背包走天涯之纽约

Farewell to PoPo

2011-03-13T05:19:00.000-07:00

The first time I met Popo, it was at Sf's home. She was a cheerful and lively lady. I remember her asking Sf's mum, "Is this Ah Fang's boyfriend?" To which Sf's mum nodded and PoPo started chatting to me in Hainanese - a dialect I could not understand as it bore no resemblance to Hokkien. However the language barrier did not prove to be an impedance to developing fondness for this old granny.

The illness never took away her spirits away. She continued to do the things she loved. I looked forward to the mahjong sessions where we often ended up amazed by her ability to win us. The hospital visits were never a dread as she made conversations easily.

In those moments when we were driving back from sending PoPo to her nursing home, Sf's mum shared with me stories that allowed a peak into the life of a woman who was strong and hardworking. Popo picked up English from helping out at a Swiss School, and had the foresight to make a HDB purchase that would later on secure the future of her family. She enjoyed games of mahjong and 4 color cards and was hospitable to friends who would come to her place to have the gaming sessions.

Time is not a critical factor in determining the bond in a friendship. In the short 2 years that I knew PoPo, I grew to like this granny who was always chatty, fun and cheeky. Our acquaintance is short-lived, but I am glad that it exist at all. PoPo also managed to witness me and Fang's ROM. I should take solace in this, and that PoPo is finally relieved of the pain, but at this moment in time our hearts are heavy with sadness.

I will cherish the sweet memories.

A Tribute to Dad

2007-07-15T05:39:00.000-07:00

A while ago I was informed by my HR that the company was going to send another person to NY for internship. I could understand the new guy would have a lot of queries in his mind--after all I had a terrible time feeling lost for my trip--so I offered help by meeting him over lunch and giving him some tips.

He appeared to be streetwise and outgoing so it wasn't much of a surprise that he was an active diver and sailor. I was impressed. We had a hearty chat and expenses were a huge problem to him, it seemed.

"I would suggest you borrow 20k from your dad first. “I wouldn't expect the company to transfer you the money any time soon." I said and added,” At least not until the 2nd month."

"I would probably have to borrow first. My father doesn't have that kind of money to lend me." he replied.

It then dawned on me that not every family has that kind of cash. In a way, I have taken my dad for granted. Considering the ease of which he had lent me the money, it was a remarkable feat taking into account that he was a taxi driver, not some english-educated manager or director. It was upon realising this that I felt the impulse to type this blog entry.

To be honest I used to dislike my dad. He didn't bother to celebrate birthdays, much less know how to communicate with children. Toys were also non-existent. To him, the rules were simply "I provide your rudimentary needs. You study hard. There was no need for anything else". This kind of character was typical of a father from a traditional Chinese educated family. However, there was a day he brought home a toy jackpot. My Brother and I were elated, only to find out that he conveniently brought it back after it was left behind by a customer in his cab. There was only one word to describe him---stingy.

When I grew older I realised there are always two perspectives you can look at things. Stinginess was thriftiness; strict was discipline. It all boils down to how you count your blessings I guess. I had a dad who paid for my education, provided me a comfortable house and I know I don’t have to worry for his finances and I am really appreciative of this fact.

The way history is written has been changed by technology. Where in the past archeologists had to dig for evidence beneath tons of sediments, the rise of internet has made information easily accessible for future generations. In fact, I would like to think that I am leaving behind digital footprints on this blog, and my grandchildren and great grandchildren, if any, can take a peek into what my world was like and how I perceived this. I am treating this blog as a time capsule and I hope it works.

The Last Entry

2007-04-14T17:43:00.000-07:00

Even though I still have a few weeks left in NY I feel that this is the right time to end this blog. Therefore this shall be my last entry. I would probably not blog again when I go back to Singapore. I am using “probably” because you can never be certain with things. Nonetheless I would like thank you for reading, and those who have been commenting.

How do I feel right now? Mixed feelings actually. When I first came I mentioned that this is like a fairyland to me because there are so many things that are so different--- the people, the colossal architecture, the culture. 6 months later it still feels like a fairyland. I am certain that when I reach Singapore and lay in my bed for the first time, it would seem as if I have woken up from a dream and that I never truly left. And it would be a good dream. I know that I am going to miss all these guys I have worked with.

To Scott, I have said that I can never imagine you as a teacher. You are so funny when you are angry and you are angry all the time.
To Santiago, I admire you because you are the badboy I have always wanted to be but I know I can never be.
To Ning, someday I am going to come back and beat you in one of the sports. I will wait till you are old. That is evil but it’s the only way I would win you.
To Jeff, you never fail to light up my spirits haha. It’s terrific to have someone who can appreciate soccer as much as me, especially in this country. See you in England for Arsenal Vs Liverpool!
To Brett, why do you hate soccer?
To Joe, all the best for your campaign to trim down. I would swap places with you. Anytime. Sometimes I feel that I am getting so thin I would become smaller and smaller and suddenly disappear from this world.
To Ellen, once again I have to say that you are the probably the grandmother with the most knowledge in IT.
To Govind, how come I don’t see you regularly at the Toastmasters? Hahaha, just kidding.
To Ajay, it’s nice to meet someone who topped the schools in India. You are one of the smartest guys I have met. You would make a good project manager.
To Brian, any moments with you is never boring. You are funny when you are relaxed and you are funny when you are stressed too. You earned my respect because I know you have the toughest job in this department.
To David, I can’t think of having a better manager to start my career with. You are a passionate manager who is articulate, driven and conscientious. Sometimes I think you have Confucian values but it’s probably due to your upbringing than the influence of Yuan. You could have easily said no to having foreign interns because no one would want to manage people who would complain to you about the weather, the food and their landlords. But you didn’t. Thanks for giving Weng Chew and me the chance to work here and I hope you can continue extending that invite to more young Singaporeans.

May all the nice memories, never go fuzzy with this blog.

American English

2007-04-08T17:27:00.000-07:00

Here is a lesson or two in American English

1) The "ti" in anti-social, multi-language is commonly pronounced "tie".

2) When someone tells you to "sleep on it", it means give yourself some time to think about the issue.

3) They pretty much use past tense for every sentence. "Do you want to have lunch" becomes "Did you want to have lunch" and that often made me ponder whether I wanted to have lunch before. "Can you do this for me" becomes "Could you do this for me", which isn't exactly wrong because 'could' is used here for politeness.

4) Some people say "take it easy" when bidding farewell. When they say that to you it doesn't mean that they think you have a big problem you can't get around with. "Take it easy" is almost like a "bye bye".

5) "My folks" refers to parents. I will try calling my parents that when I get home.

6) "If I was.." is used instead of "If I were...".

I think I will still stick to British English.

Staying Connected

2007-04-01T16:41:00.000-07:00

When Aunt Jenny came here almost 20 years ago it wasn’t easy, for the only source of information she had was the embassy itself. Calls to US were also costly. She somewhat survived through all of that. In comparison technology advancements allowed me to gather information via ways which would have been unthinkable in Aunt Jenny’s days. I booked my flight ticket online, mapped my route from the JFK to the Grand Central and then to my house and workplace through various websites and even had a bird’s eye view of the locations via satellite images. I knew beforehand that the bus would only be one block away, and that there would be eateries and barber around the corner. I could also see the pictures of the house and the room that I would be living in. The bottom-line: there were absolutely no question marks in my passage here. Auto-roaming makes me reachable at all times and I can call my family and friends at anytime and talk to them for as long as I want because VOIP is so inexpensive.

With all these technology in place one would have thought that it would be easy to stay in touch with Singapore. I realized that it is not. First and foremost, when I tried to listen to Mediacorp’s radio channels via the web browser, it detected that I have a foreign IP (for the non-tech pple, an IP is like an address) and it wouldn’t allow me to stream the radio. Disappointed, I registered with Mobtv. I was willing to pay a subscription fee to download the local drama series, yet again it slammed the door on me with a “We are sorry to inform you that we do not provide the service to foreign IP at this point in time. Thank you for your interest.”

I was desperate to get anything on Singapore and I could by reading the news from the web, but The Straits Times required a subscription fee to read the news and their feeds as well. (A news feed is brief textual news which you can subscribe to very much like you do for a magazine). The Straits Times implemented that a few years ago after realizing that people used its online news as a free substitute for the physical paper. I disapprove of such practice because online news should be provided to anyone, even if they are brief ones like feeds. By keeping all its internet news strictly to a subscription based model, The Straits Times is effectively shutting out traffic of netizens, and I have no doubt that this impacts its revenue from online advertisements too. It is, therefore, not surprising that ChannelNewsAsia and Zaobao are able to garner awards for being the websites with the most hits. Perhaps it is time that The Straits Times revises its business model and offers bits and pieces of news for free again. Every newspaper has a social responsibility to keep its citizens well-informed. A subscription fee only serves to divert netizens to other news sites and it doesn’t help that netizens are used to having free things (think Gmail, Blogger, Yahoo Photos, Wikipedia and YouTube). Having said that, poor Singaporeans do not have that many newspapers to turn to (I wouldn’t consider The New Paper to be one).

