Beijing Haunts

We just got back from an 8-day trip to Beijing, or as it played in my mind before we went, The Motherland. Beijing is THE place to start with if you're thinking about discovering China. I am have been far too wired to concentrate on work this week, so I focused on writing this little piece instead.

Of course we visited the requisite Great Wall, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven and Tiananmen Square, and they were all great. We also had great fun just walking around these places that should definitely be part of your itinerary should you pay this city a visit:-

Nanluoguoxiang

….i.e. Hutong Central. As per my previous post we roomed at this quaint but elegant little place for 4 days before switching up to the Traders Hotel in the CBD area, and while it had its little faults (no space/hooks for hanging our stuff, no kettle for hot water), its location more than made up for it. It is smack right in the middle of a historical alley (or hutong) converted into totally unique little shops. We tried all kinds of street food - traditional barbecued lamb and chicken skewers, barbecued squid, egg white pancakes, Beijing-style yogurt (so creamy and gooood) and steamed milk, breakfast pancakes made with egg, spring onions, stuffed with a deep fried cruller and three types of sauces (fermented bean, chilli oil and something else – hoisin, maybe?), deep fried tofu in a sweet chilli sauce, Taiwanese deepfried chicken tenders (puts McDonald’s nuggets to shame), drank neat “mojitos” and milk tea, and dropped by the local Starbucks for much-needed, super hard-to-find, expensive coffee.

 



AK and his steamed milk





Yogurt in clay jars

 


Starbucks in the Hutong

We also oohed and aahed at the creative means the Chinese use to decorate their interiors – the use of traditional tea display racks to showcase Brazilian coffee, how they maintain their Chinese identity in design of bot the interiors and facades. And oh, and the stuff they were selling – from household items (French countryside inspired décor, traditional and modern takes on Chinese teas and teasets, Mao prints on everything from enamel mugs to coasters), to clothes and accessories (super-arty origami-inspired local designs, ming pottery made into jewelry, cheap shoes, handmade leather bags) and Chinese-y souvenirs. I bought French-country inspired enamelware (for planting herbs in) and sleek teaspoons at the adorable Kodo.



Nanluoguoxiang shop display - modern take on Ming pottery







The glasswares section of Kodo



 

It was great fun walking here, taking in the cacophony of sights, ducking every now and then into aforementioned shops. I highly recommend spending some lots of time in this area (half a day is ideal) and really loved the fact that the hutongs were literally at our doorstep. Every shop was unique in its own right, and there was some repetition, but overall minimal. I do feel that Malaysian retailers pale in comparison in terms of creativity and uniqueness, and will never be satisfied walking in Malacca’s Jonker Street/Penang’s Batu Feringghi markets again.  

 

Pangjiayuen Antiques Market  

We went faux-antiquing twice at this huge market, once on a weekday and on a Saturday morning. I much prefer going on a weekday. There aren’t that many stalls (but still number at the hundreds), it’s less crowded thus it’s easier to navigate/get shopkeepers’/stall owners’ attention, and most importantly, less foot traffic means more relenting sellers. No doubt, the variety is definitely larger on the weekend, and someone who relishes the challenge of the bargain would prefer to go on a weekend, so do what suits you. AK went a little crazy over these cute wooden stands/bases that are designed for holding teasets and I bought some really pretty celadon bowls. What else were they selling? Chinese locksets, vintage suitcases/ice buckets/gramophones, reproduction furniture, stone sculptures, faux-bronze vessels and figurines, beads of amber/turquoise/tiger’ eye/jade/amethyst and who knows what other stone, pottery (I bought celadon ones), artwork, silverware (from huge cauldrons to traditional headdresses), and who knows what else.

Tribal embroidery



Bargain bargain bargain!

