Mistaken Nationality?

Sometimes you remember random moments that are just so random, you wonder why you even remember them. O_o

I don't remember being categorised as anything but Chinese all the time I've been living in Malaysia. I look obviously Chinese - not the single eyelid look for me, nor the skin as pure as snow. The older I got, the more I could not be mistaken for anything but Chinese, or at the very least, Asian.

Nationality, however, is another matter entirely. I've been mistaken for an ABC (Ang moh country-born-Chinese), Singaporean and Japanese in the past.


ABC - I don't like ice kacang. (Off topic, I know) Would you believe it, I actually had rosy cheeks when I was a kid. Oh, and the chubby cheeks to match (although I still have those, FML). I think it was more because of the hot weather than any miracle of the skin, except when I was holidaying somewhere cold. It probably didn't help that I only spoke (mostly) English and Hokkien. There's a photo of me eating noodles or something during a trip to Singapore, which my dad's friend took, where I look positively ang moh-ish. O_o Can I just say it was a trick of the light?


Singaporean - No duh. This is pretty common, I guess. You talk like you know what you're doing, you walk like you know exactly where the hell you're going, dress a bit nicer, and the person behind the counter automatically assumes you're not from KL but probably Singapore.


Japanese - I'm like, "what the heck?!". I still get mistaken for a Japanese sometimes when I'm walking around alone in KLCC, especially when I hang around Kinokuniya's Japanese book section or Isetan supermarket. I remember overhearing a bunch of girls saying (in Mandarin) "She must be Japanese" while furtively glancing in my direction. I was trying not to laugh out loud.

The best is definitely kept for last. The incident that takes the cake was when my dad, brother and myself were all mistaken to be Japanese. We were at KLCC and my dad was taking a shortcut through Isetan, with my bro and I hurrying along behind him. After going through the entrance, I noticed my brother smirking beside me, so I asked him what was so funny. He replied saying "Oh, you didn't hear what a couple of those salesgirls were saying when we passed by the clothing department?"

"No."

"They were whispering to each other and saying that 'those three' (meaning us) must be Japanese."

So I admit, both my dad and brother do look sorta Japanese. Dad is short and (slightly) round, but he can pass off as both a typical Malaysian or Chinese or Japanese citizen. [In fact, a Japanese man once mistook him for a fellow countryman on the Eurostar or something when he was young, and thought it was very arrogant of him not to return his bows until it was made clear my dad was not, in fact, a fellow countryman.] My second brother, who is one head taller than me and on the skinny side, can definitely pass as Japanese, which was proven when he went to Japan. I, on the other hand, absolutely lack any Japanese characteristics, except for the fact that I was somehow obviously related to the other two.

So yeah, I'm baffled. And this random memory of a random moment in time has stuck with me for a very long time, lol.


Oh well, it's easy to fool people into thinking you're not a Malaysian. One, dress nicely (and not in those lala zai fashion). Two, don't speak like a local. Say 'lah' and you're busted. If you can muster an English accent, even better. Three, act + dress + walk + talk confidently. Don't wait for the Starbucks person to ask you if you'd like a "Tall, grande or venti" and never go "Huh? I want a medium one". Four, be polite. Say thank you and smile at the cashier after your transaction is done. Thank the waiter for refilling your glass. It's proper etiquette, after all. Five, never ever be a litter bug. How hard is it to hold onto your rubbish until you see a litter bin in a shopping mall anyway?

Don't shoot me for that up there. It's just my personal opinion.


Okay, so that's about it from me. This post went on longer than I expected, but that's not surprising. I'm bored and there's nothing for me to do. I have something to do but I'm too lazy to do it now.

I Was Introduced To Lee Min Ho!

Yes, I was introduced to Lee Min Ho (yesterday)!


Gotcha there didn't I?

Okay, so I'd heard about him from magazines and stuff, but even after various explanations by various people, I still couldn't figure out why he was so damn famous. Although that might be because I didn't watch Boys Over Flowers and Korean guys except Bae Yong Jun all look the same to me.


I'm at Times Square and walking to the escalators, and there he is on a poster advertising for Etude House - which is a very PINK shop, btw. I reach Ground Floor and there's his face yet again on folders and posters on a pink Etude House stall next to the giant revolving Christmas tree. Talk about feeling cornered.

Had lunch with the Gang at Papa John's (great pizza!) then walked around randomly. I headed for Etude House with the aim of buying some stuff there since I wanted to try it out and it was sales season. *shrugs* Waddaya know, I came out with my purchases and a free poster. LOL


So Carina was all "Let's see the poster!!" and this is what I got...