In April, the Singapore Government is collaborating with NYSA to host a Singapore Day in Bryant Park in NYC. The Singaporeans in New York can catch up with their homeland while enjoying Singapore’s entertainment and food. In order to reach out to everyone here the website awards an air ticket to New York for those who provide contacts of Singaporeans here. I provided my own contact on their website and I wonder whether that makes me eligible for that air ticket? Allow me to daydream a little bit. Anyhow the country recognizes the problem of Singaporeans forgetting their roots after working for a few years abroad and they have also set up a website for overseas Singaporeans. Thumbs up for their efforts but I think more can be done. If you want Singaporeans to desire to come back an annual one day event wouldn’t do. More needs to be done to evoke their feelings and it is easier to do that today with technology. The web portal for Singaporeans is more of a pull strategy so those who bother to browse the website are those who bother to come back so it is, in fact, still not reaching out to the “quitters”. In my opinion these are what OSU can do:

• Obtain the emails of all Singaporeans who would be going away for 6 months or more, this on a voluntarily basis of course.
• Sign them up automatically for newsletters from the respective overseas Singapore Association.
• Email each of them a “Goodie Bag” which contains a free subscription to Mobtv, Straits Times Interactive and a Singapore Widget sitting pretty on their desktop pushing news and radio content to them.
• Have a web service that streams news in video
• Remove all foreign IP restrictions. Rave up the server bandwidth and make them sign in with their Sing pass if necessary.

It is time to truly stay connected.

(uploaded album "Niagara Falls")

People on the Bus

2007-03-23T16:59:00.000-07:00

As time passes by the many faces on the bus becomes increasingly familiar. These people take the same good old 14 as me everyday at 8:37 and there are many interesting characters. There is the Justin Timberlake lookalike who reads everyday. The book he carries look more or less to me every time. Maybe it's part of a long series or maybe he is just reading too slowly. There is a black man who is always dressed in a hood and sits right at the back, gesturing and mouthing the lyrics from the songs of his PSP. He seems to enjoy his music a lot. He might be the next Eminem. Then there is the beautiful Hispanic lady who gets off 2 stops after I board the bus. Whenever she alights every guy would be looking at her butt and I bet she must have felt tremendously uncomfortable with her butt being threatened. Later I found out that she works at the supermarket as a cashier. There is an Indian couple who are always bundled up during the winter and I always wonder why they do not speak to each other during the entire bus trips. Most intriguing is the young lady who is always dressed in a Gothic style and her make up is Gothic as well and if she is going to college in that dressing how do the professors possibly put up with that? Sometimes at the bus stop an old lady called Sue would appear and preach to me about the goodness of Jehovah Witness. She passed me these books and articles which I hardly read but I still placed them on my shelf to show my appreciation for her efforts even though they ultimately ended up in the dustbins. What a waste of trees. I told her that my name is Wayne but somehow she always insisted on calling my Chinese name and I would have liked to tell her that calling my Chinese name doesn't make her any closer to me although she had an impeccable pronunciation. I would also like to tell her about the concept of 彼岸 and 此岸 but I didn't want to risk having an argument about religion.

And then there are the weird people. The grumpy lady who wouldn't let me sit next to her because she feels more comfortable with more space. Oh yeah I feel more comfortable with more space too and who doesn't? Another grumpy lady would shout at anyone who speaks too loudly and she would go in a squeaky voice,"The whole bus doesn't have to hear your conversations." There is a guy who has a long face and he intimidated me the most in the beginning because he was always trying to talk to me. Later I realised he talks to everyone, waves to every passing vehicle and has the intelligence of a 7 year old.

"It is a nice weather today ya? Not so cold." he would say,"I woke up late this morning you know. Brushed my teeth and then I saw the time and I knew I was late!"
I replied, "Oh is it."
"The bus is late today. Always late. You know why? It's the school buses!" he would say.
I replied, "Oh is it."
"Looking at the bus! Haha. Haha. Look at the bus!" he would say.
I replied. "Oh ok."
He might be irritating and restless but at least he doesn't hurt anyone.

Sometimes I would sit next to the intern who is doing his PHD and would be here for only 3 months. He is an extremely thin fellow with a thick facial hair that made him look so much older than he actually is. There was once I saw him run through the woods at an amazing speed and I asked him whether he did that because the cold was too much for him and he was eager to get to shelter. He said, "Well, I see it this way. If I can run from one place to another. Why should I walk?"

A long pause. My mouth wide opened.

I was too dumbfounded to reply to that.

There was another time I asked him about the things he did in the weekends. He said, "Do you know about quantum cryptography? It is cryptography using the quantum phenomena of quantum entanglement to detect eavesdropping." He added ,"That is my interest and I hope to make a breakthrough in this field. I also looking at formulating everyday problems in mathematical formulas because once we can do that, we can input them into the computers and computers would churn out software solutions that are absolutely free of bugs and other human errors."

A long pause. My mouth wide opened again.

He asked,"So what is your hobby?"

I didn't know what to reply. Any hobby would have seemed childish next to quantum cryptography. I said finally,"I read."

In a way I respect these kind of guys. They are not exactly equipped with social skills but they are focused and highly intelligent and they make a difference to this world. I could have been talking to the next Einstein for all I know.

(upload album "Saint Patrick's Parade")

The Banquet part 2

2007-03-11T07:25:00.000-07:00

My conversation with XXXX was interrupted by #####. “Hi, I need 2 persons to sit with our consulate and ambassador for Singapore. How would both of you like to do that?” she asked. I would have liked to ask her what difference was between a consulate and an ambassador but decided against it. I didn’t know anyone anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal for a change of tables and we promptly moved to sit with the consulate and his family. The consulate was a bubbly fellow. After our introduction he started recounting the number of cities he had been living in --- Cairo, Brussels, Geneva, Kuala Lumpur to name a few --- and he revealed the MFA relocated them every three years. It certainly sounded like a fantastic job to be in. Which was his favourite? It was Cairo.

XXXXX asked, "So did MFA prepare you before your trip to each country?"
"I was from the older generation you know, so they didn't do anything like that. But I wouldn't be surprised if they do nowadays haha," said the consulate with his infectious laugh.
Yes the younger generation is better off in a way, but I wondered if the consulate knew that it isn't easy to get into MFA nowadays. I heard from HoeHoe that they made him go through all those grammer and writing tests and it felt like being in elementary school all over again.

The ambassador and a manager from SIA joined us. The dinner then started with a lion dance led by an old Chinese master. The lion dance was amateurish, very much like the one I saw in Washington DC. You couldn’t really expect the lion to perform any stunts when there was hardly any space to move around. But I have to give credit to the master who was hitting the drums with so much zest that it livened up the atmosphere. In fact, I thought he was the only one in the troupe to be showing that much enthusiasm. After the dance the ambassador was asked to address the crowd. He said, “This year is the year of the Boar and people born in the year of the boar are supposed to have good luck. Hillary Clinton and our very own Mr Lee Kuan Yew were born in the year of the Boar and before I ‘boar’ you further let us commence the dinner.”

During the dinner we were entertained by a skillful mc who quizzed us on our very own country. If you are reading this maybe you would like to test your knowledge too. I provided the answers at the end of this blog entry.

1) Who is the first Chief Minister?
2) How many Merlions are there in Singapore?
3) What is the name of our tallest building?
4) If I have to go to Sentosa which MRT station would I go to?
5) What is the oldest departmental store in Singapore?
6) Name 3 of our Presidents.
7) Name the first televison drama.

As the night progressed our consulate belted out a song titled “You were always on my mind”. I think he did really well on the song and the whole time he was looking at his wife while he was singing. When the song ended there were screams for an encore from the crowd. Meanwhile I discovered XXXXX was from the same junior college and university as me. We took the same subject combination in junior college too. Even though she was a few batches earlier it helped that we share a common background because that meant we had more things to talk about. The manager’s wife asked if XXXXX was my wife. I would have liked to think that she said that because XXXXX looked young. In any case the manager and his family were invited because he was in charge of the east coast operations and he had sponsored air tickets for a return trip to Singapore for the lucky draw and auction. The market price of the ticket was $1600 USD and the starting bid was $1000. It didn’t seem right to me because $600 was too little ground to play with and when the winner walked off with a bid of $1500 she had only shaved off a pathetic $100 and I didn’t really think it was worth the effort.