Tribal neck and headpieces - real statement, these things



Antique locks and curtain hooks

Wangfujing


We skipped the Malls at the Orient Plaza, but managed to locate Hai Di Lao in the Intime Lotte mall. All the stories of the courteous staff are true. We ate our way through more than ten plates of mushrooms, two types of beef balls, minced beef with egg (highly recommended), slices of lamb, squid and vegetables cooked in “heaven and hell” broths (bone stock and fiery sezhuan), accompanied by a plethora of dipping sauces (minced beef, mustard, XO, satay, minced garlic, vinegar, you name it). On the way back to the train we stopped by the warren of stalls/shops at the back of street. AK picked out two pairs of shoes that he would normally never consider – but they were fun and so unbelievably priced that he scooped them up. I couldn’t help checking out the three-storey Forever 21 behemoth on Wangfujing. Everything there is Made in China anyway so it makes sense that they’re super cheap. In fact I returned twice to Wangfujing just for the store alone. What I got - comfy shorts for lounging around the house, lots of cute earrings, a funky belt and a striped tee.

Oh, and not China-related but I have to say something anyway. Our house is slowly but surely coming together; the tiles are up in the two upstairs bathrooms and we are going to pick out the flooring for the upstairs rooms as well as decide on kitchen cabinets and built-in wardrobes. We are so close! AK has already picked out the menu for our first home-cooked dinner (lor bak, lotus root soup). 



In the Hutongren Courtyard

Where we roomed for four nights. The place is tucked in a bustling area filled with super-creatively refurbished shops and it's tons of fun exploring.

The hotel itself is an inspiration in Zen design, so I thought I'd share some shots.

Welcome tray filled with loose-leaf tea and sweet bean paste cakes

In the Courtyard, looking up at twilight

The little corner where all the teasets and accessories on display are for sale

Blackie the dog

We loved this setting, and plan to emulate this (on a smaller scale) in our new home

Stand Up Sarawak

Finally, an expose on what is going on in Sarawak. I thank Global Witness for putting the spotlight on the utter contempt the current rulers of Sarawak rule the state with.




I wrote this the couple of words below months and months ago, but never posted because, well, I never really perfected it, and the timing always wasn't right.

Now with this piece appearing in the likes of international news outlets I can only hope that the story continues to spread like wildfire, and the Federal government will be shamed into doing something.


It might be imperfect, and I have so much more to say, but here it is:

I am no political activist, but I read and I watch the news and am a big follower of Malaysiakini.

The roads that link Miri, its northernmost "city" (and the oil and gas hub of the state) to Bintulu, its industrial hub and home to one of the largest LNG plants in the world (processing some ~8% of Malaysia's GDP right there) are nothing more than poorly constructed roads that even the worst municipals here in the Klang Valley would be downright embarassed with. When it rains (and boy it does during the monsoon), gaping holes emerge due to bad construction. There are no emergency phones for one to use when stranded, no highway patrols to come to one's rescue should your car break down anytime throughout this hundred-kilometer journey. Heck, there aren't even any streetlights or reflectors.

Yes, the news we read everyday about a certain self-designated First Lady and her shopping sprees, the Scorpene submarines fiasco, PKFZ, and Lynas frustrate and worry us. But for the most part we go on with our lives. And let's face it, for most of us, our lives are (for now anyway) unaffected by the corruption in our government

But not in the case of Sarawak, where corruption has resulted in abject poverty for its citizens. Take a drive in Miri. Barely a few hundred metres away from the colonial-styled expatriate housing for RDS staff you will find squatters with their houses patched from zinc and planks. Drive towards the beach in Luak and you will, I guarantee, gawk at the palace-like houses of the timber tycoons. Miri's only Lamborghini is driven by one of their sons. Yet the companies balk at raising the minimum wage of its workers from RM400 to RM800 per day. Which Malaysian lives on RM400 a month these days? Well, timber workers do.

Sarawak is not Malaysia. Here in the Peninsular we have highways, decent if under-capacity public transport, and a comparitively louder, if sometimes ineffective voice of opposition - whether it's in the form of protesting the opening of a rare-earths processing plant, a rally for free elections, or the opposition political parties having their say.

