:: Tossed Salad and Scramble Eggs ::

:: Saturday, December 23, 2006 ::

I love the smell of rain on a cold, albeit still humid, evening. I like it when I can see the the dark red sky in Singapore and the silhouette of my neighbour's terrace house.

My dad called me down abruptly to Raffles Hotel and he insisted in buying me a watch because the watch which I borrowed from my ma is took precious to be worn. Hes afraid that if I brought it with me back to the UK, someone, or something will slice my wrist off swiftly with a single well-sharpened blade. Its okay if someone slices off my wrist, but its not okay if I lost the watch. I didn't like any of the watches he so excitedly picked out and so I'll probably troup down to swatch and get a cheaper one.

:: Stuffy 12/23/2006 09:02:00 AM [+] ::
...

Some Random Contemplating

I've disappointed this space because for the last 12 months, my thoughts have been devoted to things other than my personal reflections, simply because I haven't had any time to think of personal reflections. Two years out of Singapore, and still none the wiser. I haven't been able to sit around and contemplate and I suppose apart from spending my days at ISEAS, I shall keep the rest of my time for myself to contemplate. Only, contemplating has made me think about my prospects. In two years (or if I decide not to do my Masters, that would be in a few months time), I'll be back for work. I begin to wonder if being tied down to an organization is what I really want. If I had no obligation (and I'm not saying I'm going to break any of it soon), I would rather spend my time working from country to country. A couple of years in New York, maybe a couple of years in Eastern Europe pushing a goat-cart, joining a Non-governmental organization championing an intangible ideal. I'm not making these things up, I came to the conclusion that anything is possible if one is willing to risk security and comfort.

I've been back for a week now and all I really see is a life moving pretty fast. Last summer I caught a glimpse of how my life would be when I get back. I can live with it, and I'll be content because its safe and secure. How simple can life be, taking the train to MINDEF every morning for an hour and a half. Maybe if I have a car, only forty five minutes. Everyday at work, all I have to do is interact with my collegues and get the share of my work down, just meet the deadline, thats it. I'll be safe. And yet I wonder if I'm able to stay in the boat and let it sail smoothly through without rocking it.

I finally realised what Edwin meant when he said that being back home leaves you no time to think, and when the time comes for him to go back to the Navy, he'll miss the peacefulness and pleasantries of Warwick. True, we'll always call ourselves Singaporean, and yet while we pride ourselves on that, our overeseas experience must have taught us something valuable as well. True, staying in Singapore will have taught us alot in a different way, an experience that we probably missed out on for the last two years.

But over here, the lack of late night eateries leaves room for meaningful conversations over home cooked food. The 3 to 1 exchange rate conversions which means the inability to afford pure luxuries leaves you with making use of the best you can with what you have and teaches you the importance of sacrifice and giving. The lack of homely comfort leaves you with the reminder that small favors are not to be taken forgranted, and consideration for others become second nature to you. The slow pace of life and lack of distractions leaves you with more time to travel and experience God's creations and natural wonders.

:: Stuffy 12/15/2006 07:35:00 AM [+] ::
...

ANNUAL CHRISTMAS GATHERING

http://restaurants.singapore.hyatt.com/straits/straits_intro.html please visit this website and let me know if everyone is alright with this place.

Its 1. HALAL
2. buffet
3. price range is $40+ dinner, should be more than $45
4. At Orchard Rd Hyatt Hotel
5. Zuck said its good,

Keep dates 22, 23rd free please and once everyone is agreed on this, I'll confirm the date. Thanks

Btw, can someone help with contacting the following ppl:
Khairul, Zhan, Ruhan, Zhi, Jason, Nad

Thanks

:: Stuffy 12/13/2006 08:58:00 AM [+] ::
...

Note: Okay, so the msn TV link doesn't work to 'see the baby grow in real time', so you'll have to search on your own accord on the the msn website.

Its 5am UK time, and I'm finally able to sit down and write after downloading the relevant journal articles for my essays and what not. Just came back from Edwin's after having a supper of chicken curry and grass jelly. The two poor guys weren't going home this Christmas, so I bought them a bottle of Mint Chocolate Bailey's for the cold winter holidays. (Remember hor, its suppose to be shared, and drunk responsibly)

As usual, hectic is an understatement to any final year undergraduate, but I enjoyed the late night conversations with a random few over the last two weeks when things started to wind down. I'm glad I have 15 minutes of grace to write, albeit quite incoherently, given the ungodly hour.

Anyway, will the relevant people PLEASE LISTEN UP: I am told that the lot has fallen upon me to go think of something for annual gathering. I'm not exactly sure whether you guys still keep up with this blog, but I'll try anyway.
1. I suggest booking a restaurant either at a hotel or country club
2. Will the budget of $30 - 40 be alright for everyone?
3. WILL ZUCK, THARA, NAD PLEASE TELL ME whats the HALAL status?
4. IS EVERYONE OK with either the 22 or 23rd of DECEMBER 2006?
I'm alright for potluck, but I may not be able to open my place this year, partly because I haven't asked my parents, party because I am actually very exhausted from work over the last 3 months. So if you guys don't mind a nice fancy restaurant with a good discount?
Do contact me if you see this either at s.chia@warwick.ac.uk/ +6596636041 thanks

:: Stuffy 12/09/2006 09:05:00 PM [+] ::
...

And this is abortions cannot be an option

I was watching this clip on MSN television, this medical doctor is brilliant, you could actually see the baby grow in real time.

:: Stuffy 12/08/2006 06:05:00 PM [+] ::
...

On being Indianized

Not that I wasn't Indianized during my days in the Gulab Jamun girl gang back in JC, but now that I'm currently living in an all Indian flat (7 girls + me), my transition has been quite remarkable. I have gone from drinking soya bean milk to lassie, from prawn crakers to haldiram masala mix, and pronouncing Calcutta as Koukata.

:: Stuffy 12/04/2006 03:15:00 PM [+] ::
...

I'm moving out in two days *glee* the house better be good.

:: Stuffy 11/05/2006 02:00:00 PM [+] ::
...

Its so funny how the last time we actually talked was in year one, and somehow never really see each other the entire year two. Well I doubt the both of us have changed all that much, but I did enjoy the conversation we had. For me, it was a conversation needed after five weeks of oscilating on an emotional pendulum and thanks for being there, albeit unexpectedly. But of course, things are much better now. Thanks for spending the evening with me (and for the cup of hot chocolate) although my library studying wasn't all that productive.