I told the manager I had all the good things to say about his company because the 22 hours trip didn’t kill me though it nearly did and when I recently changed the date for my flight the call was smooth and efficient.
“Oh. Thank you. Not all my customers say that.” he said.
“I am sure I am one of the many hahaha.”
SIA has a huge presence here and many of my friends here are well aware of the brand name. I have more than once chanced upon its advertisements in local business magazines. It certainly is doing a good job.

When it was time to go XXXXX offered me a ride to the Grand Central. I was touched because new acquaintances are not usually that nice. So this was how it felt to be helped by a fellow countryman. While I was on the train I realized that even after all that chat, I still didn’t know the difference between a consulate and an ambassador.

Answers to the quiz:
1) David Marshall. He was the architect for our economy wasn’t he?
2) You would have guessed 2 like I did. But there are 5. Where are the rest? I don’t know, but I suspect some rich men might have bought them and put them in their gardens.
3) Republic Plaza. It’s somewhere in the CBD.
4) HarbourFront.
5) Tangs.
6) Well if you don’t know this you are not a Singaporean.
7) The Awakening, aka 雾锁南洋

The Banquet part 1

2007-03-04T12:07:00.000-08:00

I got in touch with New York Singapore Association (NYSA) before I came, hoping that by participating in their activities, it would offer a glimpse into the lives of Singaporeans here. I must have got in contact with the inappropriate email though, because it was the President of NYSA herself replying the emails. The first email was for a social gathering at a pub in Manhattan. I looked at the date. It fell on a Thursday. I replied the email, “I am sorry that I cannot make it as I am staying in upstate and I have work commitments.”

A month later, there came another email with an invite for Thanksgiving celebration. Again it fell on a day where it was definitely too much of an inconvenience to go to the city. I had to reject the invitation again with much regrets. By this time I had already dismissed any hopes of joining their activities.

In Feb I got yet another email from the President. This time it was for CNY celebration in March and it was supposed to be the biggest event of the year for NYSA. My God, this President was actually doing her job at the very ground level and she was so persistent with these invitations that it would have been very bad of me to put this off again. Moreover the day was more favourable this time --- it was a Saturday. No harm accepting the invitation, I thought, even though as a non-member it was slightly expensive.

“You can pay us by check,” she wrote back.
Ohh. I had no means to do that. As Brian would have put it, I have no freaking banking services here to give any freaking checks and would you be ok if I pay you in freaking cash on that night?
“Yes that would be fine,” she wrote again.
Nice lady indeed. Thank you.

And so I turned up that night expecting to see an old lady as President with a couple of tables. It certainly wasn’t what I had in mind. I saw at least 20 tables with a stage in the middle very much like what a typical Chinese banquet would be. I was the early bird, so I sat at the seat reserved for me and the first thing that captured my attention was the big LCD televisions. They were showing the recorded tv programme of Mediacorp artistes celebrating the CNY in Singapore. So I saw GuoLiang, Hong HuiFang, Jamie Teo and these many familiar faces of Mediacorp playing games and busking in the atmosphere of Chinatown Singapore. Now before this I didn’t think I was homesick. I didn’t think of home that much to be frank. But that night I found myself glued to the tv, my senses savouring the sights and sounds of the programme. The more I watched the more my misery grew, and suddenly I felt an impulse to just catch the next flight home. So as much as I would like to put on a brave front and say, “I don’t miss Singapore at all. NY is the gateway to freedom and if I have a chance I would stay here forever.” The fact remains that, I miss Singapore. I truly do.

My misery was cut short by a lady. She said, “Hi, I am ####### and I am the President of NYSA. Are you here alone?”
I looked up to see who she was. A young, elegant lady with a huge smile and she was dressed in a beautiful traditional Kebaya.
“Hi, I am Wayne. You are the one in contact with me all this while? Nice to meet you and that’s right I am alone tonight,” I said.
“Could you help us with the packing of the gift bags? It would be great if you can because we are shorthanded here and I would have to prepare my speech if you would excuse me.”

Ok, so an early bird didn’t warrant any early bird awards and early birds had to help with the packing. In any case I didn’t intend to be an early bird because all I wanted to do was to get away from the chill outside. Well, it was great to lend a helping hand even though I wanted to continue watching the tv that made my misery grow and grow. So what do I have to do? Pack the gift bags? Put in a propaganda magnet? 2 mandarin oranges? Nice. 3 golden chocolate ingots? Why 3? Is it not a pair supposed to have better connotations?

As soon as I am done with the packing I went back to my seat. There was this kid that came up to me and introduced himself. We chatted and he rattled on about how pleased he was to be studying here and joining NYSA activities. What am I doing here? I am on training for my company for 6 months. I didn’t want to go into the complications of getting a government sponsorship that allows me to work for others. That didn’t made sense to most people and I didn’t think it would to this kid. “It must be pretty tough for you not to be able to bring your wife and child over,” he said. OK, so I looked old enough to him to have a child. By the way kid, I didn’t understand why as a year one undergraduate you would have to have a namecard. You have a business? Networking is important but I wouldn’t try to come across as unnatural. And why would you want to spend a bomb on your education using your parents’ hard-earned money? Unless of course your dad is like a Rockfeller. I would rather use that to buy a HDB flat you know. Hope you can understand these things when you grow up. I thought. Good luck to you.

Before long another Singaporean lady joined us. She told us she had been here for 4 years and she had a wine shop in Manhattan and was invited because she had sponsored 3 cases of wine. In her 4 years she had been mugged 5 times and she didn't know what was it about her face that made her seem so vulnerable. One mugger even asked for her MacDonald's. I bet she forgot to ask him how he would like an upsize of fries.

Another lady sat down at the table and started reading her magazine. I didn't want to appear unfriendly so I made my introduction. She was called XXXXX and was a banking associate and she asked me whether I was here to study. OK, now I looked young to her...

...to be continued

Arrgh I hate to fall

2007-02-26T19:02:00.000-08:00

My daily walk through the woods

The Little Things That Matter

2007-02-25T16:51:00.000-08:00

My stay in America has not been without its issues. These problems, when they occur, do cause me quite an amount of stress. In retrospect I have realised that these are actually little things such as walking and heat that we have often taken for granted. Here I present the list, in no particular order, that I have grappled with.

#1. Slipping on the Ice
It was naive of me to think that a nice pair of boots can solve this problem. I must have slipped like 6 times last week and each resulted in me falling backwards with a loud thud. I have learned that the ground is most slippery after a snow sleet and when the ice starts to melt away, and that for better friction you would have to step into the shoe imprints laid down by others when the snow was still soft. There were times I had to climb at a painfully slow pace to my house from the bus stop, even though the distance is only 100 meters.

#2. Getting caught with no heat
There was a particular windy day when I heaved a sigh of relief after reaching the house, only to find that the central heating wasn't working. I asked my landlord, "Has the gas for the heat ran out?"
He doubted me for a moment and went downstairs to check the heat in the kitchen. It was working. "Well, it is slow sometimes. Give it more time and the temperature would be up," he said, brushing off my suspicions and went back to his work.
I waited for half an hour and checked the thermostat. Instead of going up the temperature went down. I grabbed my coat and alerted my landlord again.
Finally it dawned on him what had actually happened. Apparently he put the heat to a low during the day in an attempt to save on the gas. When you do that, the water in the pipes freezes and no water to the radiator means no heat. Suddenly there were clouds in our heads, as we pondered the cold night in wait for us.
"Well, it happens," I said. It was more of a reassurance to me than to him that everything would be ok. I climbed into bed wearing my coat and covered myself fully with the blankets. Now I know how the beggars I saw in Boston Park felt. No, I think they had it worse, because my sleep didn't turn out to be too bad. In the middle of the night my landlord moved the temporary electric radiator into the room. I appreciate the gesture, but the electric one gave off a "ZEAAAA" sound all night and that made me wonder whether it would be better to do without the heat at all.

#3. The ATM refuses to dispense money
Weng Chew told me the ATM in the company premises would work. Well, it didn't for me. I attempted 5 times and all of that turned up "Transactional Error". Eventually I found one near my home that did.

#4. The ATM eats up my money
Even worse than not getting money is to see your money disappear into thin air. The 5 transactions that went wrong were debited from my account when I checked using internet banking. It was highly stressful seeing hundreds of dollars lost in cyberspace. Eventually they rolled back the errors after a week. Thankfully.

#5. The Internet Connection
Internet connectivity allows me to write this blog, do internet banking, watch soccer gamecast, read channelnewsasia, write emails, talk to my family. (No, I can't listen to Singapore's radio channels, for some reason they don't support US ip.) The first thing on my mind when I moved into here was to set up the connection. When it didn't work I was sweating. Even though I am a computer engineer it doesn't mean I can fix all kinds of computer problems. People tend to have that notion, I realised. In the end I did the hard reset on the router, and used the old WEP encryption instead of WPA. WEP is weaker, but it should be enough security for my landlord. Whatever. When I finally got it working my landlord said, "Wayne. You are a genius!" Yeah, he has that notion too. Sigh.