In Sarawak, there is a deafening silence as the beat goes on. The Chief Minister halts the flow of new businesses into the state, lest its loosens his and his cronies' dominance over the local economy. Education is stifled (or left to nothing, which for someone in a Chief Minister's position is unforgiveable). In the meantime, the forests are pillaged, the people exploited, their ancestral land and way of life give way to modern day exploitation and poverty. Don't think slumdog millionare is only a story or Mumbai or India for that matter. Think only the Philippines has children digging through garbage for sustenance? We see that every day in Sarawak, a land so rich in oil and gas and timber and fertile soil. A land with a UNESCO world heritage site in its Mulu caves.

Sarawak is not Malaysia. It's a dictatorship, plain and simple, with only a select few benefiting from the vast riches of the state, while the rest not only barely scrape by, but are constantly exploited, abused and neglected.

The Marcoses were overthrown, but this Minister has stood the test of time. Sarawak stands on its own, isolated, its people kept in the dark and wasting away.

It is my hope that the likes of Malaysiakini, the political oppostion, the churches and Christian fellowships (who hold a strong influence in the state), the ketua kampungs, the Sarawakians who have left Sarawak for greener pastures (this accomplished man comes to mind), would come together and reclaim what is fair and just for the people of Sarawak. Because they cannot do it on their own, isolated and beaten down as they are. I pray that one day the Pope would visit his devotees in Sarawak and publicly rebuke the Chief Minister, just like Pope John Paul II did to Imelda Marcos. These are small things, realistic things that could happen. At the very least, draw some attention. Embarass our Federal Government for allowing this to happen for so many years. A revolution, I am afraid, is too much to ask for.

Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor who lost his entire family to the Nazi concentration camps, said this, "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”

Music of the moment

Songs that makes my heart sing, my mood light:-

Was it just me, or was that proposal at the end of How I Met Your Mother 7 just crazy awesome?

And that song, that song:-



This is not the official lyric video, but this composition is so sweet, I kinda like it better.

And this cover. Just trust me.



And Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam)'s Wind:-
 

Thoughts for this Lenten season

Mass in Seville, Spain

Which is not to say I have really thought of it in the past. Most of the time I don't do anything differently for Lent, to be honest.

I guess you could call me a reluctant Catholic. My mum, bless her determination, would wake me up at 6 am on Sundays to drag me to morning mass, my baby brother in tow. I attended Cathechism since the age of five, right up to my Confirmation when I turned sixteen.

There was a time in my (angsty) teenage years that I seriously considered joining another non-Catholic church. There were plenty of well-monied families in this parish, and that meant plenty of stylish, clique-y teenagers. My peers judged each other on the brand of each others' clothes, on how many members of the opposite sex they were friends with..the pressure was immense. I felt lonely and inadequate. I envied my friends in their other churches their allowances for casual dressing, their livelier, more upbeat services.

Now that I am older, most of my teenage insecurities are gone. And I know it really isn't right to say this, but my love for church oscillates with the parish priest. I used to go to a church in Miri where all the sermons the parish priest gave were on how guilty we should all feel for just spending an hour in church a week, for being uncomfortable in the stuffy church which was clearly undersized for the size of its congregation. I despised irresponsible leaders for preaching that "gays are just odd/weird/wrong" so dismissively to children, paving the way to mindless, "programmed" discrimination.

I still disagree with many of the teachings of the Catholic Church, like banning contraception and abortion in totality. I think no woman should be made to endure bringing up the child of her rapist. I think a child is better off unborn than to parent(s) who will mistreat or neglect them. I think divorce is better than subjecting children to a failed relationship, or even the affected couple to a lifetime of misery and bitterness. I believe that being homosexual is not a choice, that God made some of us this way. There, I said it. I believe in Evolution, that the Seven Days of Creation in the bible are not literally seven days, but seven generations of evolution that lead up to Adam and Eve, Homo Sapiens. I believe that the Word of the Bible, because it is written by man, is not to be taken literally. God gave us judgement and rationale and instinct, and that is what we should be applying every day and to these eternal debates. I believe that Science complements religion, not contradicts it, that it always has, just that most of us refuse to see it out of sheer convenience.