:: Stuffy 11/05/2006 11:41:00 AM [+] ::
...

Personal Reflections on ‘An Inquiry of the Chinese American Identity’ by Stephanie Chia


At the end of my stay in the Bay Area, I was presented a Song dynasty comic collection, a gift from Victor, one of our interviewees, and an acquired friend. He message to me was – that the Chinese culture is rich in history and the Chinese language is beautiful in its own right, hence we should be proud to be ethnically who we are. Perhaps, after asking so many of our interviewees what it means for them to be Chinese, I should also take the opportunity to answer the question for myself. What does it mean to me to be Chinese?

Just like the Chinese American, I am not purely ‘Chinese’ in the sense that I was not born in China, but rather my maternal grandparents migrated to Singapore from China during the 1940s, hence I am a 3rd generation Chinese Singaporean. Moreover, my paternal ancestors come from a unique heritage called ‘the Peranakans’ or ‘Baba-Nonya’. The term refers to the descendants of very early Chinese immigrants who were born and bred in the Melacca Straits and who have partially adopted Malay customs in an effort to be assimilated into the local community. While adopting the language and culture of the Malays, most Peranakan do retain some of their ethnic and religious origins such as marrying within the Straits-born Chinese community or ancestral worship. Over the centuries, the Peranakans have evolved a unique culture that maintains many of the Chinese traditions, while adopting the customs of the land they settled in as well as their successive colonial rulers. They have their own distinct foods and a are normally categorized as having a natural propensity to embrace new cultures.

My father and my grandparents are perhaps a classic example of Straits-born Chinese. Despite being ethnically Chinese, neither my father nor his parents were able to speak the Chinese language; they were however, fluent in both English and Malay. Hence, a common colloquial Malay phrase that is often used to describe the Peranakans was ‘Orang Cina Bukan Cina’, which means, ‘of Chinese origin, but not entirely Chinese (because they cannot speak the Chinese language). It is perhaps because of this inability to speak the Chinese language, that most Peranakans of my father’s and grandparent’s generation were much closer to the Malay community than they were to the Chinese community.

As for myself, because the Peranakans are classified by the Singapore government as ethnically Chinese; I received formal instruction in Mandarin as a second language, according to the ‘Mother Tongue Policy’ in Singapore. However, despite being fluent in Mandarin, I have never felt fully ‘Chinese’ as oppose to my peers who were 3rd generation Singaporean Chinese and whose ancestors came directly from China. Hence, I never really grew up thinking that the Chinese language and traditions were of any value, simply because my father and my paternal grandparents could not speak the language and did not practice Chinese customs and traditions. In fact, the clothes which my grandparents wore were more Malay in origin (the baju kurung) than they were of Chinese origin. And yet, despite not fully embracing Chinese customs and traditions, there was no distinguishing me and other Chinese Singaporeans. I shared the same skin color and hair color. In fact, because I am fair-skinned I looked more Chinese than I was Malay, and so did my paternal ancestors. We looked Chinese, but (saved for myself) could not speak a word of the Chinese language and did not practice much of the customs and traditions. So where do I stand?

It was only upon the completion of this project that I realized that I had no excuse to forgo my ethnic Chinese identity. For me, ironic as it may be that this project was done in the Bay Area and not in China, it was still a form of going back to my roots and understanding the value of the Chinese heritage. If there was one thing I learned from the interviewees themselves, was that retaining one’s ethnic culture requires a conscious effort to find a balance between holding on to one’s roots and being able to assimilate into the new environment. Not forgetting that while one tries to assimilate into the new environment, one should be proud of one’s ethnic heritage and seek to find ways and means to constantly keep in touch with it. Perhaps, it was also in Victor’s intention that by presenting me with the Song Dynasty comic collection, it was his way of encouraging me to rediscover my Chinese ethnicity. Hence, I believe that being Chinese means going improving on my Chinese language and being cognizant of the rich cultural history that China has to offer, because Tu Wei Ming said, ‘the meaning of being Chinese is intertwined with China as a geopolitical concept and Chinese culture as a lived reality’.

And so, in the aftermath of the project, my next stop would be to rediscover my Chinese identity by understanding the evolution of my Peranakan heritage. In some ways, both the Peranakan heritage and the Chinese American heritage share a similarity in that people of dual heritage straddle between embracing their new surroundings, but at the same time grapple with how and what part of their ethnic heritage that they should retain.

Apart from making a personal discovery of my ethinicity, this project has given me a more holistic impression of the Chinese American Community. Before embarking on the project in the Bay Area, my impressions of the Chinese American Community were formed through academic journals which hypothesised about what the cultural identity of the Chinese Americans and novels such as The Joy Luck Club and Hunger, which constantly dramatized the identity crisis which the Chinese Americans faced. However, undertaking this research project gave the Chinese American community a three-dimensional feature. Through the eyes of several Chinese Americans, we saw how their Chinese identity can coexist with their American one, and this made them unique. The Chinese American Identity is a century and a half old, but is still continually evolving. Nevertheless, the people that we’ve met and the places that we’ve visited plays testament to its dynanism. I was unexpectantly surprised at how self-supporting the community was, and as one of our interviewees remarked, ‘One could go by without speaking a word of English in San Francisco Chinatown’. Furthermore, the community was not just another tourist attraction. Like every community, it has also had its social ills in the form of troubled youths who turn to Chinatown gangs, hence, disclaiming the notion of the Model Minority, given to the Chinese.

This project also could not have been possible without my co-partner, Janice Chua and I certainly could not achieve as much in this project had I done it alone. In many ways, our work together has also made me realise both my strengths and my weaknesses, as well as how we seek to compliment each other in terms of personality and working habits. While I was generally more interested in having a thorough theoretical and historical understanding of the Chinese American Diaspora and their evolution since the 1850s, Janice pulled the scale to balance through the practical aspect of the project. Crucial to our project, the varied interview sample size we obtained cannot have been achieved without her; she never fails to miss the oppurtunity to talk to strangers whom she thought would be an interesting case study for our project and engagement them in a conversation and thereafter an interview. Moreover, while I was always more concerned about having a narrow focus, Janice was always there to remind me that we should allow the door to remain open just in case a golden oppurtunity arrives, and true enough, having a broad mindset in this project proved to be rewarding.