(I thank Eugene for showing me this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-DWGF9hzIo that had me roaring in laughter and gave me the impetus for writing this entry.
Uploaded album "Washington D.C")

Letter to my Landlord

2007-02-12T16:47:00.000-08:00

Dear landlord,

first and foremost I would like to thank you for providing me accommodation for these 6 months. Our tenant and landlord relationship has progressed to one of friends. I could never have foreseen that. I know for sure there is no perfect landlord in this world, for we all have our differences and peculiarities. No one would ever willingly wish to live with a stranger for 6 months, as we all value our privacy and space. The prospects of making a few hundred dollars per month to help you pay the mortgage is too enticing, and that I think, removes all your reservations in renting out the room which you, as you have said before, would rather keep for your overnight guests.

When I first arrived you were nice to drive me from my hotel to the house. But I had a shock when I entered your bathrooms. I saw gay magazines that had covers like "Which celebrities would you prefer to have a homosexual relationship?", "Top gay fashion for the month" and "The ins and outs of gay sex". I knew then that you are a homo. I wasn't petrified because I have had bad experiences with gays. Quite on the contrary it was because I had no prior experience with homos. I was fearing the unknown. I had no friends that were homos and so I had completely no idea how you would behave. Do gays like every guy that they see? Did the years in the Columbian monastery have any influence? Would you pounce onto me in the middle of the night? Do you have a partner? If you have, are you the "male" or the "female" or is there such a differentiation at all? Could you tell that I am straight and all I wanted to do was to see America, complete my internship and go home in one piece and would you allow me to do just that? I must admit that in the first few nights, the adjustment to the time difference was made worse by the preoccupation with those thoughts and the lack of a lock for my door. I could wake up to the sound of a pin dropping on the floor and I would peer at the door from time to time from the corner of my eye, keeping watch for the slightest movement. All that stress proved unnecessary, for you turned out to just like any other person.

There was a Saturday night when you were dressing up to go out and I asked in politeness, "So where are you going to?"
You replied in your Spanish accent, "I am going to this club in Queens where they have nice music and I could sit around and relax with my friends." You hesitated for a while and continued ,"Well. You know, it's a gay club. I would like to bring you there someday if you are curious."
I wonder, whether you said that to see if I were a homo, or were you just being polite. Whatever it was, frank openness is healthy and you should know by now that I am straight, because I deliberately left the swimsuit issue of 8 days on the table. I had to, just to make sure you get the idea. I told my friend I was afraid you would fall in love with me. She ridiculed, "Who do you think you are." I thought about it. She certainly had a point. Then again she warned that I shouldn't be using that red lip balm I bought without giving a second thought.

Dear landlord,

I am perplexed by the effort you take into decorating your house and making sure the bed is as flat as a pancake. You have paintings, photo frames and sculptures all over the place at the expense of precious space. It isn't practical to me. What is the point of having a table in the room when I can't use it because you have it decorated with a lamp, a set of old books, a clock and a pair of fairies. I also don't understand why you suddenly put up a cross with Jesus. Is that for decoration? Or are you trying to bless me? I would never know.

There were times when I would see you fall asleep in your couch, after spending hours in front of the tv alone. I felt pity for you because I know that despite your peculiarities you are inherently a good man. I read in 8 days that most dog owners receive love more that they give to their pets and thus they are selfish in a way. But you are different, as you didn't really intended to have your 2 dogs. You took them in after your friends found the homeless dogs wandering in a New Jersey jungle. How selfless is that? You also told me you worked hard to bring up your 2 younger siblings in Columbia. Your brother is now a politician. I respect you.

You asked me how much am I charging you for creating your cleaning company's website. I said,"Nothing." I wasn't trying to ingratiate myself with you. I believe we should do things out of goodwill sometimes. I admire you for being an entrepreneur and I am glad to be of help. Besides, wouldn't you agree that, more often than not, we don't see the immediate returns of our actions? We shouldn't be short-sighted.

When the first snow came I mentioned to you that I nearly slipped. You told me of a superstition that if I had slipped and fell in my first snow in America, I would have to stay in this country forever. I didn't slip, though you must have quite a few times apparently when you were first here.

Dear landlord,

by the time you read this I would have been back in Singapore for a few years. You would probably never have a chance to read this letter. But there is a slight possibility in this well-connected world that you will. If you are reading this, I just want to let you know that I am thankful for your friendship, and for providing me that comfortable queen size bed.

American Football

2007-02-05T15:54:00.000-08:00

In my desperate attempt to satisfy my cravings for soccer action I turned to Gamecast from Soccernet. If you realised that Gamecast broadcasts nothing but live minute textual updates of a match you would know how much I miss my soccer. When Gamecast didn't prove to be enough I went on to American Football. It's hard not to catch a game of football in America because they are showing it all day long on the weekends on tv. To be frank it bored me at first, for I had no idea what these big, burly guys were doing on the pitch.

It took me a few games to make sense of it. It can be very complicated if you go into each and every rule, so I chose to summarise the game in my own way. Basically a team has 4 chances, named "downs", to score points. If a team fails to score any points during these 4 downs, the other team would take over and do the attacking. A player can score points by kicking it into the goalposts or bringing it to the other end of the pitch, which is also called a "touchdown". A touch down is the equivalent of a goal in soccer because you don't really get that many. It is no less exciting than watch a soccer goal, for it is amazing when the player dances his way through a maze of oppositions and races to the finishing line.

To be frank I derive guilty pleasure from watching the big guys tumbling on top of one other. And when the referee isn't looking a player can throw a fist or two and get away with it. During halftime the concert band and cheerleaders would perform. The cheerleaders are all beautiful, but nobody can lay his finger on them for they are all taken by the big burly footballers. There was one match where a player scored the winning touchdown and in celebration he ran all the way to the sideline to propose to his cheerleading girlfriend on national tv. The next day the couple were on "Good Morning America" explaining how all that happened.

During SuperBowl it was even more spectacular, they had a stage in the middle of the pitch and a rock star was performing with exploding fireworks in the sky above. It certainly seemed more like a Singapore's National Day Celebration.

Despite all of the above I would take soccer over football anytime. Football is not a fluid game because the game is punctuated by downs and between each down the teams would have to take time to reorganise. As such a lot of commercials advertising chips and soda are shown. It is amazing how a one hour game can stretch into a 4 hour program and I wouldn't be surprised if half of that time went to commercials. Imaging having 2 hours of commercials. I don't need that many pee breaks.

Watching a Movie with War Veterans

2007-01-27T16:59:00.000-08:00

Iwo Jima is a Japanese volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean. Back in War World II it witnessed one of the bloodiest battle on the Pacific front. The invasion of the island by American marines was part of the plan to advance onto the Japanese mainland and it was one of the few battles in which the Americans suffered more casualties than its opposition. Tadamichi Kuribayashi, who commanded the defence, knew that he had no chance of overcoming an invasion force nearly five times bigger. In an attempt to inflict as many casualties as he could, he ordered the defence to dig deep into the soft volcanic soil and allowed the Americans to swarm the landing beach before commencing fire. The war is best remembered by the Americans for the photograph "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" which depicts 5 marines and a navy corpsman putting up an American Flag on top of Mount Suribachi. The photo won a Pulitzer prize and was immortalized by the sculpture which is now located in Arlington Cemetery in Washington D.C.

I have been a fan of Clint Eastwood's movies ever since I watched his "Million Dollar Baby". This guy might be old, but with age comes talent and he sure has his way of making his audience feel for the characters in the movies. "Flags of Our Fathers" portrays the anguish of the navy corpsman John Bradley, who was dragged into the limelight to sell war bonds after raising the flag on Iwo Jima. His silence on the war to his family and everyone else after he retired from service speaks aloud of his belief that "the real heroes are the ones who died on Iwo Jima". "Letters from Iwo Jima", on the other hand, was shot from the Japanese perspective. It narrates how the Japanese soldiers were torn between serving the Emperor and returning to their families. War movies almost always tell one side of the story. Clint Eastwood covers both sides brilliantly with these 2 films that were shot back to back.

It is regrettable that "Letters from Iwo Jima" wasn't shown in many of the theaters in New York. The reasons being it was unable to draw crowds due to the lack of American content and that it was shot with a lower budget compared to its sibling. After much searching I managed to find one isolated theater and was pretty surprised by the demographics of the audience--they were all old people with white hair. Most were couples and it warmed my heart to see them holding hands and walking into the theater. With almost 10% of the population in the war at its peak, I have no doubts that most of these guys must have been war veterans or had some family members in it. Some might even have been on the soils of Iwo Jima.