In Subang the parish priest encourages his brethren to speak up against dirty and unjust politics, and embodies the very spirit of Vatican II, where for the very first time, the Church admits that there is more than one way to reach God. Gone is the old teaching where the only path to the Kingdom of Heaven is through embracing Christ. Gone are the days when the number of candles on the altar mattered. Charity, in the light and shadow of Mother Theresa is what matters. Actions that truly affect the poor and the suffering, instead of just prayers and fasting. Real impact to real people. Standing up against injustices, like corruption and bullying. I have never felt prouder to be Catholic, not when the other Christian denominations are still threatening people with eternal damnation of they fail to convert now.

Spirituality is a mysterious thing, and so it should be.

Like I said, 'tis the season of Lent after all, and in the light of the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, perhaps this season of (traditionally) fasting and prayer can mean much, much more than just bettering our spiritual selves.

Article from the New York Times.

Give Up Your Pew for Lent

By PAUL ELIE

AT 8 p.m. last night in Vatican City, Benedict XVI resigned the papacy. Now American Catholics should consider resigning too.

The conventional wisdom has it that Benedict’s resignation sharply reduced the aura of the papal office, showed a tender realism about old age, and made clear that even ancient Catholic practices could be changed. That is all true, but the event’s significance is more visceral than that. It has caught the mood of the church, especially in North America.

Resignation: that’s what American Catholics are feeling about our faith. We are resigned to the fact that so much in the Roman Catholic Church is broken and won’t be fixed anytime soon.

So if the pope can resign, we can, too. We should give up Catholicism en masse, if only for a time.

We are in the third week of Lent, a six-week season of reflection and personal sacrifice when Christians prepare for Easter by taking stock of their religious lives. In recent centuries Roman Catholics have observed Lent by giving up a habit or pleasure, whether red meat, chocolate, soap operas or Facebook, to simplify their lives and regain their independence from worldly attractions — their religious freedom, if you like.

Two years ago, Stephen Colbert gave up Catholicism itself. As the comedian told it, he swore off Catholicism on Ash Wednesday and made it as far as Good Friday, when he went on a “Catholic bender.” His riff inverted the old saying that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. Mr. Colbert beat the pope to the punch.

In traditional parlance, Benedict’s resignation leaves the Chair of St. Peter “vacant.” So I propose that American Catholics vacate the pews this weekend.

We should seize this opportunity to ask what is true in our faith, what it costs us in obfuscation and moral compromise, and what its telos, or end purpose, really is. And we should explore other religious traditions, which we understand poorly.

For the Catholic Church, it has been “all bad news, all the time” since Benedict took office in 2005: a papal insult to Muslims; a papal embrace of a Holocaust denier; molesting by priests and cover-ups by their superiors. When the Scottish cardinal Keith O’Brien resigned on Monday amid reports of “inappropriate” conduct toward priests in the 1980s, the routine was wearingly familiar. It’s enough to make any Catholic yearn to leave the whole mess for someone else to clean up.

Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, is a theologian. He would not have stepped down if he did not think he was setting a sound precedent: a resignation prompted by physical, not institutional, weakness. That he felt free to resign suggests that he thinks the church is doing fine. But countless ordinary Catholics know otherwise.

That is why this Sunday, I won’t be at the Oratory Church of St. Boniface in Downtown Brooklyn, even though I love it there — a welcoming, open-minded, authentically religious place.

Instead, I’ll be at the Brooklyn Meeting of the Quakers, who have long invited volunteers from our church to serve food to the poor.

Or I’ll be at the Church of St. Luke and St. Matthew, an Episcopal congregation that hosted the Occupy movement’s relief efforts after Hurricane Sandy.

Or I’ll go to the Zen Mountain Monastery at Mount Tremper, in the Catskills.