Finally, in my years at Warwick, I have met an overwhelming number of Mainland Chinese overseas students. Prior to this project, I have asked a few of them what it means to be Chinese and whether they would consider the Hua Qiao (The Chinese Diaspora) in America to be at all, if not the least bit, Chinese. While some of them have been to San Francisco, others have only heard about the large Chinese American Diaspora there, and yet, many mainland Chinese students do not consider the Chinese living in America as ‘Chinese’. More often than not, these Chinese Americans are termed by them as ‘Xiang Jiao Ren’ (Banana people) yellow on the outside but white on the inside. It is with all intent, that this project seeks to tell the Chinese American story through the accounts of 20 Chinese Americans and an experience in the Bay Area. It is with hope that others, especially the Chinese from the Mainland, will take an interest in the lives of their cousins overseas and what they face, being geographically displaced from the cultural entity.

:: Stuffy 10/22/2006 03:35:00 PM [+] ::
...

Two years is a short time, but the feeling of being a finalist is that when you look at the in-coming freshers, you kind of see yourself and how you were when you were they're age. I didn't really feel it last year when the freshers came in, but this year seemed so much more pronounced.

Maybe because being back on campus again reminded me of my first year experience on campus, maybe its because I have the same seminar tutor who taught me when I was first year - and mind you, his distinct teaching style hasn't changed. Maybe its because I'm not living with anyone I know again. But all in all, I begin to see the change in myself, how I was two years back and how I am now. The changes are sutle, but nevertheless, I am still rooted in my own personality and character as I was 2 years back, so there hasn't been anything very excitingly drastic.

Anyway, apologies to Adeline for sounding really disinterested and angsty on MSN, but thanks for being there and being so understanding with my temperament. I owe you =)

:: Stuffy 10/20/2006 05:04:00 PM [+] ::
...

Apologies for not having kept up on this space for quite a while. The past three months have been indescribably hectic and I must have been semi-conscious not to suddenly realise that I haven't been writing on Tossed Salad and Scramble Eggs for an entire three months. But then again, three months is a short time. The last two and half weeks of school just went by and I hadn't had the time to breathe. I feel as if my breathe has been compressed and that I'm only using half the capacity of my lungs, that even if I stop breathing now, it doesn't really matter.

I'm currenlty on a semi-adrenaline because I finally found my thesis statement to my dissertation after three weeks of arduous 'thesis-searching'. I can only hope that my supervisor would agree with it. I can only further hope that I'm not out-of-date on the subject matter and that I'm inline with current sentiments, especially since things on this subject are so terribly volatile. I can only brace myself and again - hold my breathe.

I'm also currently finalising my report on the Chinese American Identity with Janice. The project has been a fruitful one, but conveying our ideas and articulating our message is of utmost importance. Extra effort has to be put into this given the heavy academic schedule this year.

But in other news, despite the weariness which will probably persist throughout this academic year, I have alot of people to thank. God placed friends, boyfriends, sisters and parents for a reason, and they are perhaps a reminder of His grace. I'd like to thank my Warwicksians for taking me out during the first week of school for a belated dinner. I don't think you guys would have known how close I was to jumping into a pond that day, so thanks for raising my spirits. Also thank Victor for the very beautiful Song Dynasty comic collection. I'm still reading it and making progress on my Mandarin. Most importantly, to thank John for making a very special evening and to my parents for their surprise parcel. Thanks for the calls (Thanks Tat) and texts that were sent. I'm sorry if I still haven't replied to them, but I will. I write this out as a constant reminder to take deeper breaths so that my lung capacity will not shrink to the point that I stop breathing.

:: Stuffy 10/17/2006 05:34:00 PM [+] ::
...

Excerpt from Chinese American Identity Blog

???? ??? (The most difficult thing to forget is that blood relations run deep)

Mr Luo’s anthem, which he wrote for the anniversary of the table tennis team in December 2003 is a poignant reflection of what most of the first generation Chinese immigrants hope for.

While they celebrate a new life in America with opportunities for wealth and prosperity, there is also a deep-rooted allegiance to their country of origin and a longing that one day they may return back home and make their country proud of their achievements. Like most Chinese immigrants, the new life comes with the need to work hard and perseverance, hence, the constant reminder to the youths to study hard, for studying hard will bring about a brighter future ahead. There is also a reminder for the younger generation to remember what their parents have done for them – they have worked hard and brought them up in a new land to provide for them a better life.

The title: ???? ??? expresses something that I’ve been trying to find out through the last three weeks. ??, ????? ??????? ?????????? I think most of the interviews that we have had so far, regardless of which generation of Chinese Americans, all of them have said the same thing – they are first and foremost Chinese, but they are American. I think it became clearer in the interviews conducted in Mandarin what it means to be ‘Chinese’ and yet not American.

I was reading a chapter of Iris Chang’s book: The Chinese In America, which argues that the Chinese Americans are still regarded as being closely affiliated to the People’s Republic of China, ‘no matter how great their contribution to U.S society, virtually all of them have had their identities questioned at one point or another’ (Chang, p13). I spoke to Janice earlier about this, and the topic was raised on two occasions; the first, was a conversation with an ex-Singaporean diplomat living in the Bay Area, and another in our interview with a first generation Chinese living in Silicon Valley.

The problem with the word ‘Chinese’ in the English language creates much ambiguity because ‘Chinese’ is used to describe someone of Chinese ethnicity, but at the same time, that very word is also used to describe someone of Chinese nationality. When we mention loosely that a person is ‘Chinese’, it almost becomes inevitable to assume that such as person has some form of affiliation with the country where the Chinese tradition ad culture has originated from. Hence, the common misperception that the phrase ‘I’m Chinese’ tends to have connotations that the person has affiliations with China. In the Chinese language, however, there is a distinct definition between a person who is of Chinese ethnicity (??) and a person who is of Chinese nationality from the People’s Republic of China (????). In ??, the character ‘?’ expresses a people of rich culture and tradition, where as , ???? has no relation or root word whatsoever to ??, and ?? (China) refers instead to what China was originally called, the Middle Kingdom.



???? ???

???? ??? ???? ???
???? ??? ????? ???
?? ? ???? ?? ? ?? ???
? ????? ???????
???? ???????????

??????????????? ?????????

??????????????????? ???
?????????????? ????????
??????????????????? ??????
?? ?????? ?????????? ???????????



“?????????? ??????!”
??

I’ve translated the song in English for the benefit of the Lord Rootes Memorial Fund archive, the following is a loose translation of the song, which is subjected to correction once I get hold of my Mandarin Dictionary.

What is the hardest thing for one to forget? The hardest thing to forget is one’s own blood relations which run deep.
What is the most important thing for a person? The most important thing for a person is to take care of one’s health
What purpose is there to study? Studying is for ambition and for future
No matter how much waiting and upholding your dreams, no matter how much perseverance and love,
What is one’s happiest moment? To sing a song about our new life.