There was one night I was catching "Shame Shame Shame"(that's right, it has this ridiculously simple title that works pretty well) on Fox TV news. It is a program that tries to highlight and publicise injustice in the society. Most of the time it features restaurant owners who have not paid their workers for months. That night, it showed war veterans fighting for the right to open a road which led to a sculpture they had built there. Their intent was to let people drive up to the memorial easily. The road had been blocked with barricades by a nearby condominium who wanted the road to be used as a playground for the residents. These war veterans laid their lives for the country, and yet they were not even allowed to have a road.

I look forward to seeing the Iwo Jima War Memorial in Washington D.C.

(Uploaded album "Museums and First Snow". I try to name the paintings and artists, but I have a failing memory.)

The Infatuation with iPod

2007-01-15T18:57:00.000-08:00

I knew iPod is a big market leader before I came over. I couldn't be more wrong because iPod doesn't occupy a large portion of the market. It is the market. I can't see the presence of Creative at all in New York. The big electronic chain stores are not selling them. There are no advertisements. People are not using them. When I asked my colleagues whether they knew anything about Creative and iRiver I got blank faces. And before I could start giving them an education in other mp3 brands they quickly moved on to other topics. They are not being unfriendly, they are just not in the least interested in anything else but iPod.

Owning an iPod here is almost as essential as owning a car here (yes every person has a car). David has got a 30GB white, Brian has a 30GB black and Jeff just got his 4GB black nano. My silver, out-of-production 4GB mini is the oldest here and I can't help but feel that it creates a common bonding among us. There were times when we would sit around in the office discussing the beauty and flaws of Apple products. When Apple announced iPhone, Steve Jobs had us glued to his recorded presentation in San Francisco and you could see us drooling over the new gadget. During Christmas Brian handed out iPods like the Chinese would give out Ang Baos. His 8 year old daughter got a pink mini which makes her iPod ranking equivalent to mine, his wife got a 30GB and his 16 year old son got a 30GB video. The truth is, America is in love with iPod, and a very deep one it is.

David recently launched an "Innovation Client can Feel" campaign and under this project he would try to get people in the company to have a taste of Web 2.0 software such as Digg, Flickr, Yahoo Widgets, RSS, Podcasts, Second Life and such. The people selected would be known as "Innovation Champions" and each of them would get a 30GB black iPod Video free of charge. Imagine the delight on their faces. The only people that wouldn't be so affected are the directors and managers because they can afford tons of iPods anyway hahaha.

I can already hear the crowd at the stores. iPhone anyone?

A Conversation with D

2007-01-08T16:01:00.002-08:00

In the last weeks of 2006 the office was largely empty. People were enjoying their long vacation and most wouldn't be back till the new year. D and me found time to have this conversation.

W: So are you not going to apply for American citizenship?
D: I don't think so. Haha I wouldn't like my son to get drafted into the Army.
W: Yup, I heard on the news that there is a slight possibility Bush might put the draft in place to send more troops to Iraq. But the Democrats have taken over the congress and they might have something else in mind.
D punched his fists in the air in a sign of victory.
slight pause...
D: Sometimes I like to get a bit philosophical. I remember that when I first started work I was thinking about the work I was doing.
slight pause...
D: I was involved in software development but looking at the grand scheme of things, the work that I was doing was insignificant to the people in this world. I wonder how much benefits I am delivering from my work.
W: That is precisely what I am thinking at the moment. That is why I want to go into BCS when I go back to Singapore, so that I can help the people in different industries reap the benefits of IT.
D: Well, even if you are helping the banks for example, do we really need banking in the first place? After all it is something invented by Capitalism, a system which is flawed in many ways. Capitalism creates so much needs that we derive our self worth from the material things. People don't feel happy unless they drive big cars, have big houses and wear branded goods.
W: That I agree.
D: Sometimes I feel that the sales people in Gap might actually be bringing more benefits to people than me.
W: That is probably because they have people-oriented jobs. We are still delivering in indirect ways I guess.
W: Think of it this way, we may not be smart enough to do things like inventing planes and discovering a cure for AIDS and make the world a better place, but we can make a difference to those around us, like your parents or your children.
D: That reminds me. Do you remember the grouchy woman we met in the cafeteria today? I don't understand why people do that. My son, he has this innate character of trying to bring happiness to those around him. If someone gives him a sweet in school, he would ask for one more for his sister. And I don't think he is conscious of his behaviour.
D: I am not saying that my daughter is a bad person, but she doesn't have this in her. If she gets a sweet she would be happy. If she gets another she would be like "Great! Now I have two!".
W: Do you think your son would retain this character when he grows up?
D: I don't know. I certainly hope so.
slight pause...
D: Anyway why are we worrying about things that we can't control when we can be happily doing ibm widgets? Hahaha.
W: Haha, I am glad we have this conversation because now I know I am not the only one thinking about such things. I tend to think too much.

What are you working for today?

(Uploaded album "Countdown 2007")

Skiing in Delhi

2006-12-27T19:47:00.000-08:00

I am having the "Currency Exchange Effect". The Effect explains the phenomenon that when a person changes his currency for a stronger currency, he is under the delusion that prices are lower even though they are exactly the same. That is precisely what happened when I bought my ski pants to get ready for the Christmas skiing in Delhi, which is in upstate New York. I am already in upstate, Delhi is even further upstate and the further you get up north, the colder it gets. I bought the ski pants for 29 dollars and it seemed so cheap I bought it without any second thoughts. As I walked out of the shop it dawned on me that the price was 45 singapore dollars and suddenly it didn't seem so cheap anymore. I have to constantly remind myself to convert prices back to Singapore dollars before making any purchases in future.

I have done ice skating before and although I wouldn't say that I am those who can skate around the rink at monstrous speed , I can manage pretty well. At least I can brake and braking is important. If you can't brake in any snow sports you cannot slow down. If you can't slow down you can only get faster and the next thing you know you are hurting yourself or other people you knock into.I can't brake in skiing. Not with the slopes. Not with the most gentle slopes.

When I put on my boots I felt like a penguin. Clumsy was the word. It wasn't easy to walk in ski boots, and I was completely rooted when I slotted them into the ski boards. Well, not actually. I did manage to move, only uncontrollably. There was a gentle slope and I started moving towards a 5 year old kid standing right in front of me. Shit! In that split second I knew I had to do something to avoid hitting that boy. I didn't know how to stop, so I had to make myself fall to the side. I missed that boy by a few inches. Phew. When I looked up at him he had a blur look. He was almost smiling back to me. I doubt he had any sense of the danger he just averted, but the parents were seething.

Once I got to know how to get moving a little and braking a little, I was presented with yet another challenge--to get myself up the "lift" which would bring me to the top of the slope. The "lift" resembles a cable car. It doesn't stop for skiers to get on. Skiers would have to go with the flow: to ski to the position in between 2 seats and wait for the next seat to bring them up. How could I possibly slot myself in when I couldn't even move easily? It takes perfect estimation too and as I expected I was too slow and I got knocked down by the incoming seat before I could get in position. They had to stop the "lift" for me and I kept apologising profusely. Once I got on it I wondered how I was going to get down. When I approached the end the service man shouted,"Lift up your pole!"
"Pole? What pole? You mean my pair of skis?"
"Ok. Obviously you don't know what I am talking about," the man grunted and there was an apparent impatience in his voice. He stopped the "lift" again and lifted up my restraining bar to let me get off. I wished I had the guts to tell him I call that a bar, not a pole. Sometimes instructions don't make sense and you have to rely on common sense. I wished I had.

Brian's 19 year old son, Marcus, is a pro snow-boarder. Snow boarding is more difficult than skiing. He is a pro, so that makes him many many levels more skillful than me. He completed four laps and I completed one. Brian told me he was worrying I would get stuck up the slope and he would have to send rescuers up for me. I was quietly glad he didn't have to. Haha, even though it was tough and I got a few knocks I totally enjoyed the experience.

(uploaded album "Christmas in Delhi")

Phantom of the Opera

2006-12-19T18:25:00.000-08:00

It started with a auction. There were people dressed in clothes from the last century and they were bidding for an toy monkey which would dance and make music with its cymbals. The monkey's significance I would realise later in the show. An old man in a wheelchair won the bid, and next on the auction list was a enormous chandelier from the opera house. As soon as they unveiled the chandelier it swung out with full force from the stage to the audience in the orchestra seats. For a moment I thought it would almost hit the crowd, but it went up all the way to the ceiling of the theater. If Phantom wanted an start with an impact then it had certainly achieved its aim.

