal care after I inserted their stems into the ground.

The only effort I made was to throw whatever seeds, stems, peeled skins and other waste into a reserved space in the garden, instead of the dustbin, to make the soil organic. At the same time, I still kept the tiny hope that some days I could prepare a dish with a capsicum or a cucumber freshly plucked from the garden.

Recently, some vines were growing in the space full of kangkung and weeds. They were smaller than the first I had in the wet kitchen. Since they were not disturbing, I just leave them to grow. Slowly, yellow flowers brought cheerful colours to the ground.

Three days ago, when I was taking kangkung in the garden early in the morning, I discovered a new blessing from God which made me smile from mouth to mouth.

Very soon, I will have my first bitter gourd from the garden. And the yellow flowers might be future bitter gourds!

Surprises In My Garden I

When I first settled at my house, I made plans to plant flowers, grass, fruits and vegetables. A few times a month, I also went to the nursery to buy soil and new plants. I asked Ah Yu to bring me seeds from Japan. Mum also passed to me pots of decorative plants from Batu Pahat. I worked the garden despite the hot sun or the darkness.

After more than three years, my garden became quite flowery, grassy and leafy. However, I still had a little regret: It had never succeeded in producing a single fruit.

Actually I had tried to grow papaya trees in the beginning. But when Mum came to the house, she found them ugly and not fruiting. So we uprooted them together. I had also spent RM50 to buy two small fruit trees of rare species. But due to my lack of knowledge and experience, I did not manage to keep them alive for too long. Finally, I gave up my dream to harvest any fruits in my garden.

Early this year, I noticed an unusual plant appearing from the ground. When Mum saw it, she recognized that its leaves belonged to a sugar-apple tree. That was a fruit of my childhood! We used to keep the round, lumpy fruits inside a rice container until they ripened. Then we would eat the slippery, very sweet and soft light yellow flesh which tasted like custard. I wondered who had sown the seed because I had not eaten sugar-apples for years. Mum guessed it must have been from a bird.

As time passed, I paid less attention to the tree and spent less time in the garden. I expected God to bring rain often to Paya Rumput so that I did not have to walk many rounds with the sprinkler to water the plants. While I fed myself nutritious food, I forgot that my plants also needed fertilizer to grow better.

There was also another thin papaya tree growing by itself. It did not survive after a couple of months. So the sugar-apple tree which had grown taller than I finally turned out winner. And for the first times since I moved into this house, I tasted a fruit from my own garden. It was worth more than any other fruits from the markets.

"La France" in Batu Pahat

Last Friday, I was back to Batu Pahat. When we were having dinner at home, Seng suggested that we would try out a newly opened French restaurant in town the following day. It was a surprise to me because I had never known him as someone who would go for Western food.

A French restaurant in Batu Pahat, what was it like? Authentic French food? French-styled decoration? French service? Menu in French? French-speaking waiters?

As I did not have high expectation, I did not even bother to dress up formally. The only thing which gave me the look of a client at a French restaurant in Batu Pahat was the printed Eiffel Tower on my pink T-shirt.

"La France", opened two months ago, was well located at a commercial area.

When we reached there, it was around 7pm. The light was dim to create a classy atmosphere. Only one table was occupied by two diners. We were given a table facing the bar where bottles of wine were displayed and glasses were hanging upside down. Waiters were wearing caps as if they were working at a fastfood restaurant!

As soon as I was seated, I spotted a bottle of ketchup and another bottle of chili sauce on the table. It was truly Malaysian! When I began to read the menu, I realized that this restaurant was ready to receive clients who went there only for their Singapore mee hoon, Young Chew fried rice and tomyam fish!

Since we planned to have Western food, we decided not to order any food that sounded Asian. Seng chose fresh ox tail soup with garlic bread. I took their recommanded rosemary chicken while Mum picked roasted salmon. Seng also ordered famous snails to share together.

I had never eaten rosemary chicken. At first I imagined it was roasted chicken sprinkled with tarrogon. It was actually chicken cooked in a dark sauce seasoned with rosemary. I used to queue up behind other students to be served meat, boiled vegetables and French fries in a white plate like this at Resto U (University Restaurant) in Besançon.

I was hoping "La France" to automatically provide us with a basket of free bread and a jug of plain water like French restaurants in France, but there was no sign of them when all the dishes were placed on the table.

The snails reminded me of my farewell lunch in Neuves-Granges last year. Those I had tasted in France were gutted, cooked with garlic butter and then poured back into the shells together with the butter and sauce for serving. At "La France", they were cooked in a creamy and cheesy sauce and put on a plate with six holes.

The food was nice but at that moment my mind was rather with my French friends who would be generous enough to share with me their bread, wine and fun.

Eating South Indian Curry To Help The Care Home

The urgent fund-raising for the Calvary Care Home came to the third and the last Sunday. There were only twenty vouchers left when I saw Irwne who still entrusted me with the sale. After the worship, I sat at the back and was calling Abby at two rows in front of me. She did not hear me, but Jean's brother who was sitting between us noticed me. So I also asked him if he would like to buy a voucher and finally he bought four for his family members and Abby as well.

This time, the lunch special was South Indian curry prepared by Neela's "Chettinad Curry House". The helpers formed on a chain to scoop rice, chicken, vegetables,


dal gravy

and take a piece of papadum from the black plastic bag (which resembled a garbage plastic bag) to place on the rice.

Uncle Seelan who was offered the free lunch by CLA was no doubt the happiest person at the canteen.

Since he stayed at a government old people's home, he had to adapt himself to Malay food most of the time but he missed Indian food a lot. At his age, he could not control his trembling hands while eating. And he almost choked on a mouthful of rice. Thank God he was able to breathe normally after Kee Ming had attended to him and prayed for him.

After I put my food on the table, I did not start eating. Instead, I was busy taking pictures for the CLA magazine. By the time I decided to settle down, my papadum had already softened a bit. I carried my plate towards Irene again to ask for more dal curry. Finally, I had a bigger potion of food because of the gravy. Within half an hour, it was all transfered to my stomach.

The care home boys who were the beneficiaries of the fund raising did not seem to appreciate the food.

Many of them just quit the table without finishing their rice. I wished I could show them "Chicken A La Carte". Anyway, I doubt they would be touched by the story and realized that they were so blessed with their current living environment. My nephew and niece just laughed out loud at the sight of the Filipino children who immersed themselves into the pail of leftover food in the movie.

Same smile, but different destiny...