Overseas people always dream, always about returning to one’s own sanctuary ?or home, which in this case refers to mainland China?.
A strong health must, only if one’s health is strong can one have wealth
Persevering hard in one’s studies is for one’s own good, only then can one’s bright future be possible
To bring you up step by step is your father and mother’s responsibility which cannot be forgotten.

Steph

:: Stuffy 9/16/2006 10:49:00 AM [+] ::
...

I realised that I couldn't write about anything in my 8 weeks in Singapore, not because I was thoroughly exhausted, but rather because I was uninspired. Sure, I did enjoy meeting up with old friends, making new friends, spending time with family and with John; but the bulk of my 8 weeks was taken up by my attachment. I enjoyed it while it lasted, immersed myself into it, learnt alot about it, decided to read up on the region I was assigned to, but it was never, to my best knowledge inspiring nor personally satisfying.

I've spent almost 3 weeks in the Bay Area researching into the Identity of the Chinese American Diaspora. Although I've pasted some notes in incoherent spurts on the Chinese American Diaspora blog, I don't think my experience here has been truly reflected on our blog. For this I must apologize. Today I sought to collate my findings into a coherent manner, and draw up my analysis for my final report. It has been extremely exhausting, but nevertheless, I know that the end product will be one which will be personally rewarding. However, I hope that this project will not only benefit myself and Janice, but also extend to benefiting the people whom we have spent the last month understanding and those who take an interest in this subject matter.

I think if anything, Janince and I have learnt a great deal not only about the Chinese American community, but also from the people we've meant. If not for them, we would not have continued to be spurred towards finding out more about the Identity of the Chinese Americans and what it means in our present era. Most of them have been generous in sharing their experiences and opinions about living in America, their continued need to preserve their cultural heritage and a constant tussle with what it means to be Chinese.

My points to cover today when I journal would be:
The uniqueness of SF Chinatown and its functiona and purpose in the new millenium
The new Gold Mountain - Silicon Valley
The Identity of the Chinese American (subpoints)
a) the 1st generation perspective
b) the 2nd generation perspective
c)the American born Chinese perspective
d) Lost information on the 'paper sons' and what it means for the following generation
e) What does it mean to be Chinese? What does it mean to be American? How do we reconcile the distinction of race and nationality? What does 'Chinese' mean in the English language, and what does ?? and ???? mean in Madarin.
f) Being a Singaporean Chinese? Where is the identity crisis?

:: Stuffy 9/15/2006 03:25:00 PM [+] ::
...

DEAR ALL,

FOR THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER, I'LL BE BLOGGING AT 'THE CHINESE AMERICAN IDENTITY' THIS BLOG WILL KEEP TRACK OF THE DEVELOPMENTS OF THE RESEARCH PROJECT I'M CURRENLTY DOING IN THE BAY AREA! ENJOY

FEEDBACK AND COMMENTS TO BE EMAILED TO: s.chia@warwick.ac.uk

:: Stuffy 9/01/2006 03:07:00 PM [+] ::
...

Some Photographs from Berkeley

Apologies for not having a commentary on this. Creative juices are not working right now. Till then.



Chinese women selling T shirts with slogans.



Mickey Mao


People's republic of Berkeley


The Got Milk slogan with a Chinese tinge to it - Got Rice?

:: Stuffy 8/25/2006 11:47:00 AM [+] ::
...

After sometime of lazing around doing nothing constructive, I finally got down to some work on my project. I'll explain more in detail about the project sometime later before I leave for San Fransisco in September. But now, I just need a space to write down some things for me to piece together later on.

I have been searching for some websites and places to visit when me and Jan get back here in September. Just browsing the websites, looking for a point of reference to start the momentum going, just looking and searching for 'that point' in particular. Our objective at this point is rather weak but I'm sure we'll find a gold thread soon.

The countless photographs I found on some of the websites are interesting. Alot of them are pre-1906 pictures of Chinatown. I spent the afternoon looking through all of them and it is amazing that it took a giant earthquake to change the entire cultural structure of community. The pre-1906 photos were characterised by Chinese immigrants wearing traditional chinese costumes which seemed to have been directly imported from China. The only thing that gives them away are are the Western hats that the Chinese men wear - an odd combination when worn with chinese clothes(there is a name for those kind of hats, need to go find out).

As for the post 1906 photographs, the reconstruction of Chinatown not only changed the architecture of the buildings around the bay area, but it also changed the community. The cultural change is dramatic, Chinese costumes were no longer worn, all the pictures had people in Western clothes of that 1910-1920s. There was nothing which hint 'chinese' except for the skin colour of those who wore them. Reasons are many. Everything was lost in the fire and earthquake and for pragmatic reason, I would guess that there wasn't much of a choice left and importing would have been expensive especially with most of the businesses lost.

I remembered that Uncle Harry did mention that after the quake, all records were lost. This gave the Chinese the oppurtunity to bring in their mainland chinese relatives who previously could not enter because of the Immigration Act. For them, the urgency of assimilating into Asian American culture was important in order for them to continue staying in San Francisco. They had to memorize bits of English phrases in order to 'pass' the interview with the immigration office and I would think that the need to wear Western clothes would have been deadly important. Thus began the rapid watering down of Chinese tradition which had been proudly and stubbornly held onto in the post-1906 period.

I'm only taking these pictures at face value and I'm sure that there are alot more to discover in the coming days.

I'm now wondering about the Chinese community in San Fran now. They have come a long way. When I walk around Chinatown SF, I wonder how much of the Chinese myth is lost and how much of it is retained. Does it ever resemble a 'Little Shanghai' anymore? No one in mainland China would ever think so, in fact, none of them regard the Chinese Americans as Chinese. They chide the Chinese Americans, the same way you would chide my speaking of the Chinese language with the term orang cheena bukan cheena. To what extent do they feel American and to what extent can they ever really feel fully Chinese again?

I'll stop here for now and continue reading.

If anyone has any questions about the Chinese American Diaspora in California that they would like to raise, feel free to send me an email or tag on the board below. Your questions will facilitate my work and will play a big role in helping me find out more about the Chinese American Diaspora.