What a way to start a musical. The rest of it didn't let me down either. Most notable were the fantastic props and songs. There was such a large variety of props I could never get tired of marveling at them. It was almost like a magic show because you could see a scene and you wouldn't have the least idea how they did it. Of course I understand the chandelier was raised by cables, but how do you explain the underground waterway scene where there were hundreds of candles raising from below the stage? or the boat that seemed to sail without any water on the stage? or the manner the Phantom's eyes could spit fire like he was an X-men? or the fact that he could disappear in a flash and appear immediately in another part of the stage? And then there was the music by this genius called Andrew Lloyd Webber. There wasn't just one song that was nice. There were "Think of Me", "Music of the Night", "All I ask of You", "Phantom of the Opera", "Wish You were Here" and many, many more that I would like to name them here if I could remember their names.

I particularly like the way it ended, where the Phantom, despite unrequited love, gave his blessings to Christine and Raoul and overcame by grief, disappeared in his cavern and left behind his mask, and his toy monkey. Cool.

(I captured the Broadway advertisements in the pictures=), and there is haha, finally more photos of the interior of the house )

Unrealised Dream

2006-12-13T18:39:00.000-08:00

Boston has Harvard University and MIT. I didn't know they are in Boston before so I decided to pay them a visit since they are easily accessible by subway. I have a friend who graduated with a double degree from MIT. Well, not exactly a friend but an acquaintance from military and who, by the way, topped the whole cohort for Junior College in my year.

The subway brought me to Harvard Square, a shopping area which catered to the students. There were restaurants, clothing stores, book shops and the square was bustling with students decked out in the nicest and sporty winter wear. The square was located in the heart of the university so I could imagine the students coming out to shop during their lesson breaks. The university was part of the town, but really the university was the town. The school itself was even more fascinating. Buildings were colonial and low-rised, and student hostels laid just next to the school libraries and classrooms. In the middle of a set of buildings would be a big green space called the yard. If it were summer I suppose students would busk in the sun reading books under the trees, and if they forgot to bring their teaching aids they could calmly walk barefooted back to their nearby hostels to get them. To add to the already beautiful scenery there was the Charles River cutting right through the university. This must probably be the most conducive environment to study in the world, and my photos didn't do it justice due to the snow.

MIT by the way, was made up of a pathetic small number of buildings. The buildings had no special architecture that could differentiate itself from the surrounding commercial buildings. One could walk into MIT and still wonder whether he was in MIT. Modern universities are built up and so concerned with using every piece of precious land that there is hardly any greenery and it is suffocating to the soul. Xianghua read a book called "The Pattern Language" and she told me human beings have this innate instinct to be close to nature and I think that is very true. That is why houses with a seaview are so expensively priced. A good summary of the book can be located here http://downlode.org/etext/patterns/

I left Harvard with a strong desire to get a place in it. It could be that Harvard overwhelmed me with its beauty, or it could be that I was trying to make up for an empty, unmemorable undergraduate experience in NTU.

It is snowing

2006-12-09T16:56:00.000-08:00

My first taste of snow wasn't in New York but in Boston. I went up to Boston with David for a developer's talk on SecondLife and I decided to stay there for 2 nights.

The temperature must have been around -1 deg, and the weatherman said it would feel like -10 with the gusts of wind. Dressed in a shirt, sweater, windbreaker, boots, 40 grams gloves and a Thinsulate snow cap, I thought I was well-equipped enough when I first stepped out of the hostel in the morning. After walking for 15 minutes on the streets I could feel my nose, cheeks and toes were numb. They went so numb I couldn't feel my toes and I wondered if they were still attached to my feet. I had this fear that my toes would come off like stalactites on a cave's celilings. Then there was this difficulty of taking pictures, as the cold wind bit my fingers as soon as I exposed them to snap the camera button. Most of the pictures turned out blurred due to my uncontrollable shaking. I had to take twice of every scene to make sure at least one of them turned out ok. I couldn't stay in the open for too long and everytime I see a Dunkin Donut's (A fast-food restaurant with donut meals) I would seek refuge for a half hour break of hot coffee and donuts. I ended up having 5 cups of coffee, and it's a personal record I am not too proud of. I couldn't finish the sightseeing as a result of those breaks.

I was down at Boston Common admiring the garden when the first flakes of snow fell. They were tiny flakes that danced in the winds and if you didn't look carefully you might actually miss them. Some were caught on my sleeves and I peered at them for a while before I blew them off back into the sky. I reached a conclusion that I like snow, at least for now. Snow doesn't make you wet like rain does, and when it falls to the ground it doesnt make a noisy splattering sound. And you can play with them, though that day's snow wasn't enough for me to make a snow ball I still had fun blowing them off my sleeves.

Note: Due to the upload limits of Flickr I decided to switch to Yahoo!Photos which has unlimited storage. The link is on the right navigator. I have uploaded the pictures of Boston. Enjoy=)

Thanksgiving

2006-11-26T19:49:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving was on Thursday and to the North Americans this festival is as important as Christmas. Thanksgiving is about family gathering and Christmas is more for the kids. New York City celebrates by having a parade named the Macy's Parade. Macy is a really old departmental store in midtown Manhattan and it is apparent from the the type of escalators they have. The escalators look so antique you could take a piece and sell it off in a shop. Macy claimed to be the biggest store in the world. Well, maybe it was in the past, but now I think it is only a small fraction of Singapore's Takashimaya. Macy started the parade a long time ago and a main draw of it are the gigantic rubber balloons that come in the shapes of Garfield, Snoopy, Big Bird and even Pokemon. When I say gigantic I really mean it as the balloons are 2 stories high. There were incidents when a balloon would veer off course because of the winds and hit a lamp post and injure spectators.

The parade would start at 9am and last till 12am, so I got up really early at 6am that day. When I opened the door to check the weather I saw that it was raining heavily. It was the biggest rain I have seen since I came. I figured even if I could reach NYC I wouldn't be able to take nice pictures anyway so I went back to bed and woke up later to watch the parade on the tv. I felt really sad that I couldn't attend. I have missed the NYC marathon and the Halloween parade and now I missed this one. It makes me wonder what the hell I am doing in New York if I couldn't catch the parades and I might not get another chance again. I am afraid that I would go back to Singapore without catching much of New York and to make things seem better I went online to buy a ticket for the "Phantom of the Opera". Of course that means I would be watching it alone but I don't care. When I watched Macy's Parade on tv I almost wanted to take pictures of the tv scenes. The next biggest upcoming event is the New Year countdown in Times Square and if I miss this one I am going to feel miserable forever.

In the very least I got to attend an American Thanksgiving dinner hosted by my boss. David's wife Yuan is a Chinese so the dinner was more of a mixture of American and Chinese food. There were Turkey, mashed potatoes, spaghetti, bacon, sprouts, fish and rice. A turkey is really a very big chicken. It is heavy and slippery and it really isn't something an amateur would try cooking. We had a bottle of white Riesling wine from Germany and the taste was fantastic. Its not as bitter as the cheap wine and not as sweet as the Ice wine. I do not really enjoy alcohol anymore but this wine is different from other alcohols. Riesling, I shall remember this word so that I can buy it next time.

My colleague Ning and his wife were there as well and they were from China so I decided to take them on for a game of table tennis after dinner. I should know better, for later I received a thrashing and a valuable lesson in table tennis. The table was located in the basement. The basement, was not a dark and eerie place. David had it furnished so it was like a play room for the children, and it was big and the table was a real table tennis table unlike the make shift one I had when I was young. When I was a kid my brother and me would join up 2 small tables to play table tennis in the balcony. The tables were usually the ones grandma used for placing offerings during praying and we would use books or bricks for a net. If you hit the ball too hard it would go flying out of the balcony window onto the platform on the 3rd floor and you would have to go running from the 8th floor to get it.

Ning's wife was skillful and Ning himself was even better. He applied top spins and bottom spins to his balls and kept me guessing and running in the wrong directions. When they served the ball they had this stance that screamed "I am an expert and you don't fool around with me". It didn't help that we were playing pairs and I had David as my partner. David was used to playing single player with his son, and after he hit the ball he would forget to back off to allow me in for the next ball. As he was a big guy I couldn't get around him to the ball. If there were a game that involves a racket twice the size of a tennis racket David would be up for it, so it was cute seeing his big hands handling a small ping pong bat. Nevertheless I have to give him credit for hitting some good balls hahaha.

When it was time to go Ning drove me back. He is really a nice and helpful guy and has a few peculiarities like not having a mobile phone and insisting on taking shortcuts when driving. His reason for not having a mobile phone is that he doesn't believe he is so important to be reached anytime, anywhere. As fate would have it we were struck with a punctured tire on the way home. It was still raining at midnight and it wasn't a nice feeling to be out in the cold at night. I kind of feel guilty for his punctured tire because if he wasn't trying to drive me back it wouldn't have happened, even though he said nails got in because he took shortcuts. We left the car at a petrol kiosk and Ning suggested I call his wife to drive and get us. I called with the Cingular network but the reception was poor. Tried as I might I couldn't get any reception. Fortunately I had my other auto-roaming phone with T-Mobile network and I was finally able to get through and Ning's wife got all of us home.