I couldn't make sense of the last word until I saw it on my computer screen. The r really looked like a v up close lor!

After that we went to Sg. Wang and then Pavilion. I think Pavilion is the only place in KL that has any Christmas vibe. Not bad, by Malaysian standards.


Oh, and Santa's reindeer are obviously male. Don't believe me? Walk through Pavilion's main entrance and look upwards. (Thanks to Mei Yeng for the very.... disturbing... observation.)

Mum and Dad arrived around 6pm, where I said buhbuaiz to my buddies and went walking around the mall before going for dinner at Dragon-i. There's more but I didn't take any pictures, glutton that I am.

My 北海道带子拉面 (Hokkaido scallops la mian)

The must-eat dish - 小笼包 (Xiao Long Bao)

Since it was raining outside, we decided to walk around a bit longer instead of jamming up the traffic with the rest of KL city.

Nicole, you have to come back here and buy these cages at Tangs! They're your favourite right?!


It was a wonderful day. I'm happy to be able to meet up with my high school friends, even if it's only for a few hours. Let's have a gathering again before the new year is here, okay? ^^

Wait For It.....

I just realized that most of my pictures don't have a watermark or something on them. You know, those pesky little words that proclaim to one and all that you took those pictures yourself instead of filching them off somebody else's site. XD

So yeah, I won't be posting any AFA pictures until I've had them properly chosen, marked and stuff. (Read: Procrastination-in-progress)

Oh, and I feel like changing the whole look of my blog - AGAIN. I want to be able to do strikethroughs and underlines in my posts, dammit. >_>

The Original Emo Kid

Trust me, I've been waiting to type that for a looooong time now.

"Why?", you ask. Because I didn't have anything to back it up until now, that's why!

Let me take you back to an idle afternoon in 1995.

+

A 5-year-old child has a craft knife and a used up roll of cellophane tape in her hands. Nobody knows how or where she managed to get those two items. There is not a single person in sight, her actions are safe from prying eyes. She crawls under the long rattan settee in the living room and after contemplating the knife and the roll of used-up tape, starts to cut something, slowly and carefully. The only sounds that can be heard are the whirring of the ceiling fan above and somebody moving around in the kitchen.

After a while, the child stops cutting and crawls backwards out from under the settee. Carefully holding her hands away from her body, she slowly and carefully climbs up the stairs to the master bedroom. Looking around, she spots somebody sitting at the writing table in the corner and trots over to that person. She holds up a thumb, red and dripping with blood, all without saying a word or making any sound.

The woman at the table turns around and an expression of shock crosses her face, and lets out a small cry. Only then does the child let out a wail and lets the waterworks flow, as the pain from the cut registers in her mind.

So yeah, I was the original emo kid with a knife in her hands and blood all over her fingers.

And this is what that particular thumb looks like now.

So, remember kids, don't play with any knives or blades without parental supervision!


I couldn't resist throwing in some "emo quotes" I found off the internet. LMAO
Oh, here's the icing on the cake - the Chinese music industry's "Emo Song of the Year" (as voted by moi and her acquaintances)!

Tank - 如果我变成回忆

如果我变成回忆 退出了这场生命
留下你错愕哭泣
我冰冷身体 拥抱不了你
想到我让深爱的你 人海孤独旅行
我会恨自己 如此狠心

如果我变成回忆 终于没那么幸运
没机会白着头发 蹒跚牵着你 看晚霞落尽
漫长时光总有一天你会伤心痊愈
若有人可以 让他陪你

如果我变成回忆 最怕我太不争气
顽固的赖在空气 霸占你心里 每一寸缝隙
连累依然爱我的你 痛苦承受失去
这样不公平 请你尽力 把我忘记

"...All I Got Was This Lousy..." & Bizarre Dreams

So, it's literally a case of "My dad spent 15k and all I got was this piece of paper".

I mean, seriously.
Okay, okay, so they did invite us to some fancy convo held at KLCC or something, but it's just foundation, for crying out loud! I'll go to my degree convo when it does arrive, in like 3 years, thanks.
And I do admit, the transcript does look pretty nice, what with the hard plastic cover and 90gsm paper certificate. Ha! IMO, they should've given us a voucher for framing it up or something though. Wouldn't that be a nice touch?

Anyway, I wanted to post something yesterday, but I chickened out at the last minute. And it wasn't very interesting, just some random thoughts while surveying my room. Something along the lines of "I hate mess, but I somehow seem to create mess anyway".