List of readings

-------------


Being Chinese, Becoming Chinese American
Shehong Chen

Introduction
This is a study of the transformation of Chinese identity in the United States between 1911 and 1927. My research interest in this subject matter began when I was a graduate student at the University of Utah. In the early 1990s, I interviewed four Chinese Americans in Salt Lake City for a graduate paper. Three of my interviewees were American-born Chinese, and one came to the United States with her parents when she was a baby. My interviewees showed pride in their Chinese heritage. They told me stories of how they practiced Chinese rituals and celebrated Chinese traditional festivals at home. They also described different encounters of racially oriented prejudice and discrimination and various efforts they had made in fighting for equal rights and opportunities as minority people in the United States.

When I asked them about their thoughts of and connections with China, they became hesitant and worried. One of them said that China could have done better without communism; another asked me whether it was safe to make financial investments in China; still another remembered his experience as an American soldier in the Korean War and how "we were pushed back by them [the Chinese] to the 38th parallel"; and the fourth interviewee expressed disapproval of the Chinese government's action in the 1989 student democracy movement. However, they all expressed their desire to see a strong China and hoped they could do something to help strengthen their ancestral land.1

The findings from the interviews were not surprising; they actually reinforced an observation I had been making. I visited Chinatowns, made a few friends among Chinese Americans, and was entertained at Chinese American homes. Having grown up in the People's Republic of China, I sensed that the Chinatown atmosphere and Chinese American homes embodied elements of traditional Chinese culture as well as modern American culture. For instance, Chinatown stores and restaurants publicly displayed offerings to gods and goddesses; Chinese Americans drove hundreds of miles to clean their ancestral graves around the Qing Ming Festival, the traditional Chinese festival to remember the dead; and Chinese American parents would not open letters addressed to their children, for doing so was a violation of their children's right to privacy. Whereas the first two examples reflected Chinese traditional customs, the third was decidedly a reflection of American individualism.

While making such observations, I was wrapping up my Ph.D. coursework with an emphasis on the history of China-U.S. relations. Since the first major wave of Chinese immigration into the United States in the 1850s, China and the United States had encountered two very different fates in the evolutionary history of nation-states. Having just conquered the west coast of the North American continent, the United States began in the 1850s to rise as a world power. For China, the 1840s marked the beginning of humiliation and decline as a nation and a civilization. While the rise of the United States was accompanied by expansionism, industrialization, capitalist democracy, and Christianity, the decline of China was caused partly by Western expansionism and partly by internal struggles over how to cope with challenges posed by the aggressive outside forces in the modern world.

The most intense search for a modern China and modern Chinese identity happened in the first three decades of the twentieth century. The year 1911 witnessed an end to the century-old dynastic system in China and a declaration of the establishment of a modern republic. Such a fundamental change proved not to be an easy matter for China. Western and modern ideas such as capitalism failed to find national capital and an industrial base, thus opening China's market and resources further to outside exploitation. The idea of democracy conflicted with the Confucian hierarchy of social order. Greed for power led to attempts at monarchical restoration and warlords' competition for regional control, pushing China to the verge of disintegration as a unified nation. Intensified search for a way out of China's national crisis led to a cultural movement condemning Confucianism and Chinese tradition, to the embracing of Marxist ideas and formation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and to the height of nationalism against imperialism. It was in early 1923 that the Guomindang (GMD, or the Nationalist Party), which led the 1911 revolution, decided to ally with the Soviet Union and cooperate with the CCP in the national effort for a unified, independent, and modern China.

Knowledge of history and my own observations that being Chinese in the United States carried different meanings from being Chinese in the People's Republic of China combined to form my research questions. How did Chinese in the United States envision a modern China while China as a nation underwent such fundamental changes in the first few decades of the twentieth century? What did they think of the debates and politics in China? Did their experience in the United States affect their vision of a modern China? Did their exposure to American ideology and Christian values shape their sense of Chineseness as the old framework for Chinese identity faced challenges?

The more I think about the dichotomy of Chinese and American history in the modern world, the more aware I am of the interesting position occupied by Chinese in the United States. American Chinese in the early twentieth century were involved in the crosscurrents of conflicting and competing global forces. (Throughout this book I use the term Chinese Americans for people of Chinese ancestry who are American citizens; American Chinese and Chinese in the United States are used interchangeably to refer to any Chinese living in the United States.) As subjects of the dynastic China, they were carriers of traditional Chinese values; as immigrants suffering from discrimination and exclusion in the United States, they were victims of white racism and the weakened Chinese nation. How they survived exclusion and discrimination and how they envisioned and maintained Chineseness and adapted to American society became a much more interesting question for me than diplomatic relations between China and the United States. I decided to make my doctoral dissertation a study of the transformation of Chinese identity in the United States in the early twentieth century.

A review of existing literature on Chinese American studies encouraged my pursuit. Until very recently, Chinese American studies left the first few decades of the twentieth century almost unexamined. According to Sucheng Chan, one of the leading experts on Chinese American studies, the entire period between 1882 and 1943, the "age of exclusion," was "a deplorable lacuna in Chinese American historiography."2 Students of the period before the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 found materials with which to study the Chinese experience in the United States, many of them in English, including documentation of observations about the Chinese as a different race and debates over and violence against the Chinese presence in the United States. After the passage of the Exclusion Act, Chinese population decreased drastically, and Chinese existence in the United States became much more precarious; as a result, there was little English-language documentation of the Chinese American experience.

Historians of Chinese American studies thus suffered from this lack of source materials for the period between 1882 and 1943. Earlier studies of this period, done mostly by social scientists, whose conclusions do not depend as heavily on first-hand documents as historians do, generally described this period as the "silent years," in which American Chinese scraped together a living by running restaurants, grocery stores, and laundries.3 For example, Paul Siu's sociological study concluded that the Chinese laundryman remained a sojourner, an immigrant who did not intend to take root in the host society, for more than a hundred years, from the 1850s to the 1950s.4 Journalists, with very little knowledge of Chinatown life in general, documented sensational stories of Chinese "tong wars" during this period, popularizing and reinforcing the violent and mysterious image of Chinese American experience presented by social scientists.5 According to these studies, the isolated Chinatown life prevented any contact between Chinese and mainstream American society and encouraged Chinese in the United States to maintain intact their traditional identity.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Pacific, in mainland China and Taiwan, studies of overseas Chinese, including Chinese in the United States, praised them as "the mother of the Chinese revolution."6 Before 1949, the Nationalist government in China used this image to solicit support, especially financial support, from Chinese in the United States. Since the establishment of the People's Republic of China, both the government in Beijing and that in Taibei have continued to compete for political loyalty and financial support from Chinese in the United States. To serve the political agendas of their respective governments, scholars on both sides of the Taiwan Straits have claimed that Chinese in the United States maintained political allegiance to China and supported Chinese revolutions. According to Ling-chi Wang, a scholar of Chinese American studies and a political activist, such politically oriented studies resulted in "extraterritorial domination" over Chinese in the United States, whereas Wang Gungwu, a specialist in southeast Asian Chinese studies, maintained that the general statement about overseas Chinese as the mother of Chinese revolution misrepresented the role overseas Chinese played in Chinese revolutions.7