Well, we all need hand phones don't we?

David

2006-11-25T17:31:00.000-08:00

David is my boss and he is a Canadian, stands about 1.90m tall with ruffled brown hair and has a little pot belly. I do not know the difference between a Canadian and an American, perhaps except for the fact that Canadians end their sentences with an "aaa" sound. I don't think westerners can tell a China Chinese from a Taiwanese or a Singaporean from a Hongkonger too. I kind of knew my boss before I arrived in New York, because I searched him up on the internet. On Yahoo he had 300 plus hits, which is not surprising given that he is the corporate webmaster. I guess that makes him sort of a celebrity and these days you know you are famous only if you are able to find your name in Wikipedia.

On my first day at work he took me to the Toastmaster's club in IBM. I have heard about the toastmaster's before and it is a club where you can build your confidence in speaking and acquire presentation skills. These skills are important because when you speak you want to capture your audience's attention and get your points across efficiently though I never felt compelled enough to join one in Singapore when there were so many other things to do-- like learn the guitar. I procrastinated before and I am still doing it now. However, this offers me a fantastic opportunity to get a glimpse into the Toastmasters.

They would appoint two to three persons to present on any topic they wish but they would have to make use of a particular technique. David's topic for the day was "Web 2.0" and he was required to present to a "non-technical" crowd. He presented very fluently with the aid of powerpoint slides and I don't think it was difficult for him given his experience and that English is his first language. After the 3 speakers had spoken there were 3 respective evaluators who sang praises of the presenters. They didn't criticise too much and I think if they had any they might have put it across by passing them in the slip of paper containing their comments. Then there was a person who counted the redundant sounds such as the "ah"s and "eh"s and the unintended pauses and I find those helpful as I tend to speak with unnecessary sounds too. That "ah" counter certainly helps to keep you conscious of your sounds. Finally the president did her evaluation and the whole session lasted one hour during lunch time. There were noticeably more Asian faces than Caucasians. I suppose Asians want to brush up their English speaking skills at the same time whereas Caucasians should already be comfortable presenting in their first language and I wonder whether that is the case for me. Judging from the difficulties I have finding the right words during conversations with Mainland Chinese I certainly don't think I can hold a presentation in Mandarin well at all. That is something I should be ashamed of.

I like the way David engages in intellectual conversations. We were talking about the American reality shows during our first lunch session and he said most of the talk shows had weird characters because in a land as big as America you could really find any type of person. For example in The Jerry Springer Show you could have confessions that include a man admitting that he had married his horse, or a man who had a dedicated fetish for vomiting. I reflected,"In Singapore we do not have such shows."
"Oh, why do you think that is so?" David questioned and it sort of thrown me off guard because I didn't really think about any substantial reason that could attribute to it. I thought by asking that question he was most probably trying to figure out my character and thinking instead of being interested in the real answer. I managed to squeeze out one which sound reasonable to me.
"It's the nature of Singaporeans. We do not have that inquisitive nature and even the paparazzi cease to exist. That is also why a lot of celebrities like to settle in the country."
"That might be true, or it could simply be due to the fact that in a large country like America you could find any sort of people," said David with a straight face. He looks intelligent when he is in such a contemplative mood, and I think he is.

On one of the days on the bus I saw that the bus wasn't operating on Election Day. When I told David that I might have to work remotely in the house he was pretty much surprised that there were going to be no buses. "It all seemed so backwards to me," he lamented. "Buses ought to be operating on Election Day because the masses are going to need them. The only reason I can think of is that the politicians are trying to manipulate the results because the poor who take the buses may prefer the opposing party."

Sometimes we talk about George Bush and the situation in Iraq. David's opinion is that Bush may seem stupid to the masses, but underneath that stupidity is intelligence because Bush knows how to appeal to the people. When he says, "We are going in to uphold justice." or "We are going to stay the course.", these simple messages portray him as a hero and people love simple messages. In David's words, "People do not like politicians like John Kerry who elaborate on sophisticated policies that are not easy for the masses to understand." He found a clip on YouTube which brings across the point and you can find the clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXEb_YpKXU or you can search "Bush Script Writer" on the website.

I pretty much enjoy these conversations because they have depth and David always seems to be able to offer valuable insights.

My recipes

2006-11-16T18:28:00.000-08:00

新洲炒米粉

Ingredients
Mixed vegetables of beans and carrot
1 egg
beef cubes (can't find chicken cubes)
mexican chilli powder
soy sauce and sesame oil
mee fen

Cooking instructions
Soak the mee fen for 20 minutes in water. Pour in a little bit of oil into the pan. Fry the mixed vegetables and beef cubes before adding the egg. Stir the egg to break them into small pieces. Put soy sauce, sesame oil, salt and chilli powder and fry. Put in the mee fen and put in more soy sauce and sesame oil and fry. If it becomes too dry add some water. Serve when the mee fen is evenly browned.

Verdict
As good as the ones you can eat at any hawker center. And I am not kidding.

Seafood Pasta with Bockwurst Sausages

Ingredients
Cut pieces of squid, prawns and mussels
Parmesan cheese
Bottled tomato sauce
Spagetti
Beef bockwurst sauages

Cooking Instructions
Bring water in pan to boiling. Put in spagetti together with the squid, prawns and mussels and wait for 12 minutes. Drain the water and put the spagetti onto a plate. Next pour the tomato sauce into the pan and heat it. Pour the sauce over the spagetti. Top it with parmesan cheese. Heat the sausages in a microwave for 1 minute and serve.

Verdict
This is delicious enough if you add enough parmesan cheese.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients
oriental chinese noodle (amount that can fill your stomach)
spinach (never replace this with cabbage)
1 egg
1 chicken drumstick and 1 chicken thigh
mexican chilly powder (use chinese one if possible)
anchovy
soy sauce and sesame oil(very important)

Cooking Instructions
Pour water into pan. Heat up water till boiling. Put the chicken and the anchovy together with soy sauce and sesame oil. The sesame oil is key so please remember. Continue heating for 10 minutes. Next, add the egg and spinach and stir. Finally add the noodles. The yellow noodles are salty in nature so add just a little more salt. Wait for 5 minutes and serve with mexican chilly powder.

Verdict
This dish is not very nice. I think it would be better if I cooked it with curry so as to make curry chicken noodle.

A Typical Day

2006-11-10T18:31:00.000-08:00

In the morning on Friday I woke up at 7:38am and wondered why the handphone alarm didn't sound at 7:30. Most probably it did, but somehow I just switched it off unconciously and that might be due to the fact that I was still in the very dreams I was having every night since I came. Even though the dreams were weird I wasn't particularly disturbed by them. After all they were not nightmares at least and if you dream you are supposed to be in deep sleep isn't it? I liked sleeping in the nights here because it was all cool from the natural aircon and I didn't have to worry about the electricity bills at all hahaha.

Just the other day we had daylight saving and I had to adjust my time backwards by one hour. So if the sun was supposed to come up at 6:30 it would come up now at 5:30. I checked out the origin of daylight saving in Wikipedia and it said, "Governments often promote it as an energy conservation measure, on the grounds that it allows more effective use of natural sunlight resource in summer time." I didn't know how true was that but I didn't like the idea because I woke up everyday with the sun glaring in my face, even though it was nice to wake up with a view of the Hudson river out in the window.

Breakfast was simple--two toasted pieces of whole grain bread with nutella and a glass of orange juice. Every now and then I would have cereals with milk too. The bus would come at 837am and I had to be on time for if I miss the bus it would mean another 40 minutes of braving the strong chilly winds. There was once I missed the bus and that was truly a unbearable experience. It came on time today, thankfully. The passengers were a mixture of hispanics and blacks. (Yes at this point I know you are worried for me but they are just like any other people so they are pretty harmless. Being hispanic or black doesn't make you a criminal.) Most of the passengers were sleepy and there would be some listening to their ipods. As far as I had noticed the only music players I had seen in use here were ipods. Sony and Creative were non-existent. I wondered whether the Americans even knew these brands in the first place.

I was glad to have company on the bus today. There was this guy named Marco Zimmerling living in the same area in Ossining and he was working in IBM as an intern too. He was tall like all Germans so it was funny when he stood besides the short hispanics because he seemed like a giant besides them. Marc was a friendly guy who spoke fluent English. He did not have a Bachelor's because the German's system only recognised a Master's and he had a year and a half before he would get it. He told me he was glad we could understand each other's accent because his Malaysian mentor was tormenting him from the way he was speaking. "Even the Americans employees don't understand my mentor sometimes," he chided and he said what good was a mentor when you could not understand him and I was glad I didn't have a problem with my American boss at all.