OH! Nearly forgot. So probably some of you noticed my "The bizarre dreams are back" personal message in MSN. Let me tell you this, I really had this totally bizarre dream when I was having my afternoon nap just now!

So basically it's set in 1Utama, and there are lots of bakeries there. And I dreamt that dad, mum and me were there buying buns and stuff. If I remember correctly, dad went there to buy buns because he was feeling peckish, and after looking at all the delicious pastries arranged there, I also took a tray and started to take all these pastries (especially the danishes) and buns there. Oh, and I also took a slice of chocolate cake too! (This I remember vividly.) Then when the time came for us to go to the cashier, the total amount turned up to be....

RM310!!

Press that key, I know you want to.

OMG~ Talk about crazy. How could 2 trays add up to a total of RM310?! -_-" Even in the dream I could feel myself feeling shocked. LOL

I know, I'm babbling, jumping from one topic to another. Who cares? Let's throw in some more randomness: I need to finish watching Pandora Hearts so that I can concentrate on my CCS assignment!

P/S: I just loooooove Gilbert (the dark-haired guy). He's just so cool, yet gets angry easily and *poofs!* becomes a chibi. Or maybe I have a thing for non-blonde guys. Or both. XD

Unexpected Darkness

LOL~ I'm really on a roll today, huh? Third post in a day, wtf!

Well, just now around 9.15 p.m., everything (except my laptop's screen) went totally dark! It was pitch black both inside the house and outside. Normally it's just my house's row that gets these occasional blackouts, but today the whole area went pitch black. Weirdly enough, the street lights weren't affected.

Anyway, I went downstairs to check out what was happening and as I was walking down the stairs, I smelled something like cookies baking. So I asked my mum "Do you smell something like cookies baking?", then she was like "Yup, maybe somebody was baking cookies." Then she went into the kitchen, and when she came out she said "Oh, it's the smell of the bread I was toasting in the toaster."

SWT-ness

I Hate Leftovers

(Comic taken from www.cartoonstock.com)

I've come to hate leftovers.

No, don't get me wrong. I'm not those super fussy types who demand freshly-cooked food for every single meal. I'm okay with eating yesterday's spaghetti or a slice of cake from the day before.

What I really can't stand is that fact that almost every meal (with rice) at home consists of yesterday's, the day before's, the day before that and all the way to last fortnight's - you guessed right - LEFTOVERS!

I mean, come on la~ I know you love the TV so much (BFFs: Hallmark, HBO and Cinemax) and aren't exactly the greatest cook in the world, but please, don't make us drink last week's soup or consume soy sauce meat that has been reheated 5 (or more) times before.

Shh.... I'll let you in on a lil' secret.
You know what's been keeping me alive?

Tadaa~!! Maggi mee, or as its proper name says, instant noodles.

I know from experience that it's totally bad for my health, but there are times when you just need to have some hot food to fill your stomach. Seriously, I owe half my life to this wonderful invention. (And the other half is probably gone thanks to it, but I'm not gonna go into that.)

So yeah, that's it. Just a short rant for today.
La - di - dah~

The Bitch Who Didn't Know Traffic Laws, A Guy Who Ran Out Of Luck and The Fast & The Furious a.k.a. Pantas dan Garang

Oh boy, have I a LOT to blog about today. Let's get things going in chronological order, shall we?

So today it was an 8 a.m. class as usual. We left home around 7.10 a.m. (my dad and mum drive me to school and back) and there was a slight jam as usual around the college area. So there's this 2-lane road leading to the college that always becomes a 1-lane road due to all the cars parked on the left side. My dad was driving on the right side and there were all these cars from the left trying to squeeze in. Of course, we were on the lane with the right of way, and a lot of cars were trying to cut in.

A green Toyota Avanza was behind us and on the left lane and the driver (a perempuan) was trying to cut into our lane. So my dad didn't want to give way to her, since several other cars had already cut in front and we had the right of way anyway.

You know what that BITCH did? She forced her way into the right lane, a little bit behind us and continued to squeeze in even though it was OBVIOUS that she couldn't pass. But she still kept going and of course, there was this loud "sccccrrrrgh" scratching noise that told us her car's face had scratched our car's ass. So my dad just stopped there (effectively holding up the traffic for a while) and we just glared at her. Many people had heard the friction of metal against metal and were looking curiously our way.

So then my dad went a little ways forwards and parked on the left side, which thankfully was empty, and the Avanza followed behind. My dad got down, she got down, and I also got down (since it was almost time for class). I was just in time to hear her say to my dad that it was his fault.