With the growing awareness of the existence of Chinese-language source materials and with more Chinese American historians competent in the Chinese language, several studies of the Chinese American experience in the exclusion period appeared. Using Chinese- and English-language source materials, these studies reconstructed various aspects of American Chinese community life and politics and told a more complete story of the Chinese American experience. Yet none of them aimed at a comprehensive understanding of the transformation of Chinese identity in the United States.8

Other scholars have been attempting to understand the transformation of Chinese identity in the United States. K. Scott Wong used the concept of transculturation, a process in which "marginal groups select and invent from materials transmitted to them by a dominant ... culture," to study the American Chinese identity transformation. He concluded that Chinese cultural elites, who had contacts with the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, combined the two worldviews—of traditional China and of the modern United States—to forge a "new and distinctively Chinese American cultural sensibility."9

It is in this line of analysis that I attempt to understand Chinese identity transformation in the United States in the context of reforms and revolutions in China between 1911 and 1927. The year 1911 witnessed the climax of the debate between the reformist Baohuanghui (the Society to Protect the Emperor) and the revolutionary Tongmenghui (the Revolutionary Alliance) among Chinese in the United States. The period between 1924 and 1927 witnessed concerted efforts to build permanent Chinese American communities, either by politically and legally fighting for rights to establish families and preserve Chinese cultural practices or by physically constructing community facilities such as the Chinese Hospital.

The study takes a transpacific approach in that it regards reformist and revolutionary programs that aimed to modernize China as the background and impetus for the American Chinese identity transformation. Furthermore, it investigates public debates and community events concerning a modern China among American Chinese to assess the impact of life in the United States and exposure to American culture and ideology on the formation of a Chinese American identity. The study thus moves constantly across the Pacific between events in China and events within American Chinese communities.

Like the most recent studies of the Chinese American experience during the exclusion period, this study relies on American Chinese community newspapers as primary source material. The value of newspapers as primary source material lies in the role these newspapers played in the life of Chinese in the United States in the early twentieth century. According to Leong Gor Yun,10 author of Chinatown Inside Out, published in the 1930s, the influence of Chinese-language newspapers on American Chinese was "incalculable." This is how Leong Gor Yun described the influence of the Chinese language press: "It speaks to the Chinese in a language he understands; it is his only medium for knowing what is happening in his world and the world at large. It gives him a perspective very much needed in a life as narrow as life in Chinatown. Whatever the Chinese do for themselves will therefore probably be taught them through the newspapers."11

The influence of Chinese-language newspapers reached beyond those who subscribed to them and those who were educated enough to read them. Chinatown businesses, especially grocery stores, tea houses, restaurants, and Chinatown organization offices usually subscribed to several Chinese-language papers and made them available to shoppers, visitors, or anybody who stopped by to read them. It was also common in American Chinatowns to see newspapers posted on bulletin boards of community centers and to see one person reading aloud from a newspaper with a crowd listening. One study described a general store in San Jose in the first few years of the twentieth century. At the store, Chinese workers "made arrangements for employment and picked up their mail." The store "subscribed to several Chinese newspapers, so that bak [meaning "uncle" in Cantonese and here referring to Chinese adult men in general] would stop to rest, read the Chinese papers, and chat."12

Chinese-language newspapers not only served as "the only medium" for American Chinese to obtain information and perspectives but also recorded debates and events taking place among them.13 Because there are few living witnesses to the 1911-27 period from whom we can take oral histories and because few people left diaries or memoirs behind, Chinese-language papers are invaluable source materials, enabling us to understand the dynamics of social, economic, ideological, and political changes among American Chinese. Judy Yung used American Chinese community newspapers as part of her first-hand materials and stated that scholars of Chinese American studies had yet to tap these valuable sources.14

This study investigates three Chinese-language newspapers. They are Chinese World, a daily newspaper founded by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, reformers from China, that represented the American Chinatown elite in the 1911-27 period; Young China, a daily paper founded by Sun Yat-sen that served in the United States as the voice of the Tongmenghui and the GMD; and Chung Sai Yat Po, another daily paper founded and managed by Wu Panzhao (Ng Poon Chew), a Chinese Christian minister who advocated reforming and modernizing Chinese cultural practices and adapting to the norms of American mainstream society.

These three papers were selected because they represented a full spectrum of opinions among American Chinese between 1911 and 1927. Although all voiced a desire for a strong and modern China, each envisioned a different way of achieving the goal. This study analyzes the transformation of Chinese identity in the United States through editorial debates, reports of developments in China, and news coverage of American Chinese community events. Because these three papers represented different opinions, they inform us of the process of constructing a Chinese American identity and defining the essential elements that finally made up that identity.

The study is divided into five chapters. Arranged roughly in chronological order, Chapter 1 covers the year 1911. Then, Chinese in the United States offered three different visions for a modern China. Debates over reform and revolution politicized American Chinese communities, challenged traditional Chinese values, and tested boundaries of American Chinese support for revolution. With the establishment of the Republic of China at the beginning of 1912, Chinese identity stood at a crucial crossroads.

Chapter 2 covers the period from 1912 to 1914, in which American Chinese demonstrated the strength of traditional Chinese values, such as opposition to rebellion and willingness to preserve Chinese cultural practices. Meanwhile, the establishment of the Republic of China and the aroused nationalist feelings emboldened American Chinese to stand up for their right to be regarded as an integral part of American society.

Chapter 3 deals with the eventful year of 1915, in which the new Chinese republic faced its first serious external threat from Japan and made its first international appearance at the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. In response to Japan's Twenty-one Demands, which encroached on China's territorial integrity and political independence, American Chinese revealed the limit of their Chinese nationalism. Although their organization of a comprehensive anti-Japanese boycott symbolized high-sounding ideals, their failure to implement that boycott revealed the limitations life in the United States had put on most American Chinese. China's presence at the International Exposition stood as testimony that life away from China had made American Chinese idealize Chinese culture and that American Chinese had absorbed certain aspects of Western or American values. The disappointments in China's presence at the exposition and in the Chinese government's acceptance of the Twenty-one Demands served as an impetus for the development of a Chinese American identity, the essence of which was embodied in the formation of the China Mail Steamship Company.