Our conversations were mostly on IBM and the cultures in our country. I asked him about the no speed limit autobahns and the Oktober Fest and the education system in Germany. Not surprisingly I knew a lot more about his country then he knew about mine. After all Germany was a big aggressor in World War 2 and who in the world cared about the little red dot falling under the Japanese rule. Most of the time I felt like an ambassador of Singapore. After three weeks here I thought Singapore was still a much better place(minus the customer service) and I felt compelled to let the Americans or anyone in the world know about our country. In the end I had to clear up a lot of misunderstandings about our country.
"No Singapore is not a city in China. The city is the country. We are in South East Asia and yes, you can check the map and read up more on Wikipedia."
"Yes we did ban chewing gum but no, it is not because we want to keep the place very very clean. We only want to prevent the gums from disrupting our train service."
"Yes we do not have free speech but we do not mind that as long as it keeps the racial tolerance."
"Yes our national language is Malay but I can speak English because we use it in business and school and thanks for complimenting my English."
"Yup we have left hand drive and yes I am still trying to adjust to this right hand drive system."
"No we do not have winter and our place is hot and humid all the time and I would not trade that for this hahaha."
It was a pity that Marc would leave IBM soon. If not I could have hang out with him on some of the weekends and I didn't have to end up watching movies alone.

Work was enjoyable because my colleagues were nice people but on Fridays they would usually leave the place early to enjoy their weekends. Some would go up to upstate New York to see their family. With almost everyone gone I saw no point in staying that late so I walked out to the bus stop at 520pm. It was already pitch dark and it was all the fault of that daylight saving again. When I got back home I whipped up a quick meal of pasta before laying down on my bed to catch the dramas on ABC and Fox. There were Lost, Desperate Housewives, Day Break and Grey's Anatomy on ABC and Fox had Prison Break and House. I could catch something every night and I was thankful for that, for if not my mind might wander......back to Singapore.

Things I learned about NY

2006-11-05T06:22:00.000-08:00

1. Politicians denounce each other on commercials in public TV. A typical one is "Mr so and so. Wrong on Iraq. Wrong on Bush. Wrong for New Jersey. Don't we need a senator that speaks for New Jersey?"

2. They do not show soccer here. News on English premiership is limited to one sentence in the papers--"Man Utd maintains lead at the top of the table." Pathetic.

3. Bus fares do not go with distance travelled. It's a flat fee even if you travelled a single bus stop.

4. They have food courts at shopping malls, but the stores are all fast food.

5. Abercrombie and Fitch put male models in front of their stores just to say hello and look good, and the models have sculpted abs.

6. The police in White Plains travelled on horses. And they are willing to let you take a picture if you ask them.

7. Halloween is a very big event here. Children dress up and go from houses to houses to collect candies.

8. The children don't really desire the candies, they just like to walk around as a gang.

9. And they get tired easily from the walking.

10.When they say "get into the groove" it means "ease into whatever you are doing".

11. "A soda" means any drink that is carbonated, be it Coca cola, root beer or sprite.

12. They do not sell packet coffee here in normal supermarkets. I found it in a Chinese supermarket.

13. The packet coffee is expensive because it is imported.

14. The hispanics are a big growing community. It's so big some channels are in Spanish.

15. The weather report is very accurate. When it says it rains, it rains.

16. The movie ticket cost twice of that in Singapore.

17. Any food fare served in a hawker stall in Singapore can beat the Chinese restaurant here.

18. Easily.

The Art of Tipping

2006-11-03T18:37:00.000-08:00

The first thing I did after reaching my hotel was to go out and hunt for food. The chilly wind was stronger in Hudson Valley than in the city so I had to move really fast to get indoors as quickly as I could. There was an Applebee's in sight. What exactly was Applebee and what food they served I had no idea but I thought I would just eat whatever they had. After four meals in the airplace you would really settle for anything. In the end I ordered a steak, which was pretty delicious and filling and when the bill came I paused for a moment and looked at the waitress. The bill was 12 dollars. "How much should I tip you?" I asked.
"Well, its not necessary. You just tip whatever you want to."
Ok, so the tipping that Lonely Planet said was mandatory for all services was simply bullshit. I would like to think of it as a scam to increase consumer spending in America. I tipped her 2 bucks nevertheless for the service if not the advice.

It's a funny feeling when you do tipping. You feel an air of superiority and it's a false sense because in the end you are the one that is worse off.

On Sunday I met Uncle Danny at New York City and he took me down the endless avenues. He worked in NYC before so he was really familiar with the directions there. It's not that I would have got lost but it is always a nice thing to have company in the weekends, especially if he is your relative and you are in a foreign land. We went to this place called Lobster's and we were served by a smart looking waiter who spoke in a friendly tone.
"Hi guys how are you doing today? Good? My name is James and I would be serving you today."
After we ordered our food he would come by occasionally.
"How are you guys doing?"
"You like a refill of water?"
"How is the food today? Good?
"If you do need anything do feel free to get me."
"Like more juice? Can I clear this?"
I thought it was really professional of the waiter and I certainly did not get this kind of service back in Singapore. I would choose to think he didn't do it for the tip, which would go to the restaurant anyway. Comparatively the service level in Singapore is always atrocious and it is not difficult to know why when almost all of them are schooling part timers. The bill came and they charged 8% for the taxes and Uncle Danny paid double of the taxes for the tip. That's the norm and the waiter deserved it for the service we got.

When I went back to the house I had a discussion with the landlord and he said if he wasn't getting served properly he wasn't going to give any tipping. Ya that certainly made sense and made me wonder why I gave a tip for a chinese take away at the restaurant near my place.

Arrival

2006-11-02T15:53:00.000-08:00

My first sight of New York wasn't that of the Statue of Liberty. It was the Long Island. Sitting high above in SQ26, I could see the beautiful and seemingly endless beaches. They did name the island aptly. How I wished I was down there in the beaches because the cramped space in the plane was making me claustrophobic, and the irregular sleep certainly didn't help.

When I touched down I had imagined I would see a crowded airport. After all this was JFK and it was supposed to be one of the busiest. At least, I had an impression that it would look just like it did in "The Terminal" starring Tom Hanks as the passenger who was trapped in no man's land. Things couldn't be more different. Terminal 4 was so eerily deserted it seemed that my plane was the only one that touched down that morning. I hastily took my luggage and went out of the Terminal only to be shocked by a gush of cold wind. It must have been like 10 degrees and my face went so numb I ran back to the refuge of the Terminal. Then, equipped with the thickest winter clothes I could find in my luggage, I ventured out again. There was a black man in service uniform outside the door and he said in a deep nasal voice, "Hey, where are you going?"
"To Grand Central Terminal," I said. I wondered whether he would understand my accent.
"Got a ticket yet?"
"Nope"
"Ok fifteen dollars for a ticket to Grand Central. The next bus would be here at 11:30."
I bought the ticket from him. All this while I was thinking about the interesting fact that I had just talked to the first black man in my life and I wondered how he would react if I had told him that. Its interesting because I saw Michael Jordan play basketball and I played Grand Theft Auto and I watched Hollywood movies but they were nothing quite the same as speaking to a black in person. If I had told him these he would probably stared at me like I was some kind of idiot from some part of asia.

The bus stopped along Park Avenue. I alighted and looked around to get a sense of direction. New York's avenues were broad and they were so straight I could see the rows of buildings that lined the two sides of the avenues. I couldn't see much of the sky though. With so many skyscrapers around, this city certainly needed much more air space. As I walked down the avenue I saw a magnificent sight. Right in front stood the Grand Central Terminal. It was just that--Grand. Its huge size, together with its intricately sculpted Greek statues made me feel as if I had landed in some fairyland in Enid Blyton's. If this was how New York was going to be I wouldn't mind staying here for six months.

I hoped.

First time

2006-10-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

It is one week away from that flight on SQ26 and I am still dreading how time seems to pass so slowly. It has been five months since I got through my last examinations but it appears more like five years. The only thing that can calm me down is to read, because at least that means I am learning something and with that haze out there there is nothing I can do actually but to stay in air conditioned room and read. The haze makes me want to leave this place fast as I can hardly see the sun in this gloomy sky, even though I know what awaits me is the harsh winter of New York.

This is my first time writing a blog and if you are like me, who dislikes to read blogs, then you should probably leave this site and start doing other things that are more important. I can't believe why you should be interested in other people's other than your own. However, if this blog should provide you a minute's escape from the realities of your own life, then by all means accompany me on this six month's journey.

Welcome.