WHAT THE FUCK?! The NERVE she had, saying it was our fault when it was HER stupid bloody idiocy that was the problem! We don't HAVE to give way to stupid idots like her who think they are so great driving an Avanza. If YOU are cutting into the lane WE are in, then WE have the right of way. And if you're a driver in Malaysia, let me enlighten you to the unwritten rule of the road: If MY car is bigger than yours, I have the right of way. Kapeesh?

One last thing before I end this rant and continue to the next item of today's agenda...

To the driver of Mxx 7Xxx:
You BITCH! When people have the right of way and don't want to give way to you, just deal with it! It's YOUR fault if you force your way in and damage other people's car. You're lucky this time around, because if you continue to drive like this, I really, really hope that the next vehicle you "cuddle" is a GODDAMN CONTAINER TRAILER with a driver with a bad personality.
Fuck you, bitch!

Yeah, if you've read all my previous entries, you won't see language such as this come up in my posts. I just see no reason to use those words in my entries unless I am really pissed off, like today. Okay, next~

The big news in class today was the guy who fell to his death from the 14th floor at Suriamas yesterday. According to The Star, the "...teenage student who was locked out of his room and attempted to enter his 14th floor condominium unit via the balcony, met with a tragic end when he lost his footing and plunged to his death."
Tragic indeed. He was apparently a first-year student at Taylors "...and had performed this stunt several times before when he accidentally left his keys inside."

May he rest in peace.

On to the movies section of today! Me, Rhea, Nicole and Grace went to Sunway Pyramid after school today to watch a movie. At first we wanted to watch The Shinjuku Incident, but since Grace had already watched it, we opted for Fast & Furious.


When we entered the cinema, it had already started. Nevertheless, I was lucky enough to not miss the appearance of the title and it's subtitle, which was...

"Pantas Dan Garang"

OMGWTFBBQLMAOLOLROFLHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
*cough* *regains composure*

The last time around, which was TF&TF: Tokyo Drift, the Malay title was "Laju Dan Garang"! My brothers and I had totally cracked up when we saw it. But it was an awesome movie. Tokyo Drift, I mean. Not to mention it had a totally sticky and addictive theme song. =_= The 4th one was okay, but I still think that the Japanese pimped-up cars were cooler.

That's about it for today. It's been a long day and an even longer post.

Ciaoz!

A Series of Bloody Damn Unfortunate Events

That's just putting it mildly.

The day started off just fine, with a steamboat lunch at Aunty Ho's [my kai ma] house. I got RM50 for correcting some documents for her and we lingered until around 4.30 p.m.
Then we went home to get some rest before going out again, this time to Taman Sri Manja (Old Klang Road area) for dinner with my aunt, cousin, his girlfriend and her mother. Arrived there around 7 p.m. due to a bit of traffic congestion and rain. Everybody piled into one car (my dad's) and went straight to the restaurant.

Turned out they didn't have their curry fish head during Chinese New Year. Boo-hoo. [Event #1] So we ordered some other dishes and had a pretty good meal. Fortunately, they had "fa shang wu" (peanut cream soup) as dessert during CNY so we had some of that.
After hunting around for newspaper(s) in the area and failing to do so, we went to Eva's house to sit and relax for a bit. Everything was just fine and dandy, watching CNY videos and stuff, when suddenly a call came from my bro.

He said that the car had some problems with the clutch and he was stuck somewhere near our house. [Event #2] So, as usual, my dad went from cheerful to thunderstorm-cloudy [Event #3] and started talking about -bla bla bla bla-. In short, it was not nice on the ears. So naturally, everybody became less happy and you could literally see the 'cheer-o-meter' going downwards.
A lot more -bla bla bla- later and we were hurriedly eating up our 'mee suah' and saying goodbye to everybody. We arrived where my bro was parked and mum and I went to the car to sit inside with my bro while my dad went back to the house to get the AAM card. Then my dad came back to the site and not long afterwards the AAM staff came. So I went to sit in dad's car for the air-cond and also to make sure nobody drove off with it. =.=

Imagine my surprise when I got a phone call from my aunt, asking if my cousin's car keys were anywhere in the car. Lo and behold! They really were on the back seat. [Event #4] So she told me they were coming over to pick them up.
In the end, my cousin came to get his car keys, my bro's car had to be towed and everybody's in a foul mood. So much for Chinese New Year and dong dong chiangs.

Oh wait, nearly forgot Event #5. I'm typing this in Notepad coz bloody Firefox isn't working whereas my MSN and bot are just fine. I can't even get to my Google main page.

What the fuck?!