Chapter 4 examines the four essential elements of the Chinese American identity. These four elements became crystallized in the period from 1916 to 1924, years in which American Chinese supported republicanism against monarchical restoration, tried to preserve the essence and principles of Confucianism and traditional Chinese culture while the New Culture Movement in China attacked both, willingly adopted Christianity in constructing a modern Chinese identity while China waged an anti-Christian movement, and strongly opposed the GMD's alliance with the Soviet Union and cooperation with the CCP.

Chapter 5 tours an American Chinatown and documents the building of a permanent Chinese American community between 1920 and 1927. American Chinese campaigns against the restrictions put on them by the 1924 Immigration Act, their efforts to defeat a bill aimed at controlling the practice of Chinese herbal medicine, and their enthusiasm for building community facilities demonstrated their determination to live as proud Chinese in the United States and develop a material base for the new Chinese American identity. A glimpse of some American Chinatown activities in this period reveals that Chinese in the United States had developed their own culture, which drew on both traditional China and modern America.

The findings of this project fill a gap in the study of the Chinese experience in the United States. Chinese were not as inassimilable as they are usually portrayed, nor were they unqualified supporters of Chinese revolutions. The way in which American Chinese envisioned a modern China in the 1911-27 period provides a framework for understanding the worries and confusions my interviewees revealed in their relationship with China. The transcultural identity formed in the process of searching for a modern sense of Chineseness in the same period explains the mixed cultural identity American Chinatowns and American Chinese families represented in the early 1990s.

As a comprehensive attempt to understand the transformation of Chinese identity in the United States, the findings shed light on the forces that shape ethnic identities. The study answers the call of pioneering Asian American scholars such as Roger Daniels and Him Mark Lai not to study the Chinese in the United States in terms of "what has happened to them"15 but "to fully probe and understand the processes governing the development of Chinese American communities."16 Finally, I hope this study reveals the variety of information community newspapers can provide to scholars in their attempt to reimagine life among Chinese in the United States in the first few decades of the twentieth century

:: Stuffy 6/28/2006 03:32:00 PM [+] ::
...

I’m now…not in the UK. Currently sitting in an uptown café with a basket of curly spicy fries which taste just like those you’d find in A&W. Exams have ended, although the days after seemed to have gone past in such a blur, I hardly had time to reflect.

I have a sick feeling that when I get back in September, I probably would have forgotten where I put what into which box. I was in such a rush to pack, I even forgot what exactly I put into my travel suitcase. Just what did I put in it? I'll find out later when I get back.

Anyway, I threw away my reef sandals and replaced it with a new cute pair of light green high heeled sandals. They are the best. I've never had a pair of heels which I can walk so comfortably in and not have throbbing heels and blisters. Yes, I'm going to score every street in the whole of Berkeley in 3 inched HEELS, and if I'm ambitious enough, I'll take the BART down to San Fransisco and take on the Hills (intended pun). I'm so proud of my new heels that I've been wearing my hawaii shorts just to show them off, even if it is at the expense of my elephant thighs. (Sorry, sadly, I do not have sexy legs like Mr Cher).

I just finished reading Samantha Chang's novella and five short stories, 'Hunger'. I did intend to pen down my thoughts on this blog, but I know I can't write anything substantial because the music in this cafe is just so unsettling.

:: Stuffy 6/24/2006 05:14:00 PM [+] ::
...

Dear Vik

I promised you a long long letter after my exams, but clumsy me accidently deleted some of my emails in my inbox. Gimme an email shout from Indianna yea?

Much Apologies!
Steph

:: Stuffy 6/20/2006 11:59:00 AM [+] ::
...

DIE LAH

I'm actually waiting till 2am for Hub to drive us out to Tesco to collect boxes to pack our stuff. Yes I've been alive since my papers ended and have been kept busy doing non-related academic stuff. And that also means, not doing any packing in my room. I'm in serious need of some discipline. I'm sooo malfunctioning. And yet, I want to savour the moment of being able to do all the things that I've been deprived of doing - its liberating.

I don't feel like sleeping tonight! I need something to do.

3 days to SF and PohPoh!

:: Stuffy 6/19/2006 05:03:00 PM [+] ::
...

Oh no, so exciting! I was surfing www.singaporeexpats.com for food, and my, what a grand list of places to eat. This time, when I get back to Singapore, I'll be suggesting places to eat, deal? And you can have the easy job of finding out how to get there.

With some estimation, I should be able to complete half of the list in 2 months while I'm back. Then leave the other half of the task to the following summer. This is so challenging! I'm so excited.

Hmm, I wonder what is New Asian? I presume its some sort of fusion.

:: Stuffy 5/28/2006 06:09:00 PM [+] ::
...

Dear Sarah,

In response to your Birds and Richard Gere , listen to this podcast, well it was funny at first and then became tasteless. It shows the consequences of buying 10 000 birds.

Its one of those Brown and Myiagi podscasts.

:: Stuffy 5/24/2006 04:43:00 PM [+] ::
...

I'm overly excited about this article that I read from the Financial Times about houses being used as settings in films - Renting houses to film crews as part of an investment and how good the returns are. The pictures of the houses are so awe-some, I'm so inspired to go buy new furniture for my house.

Only, I realised that I'll be moving out of here in about 5 weeks, and I'm going back to dorms next year. Sigh. Well actually, my dorm looks more like an apartment with an attached toilet, I hope I get one that is quiet, near the elevator and near the laundrynette. Contemplating about the feasibility of buying new furniture for next year.

Anyway, this shouldn't be one of my priorities right now.

Schedule for the following months ahead:

1. Finish exams - urgent and very important

2. Ask about Dissertation and Applied research for next year - need to sort this out
quick and what modules to do too.

3. Am not going to Germany anymore cause dad pulled out.

4. Mich and Jason coming over for a the weekend

6. Move out

7. Leave for SFO for a week to sort out Research project on Asian American Diaspora, (ALOT of ground work to cover before project execution)

5. Back in SG for attachment - boring. I'll be in Gombak, so if anyone is around there...you know what to do.

6. Leave for SFO for research project, 27th Aug.

Ok, have to keep moving, going for cell now.

:: Stuffy 5/13/2006 04:01:00 PM [+] ::
...

After much 'prayer and petition', I manage to pull through last week with three heavy assignments, so I must remember to keep that in my thanksgiving.