Or I’ll be in Washington, with colleagues who attend Shabbat services at Georgetown, the first American Catholic university and the first (four decades ago) to engage a full-time rabbi.
Or I’ll knock on the door of the Masjid Ibadul-Rahman, a mosque on my block, or the Zion Shiloh Baptist Church, across the street, or L’Église Baptiste d’Expression Française, on the corner.

I hope and expect to return to the Oratory church the following Sunday. But I can’t be sure. To some degree, it’s out of my hands, a response to a calling.

A temporary resignation would be a fitting Lenten observance. It would help believers to purify and deepen our faith in the light of our neighbors’ — “to examine our own religious notions, to sound them for genuineness,” as the American writer Flannery O’Connor put it. It would let us begin to figure out what in Catholicism we can take and what we can and ought to leave. It might even get the attention of the cardinals who will meet behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel and elect a pope in circumstances that one hopes would augur a time of change.
And it might dispel the resignation we feel. Most ordinary believers have given up hope that the church will change its ways. But Benedict’s resignation reminds us of a truth we have known all along: change in the church can happen, even dramatically. If so hidebound an institution as the papacy can be changed, what can’t be?

Paul Elie, a senior fellow in the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown, is the author, most recently, of “Reinventing Bach.”

The Venue

I almost wish I could say that AK surprised me with a proposal in Venice (we were there in 2011), but the truth is that we've been together for so long, we really mutually decided that it was time to get married. He did get down on one knee though - in a quiet, beautifully lit little cobblestone street next to a canal that reflected the moonlight, the wind making us shiver and cling even more closely to each other. I still savour that moment at times.

And man, am I going to need that memory.

If it were up to me, I'd just register our civil marriage, maybe have a church solemnisation and be done with it. But of course, as I was duly informed by a good friend, a wedding isn't really about the bride (let's not even start about the groom), it's about the relatives and the mothers of the bride and groom and the friends of the parents and all those EXPECTATIONS...well, if you're Chinese (or a gypsy) you get the idea. I'm sorry to say this but weddings are a big pain in the a**, and Chinese weddings are the worst. I cringe at the thought of being the center of attention, of waltzing down the aisle in a white gown, of showing poeple slideshows of my baby photos, of all that people being there in one place, for me. It just seems awfully self-centered and attention-seeking. Why why oh why?

I'm sorry. I really intended for this post to showcase our progress so far - we've booked our venue in KL, which nicely balances our budget and my (not so secret) intention for as minimally Chinese a a venue as possible. Since the photos on the website don't really do enough justice to the place, I've taken the liberty of lifting some photos off the web.

Source

 

Source


Dear God, please let me make it down the stairs without tripping on my face.

A few things

I usually get pretty depressed returning from a trip to Penang. I still miss my lau juak (as in always ready for a little fun/celebration/meal) dad, my do-it-all supermum, and friendly (crazy) banter with my two brothers (the three of us drove from KL to Penang telling hilarious stories, reminiscising about our childhoods and singing along to Queen (we disturbingly knew the lyrics to this retro number and Matchbox Twenty)
This time though returning from Penang it wasn't as bad as I expected. The drive back yesterday was painless, with the almost empty highway and cloudy (neither too hot nor was it raining - i.e. perfect) weather. I joined some friends for dinner and a raucous gambling session, and today we're going to finalise our house plans with the contractor.

Here are the other little and not-so-little things making me smile this past week.

The Church of The Immaculate Conception all decked up for the Lunar New Year

The beautifully lit corridor at the old St Joseph's Novitiate, which has gone from hosting LaSalle novices to housing hip eateries

Unexpected (stormy) weather right after lunch at Gurney Paragon

Our friend's pretty seasonal (DIY) flower arrangement

Morning sweetness

Came back to KL to find that AK has sorted out my skincare and makeup (previously haphazardly strewn on the shelf) into the baskets we bought in Manila. And no, we didn't have to wait for the new house to put them to good use.