Went out with Jan, Rainbow, Edwin and Joyce. Joyce is back! Its great to see her again after a year, so I hope to see her more often soon enough especially when next year starts.

Went to Birmingham for Chinese food and shopping. Since I spent and spent and overspent during my holidays, I went to tiao kah with hokkien brudder and drink kopi while waiting for those char bos to finish their here-there shopping. Accept that, today's hokkien peng, more higher class, so we upgrade to Starbucks. Ok, this is besides the point, what I really meant to say is...

Its been a while since I actually hung out at Starbucks and talked for hours. I mean thats what I used to do back then in Singapore. Hung out with the gang at Starbucks Siglap, hung out with the Gulab Jamun sisters in Starbucks Siglap, studied with Ming Hui at Millenia Starbucks in J1, bumped into Jason at Starbucs Siglap, a great number of going outs always end up at starbucks because of me - I should really take over the franchise by now. It used to be just another cafe, but on hindsight, I mostly entertained there because of the ambience and all.

Yea, I missed, just hanging out and talking for hours on end at those places with background tunes from the oldies. In fact, sometimes I spent so much time there, that I know what Disc track they'd play, which season. During June, it'll be those latin, mumbo smooth rhythms, but my favourite time of the year is always Christmas at Starbucks because of the old classic Chestnut-roasted songs from Nat King Cole. Yea, I should seriously consider buying over the franchise.

Anyway, to more serious stuff.

1. NYC photos need to resized...sigh
2. Exams
3. book flight tickets
4. research project summary
5. wait for Mich and Jason to come

Read this from a friend's blog, and found it really inspiring.

Erik Ringmar, a Senior Lecturer at the LSE Government Department, gave a speech at LSE's Open Day. He was reprimanded and ordered by the Covenor to shut down his blog.


"I know we are expected to ’sell’ our programme to you. An undergraduate is today worth 3000 pounds and there is competition between universities for this money. Unfortunately I don’t have a sales-pitch. In fact, I don’t even have a Powerpoint presentation. However, I will try my best to talk truthfully about the student experience at the School as I have come to understand it. When it comes to a great institutions such as ours, the truth is always the best recruiting tool."

"After all, the greatness of a scholar is measured in terms of output — that is, research. It is more than anything the number of books and articles written that matters to academic promotions. If you want a high-flying academic career you have to publish.

This means that the first-class teachers usually will have their minds elsewhere than on undergraduate teaching. They might be away on conferences, and even if they are not absent in body, they may be absent in mind. This is too bad of course. In fact it could indeed be that students have more opportunities for interaction with faculty members at lesser institutions — like the London Metropolitan University, say — where research is less heavily emphasised. I don’t know.

What I do know is that the in-class student experience often differs very little between the LSE and a place such as the London Metropolitan University. This may surprise you but it something students tell me. Instinctively I rebel against this conclusion, but I have come to believe that the students who make this point are correct.

Think about it! The kinds of courses taught at undergraduate level are pretty much the same everywhere you go. The courses use the same kinds of reading lists, with the same kinds of books, set the same kinds of exam questions … The lecturers too are not that different from each other. This is easily explained. Often after all we went to the same universities"



"You will all play your respective parts in perpetuating the British class systtem, or the class system of whatever country you happen to be from. This too is a meaning of the term ‘elite’ institution.

What can you do about it? Not very much of course. Except that you can stand up for the things that we actually did teach you. You can stand up for the content of your education and not just the form. The ideas, the insights, the thoughts and the dreams. You can stand up for a human, and humane, way of living; the sheer joy of thinking and of exploring.

Employers may try to take these basic pleasures away from you. In fact, I know they will. But together we will insist on their importance. As an LSE student we will make sure that these lessons stay with you for life.''

''They’ve sent out a pre-prepared Powerpoint presentation with the official sales-pitch which I am expected to talk over. A pre-prepared Powerpoint presentation!!! Who are they kidding??? I have two PhDs and a conscience; I don’t go into a classroom with someone else’s Powerpoints... Surely the fundamental, underlying, problem is the commercialisation of education...When education becomes a commodity, academics too must become salesmen with a sales-pitch...Such commercialisation militates against our obligation to speak the truth as we see it. I’m not a salesman and I don’t have a sales-pitch. That’s not how I was trained and it’s not what I take my job to require...What a great business idea — to turn people with integrity into salemen!''

:: Stuffy 4/29/2006 05:57:00 PM [+] ::
...

Essay completion: 85%

My accomodation contrate just came in. Next year, Heronbank! Heronbank has all the comforts and its the only accomodation with an ensuite toilet and a scenic view of a huge pond with geese, ducks and swans. Its quiet - hopefully - and far away from campus despite being a campus accomodation. Only problem is that everyonelse that I know are staying in Tocil, Claycroft and Hurst. I'm quite fine with that cause that means I get to take long walks down to campus when I feel like being sociable.

But I'll miss having my own house with housemates to go with it. I'm not talking about just any housemates, but housemates who should all win a 'Housemates of the Year' award - The Best. For almost a year, I now know what its like to have an older brother. Sure, I might be irriated at Hub's stereo base music and him not washing his dishes, and procrastinating taking out the trash, but I'll probably miss his occasional humming of Christian Hymns which sometime go out of tune, him nagging at my eating habits. I now know what its like to have an older sister. Although I might be annoyed with Rainbow's knocking on my door while I'm busy with work, I appreciate our long insightful conversations and cook outs. She takes good care of me and my diet. And shes probably the most caring. Jan, Jans like my twin. We get annoyed at each under for no reason during stressful periods but we often get along on alot of other grounds. Even with my annoying her with my telephone calls, she never fails to remain optimistic on things.

Yep, we know each other's idiosyncracies. Hub's awful sleeping hours and my odd meal times, Jan's waking up at 8am in the morning and Rainbow's coming back at 2am from Jim's place. Will miss my having my own house with housemates when I move back to Uni dorms. I quite enjoy having my own house.

:: Stuffy 4/22/2006 02:37:00 PM [+] ::
...

I'm beginning to think that all I'm ever doing is writing a series of random posts (the evidence of this is the inability to attach a title to the post because it has become a stray of random thoughts without category, lest I title them Random I, Random II, Random III and so forth).

Because my previous post reflected my less-than-satisfied half post, I shall continue my daydream to pull me away from my concerntration and work - 'pull' not being used positively here.

So all I want to do right now is go shopping, not in London, but in NY where I could go back and forth the SoHo stretch. Or lounge in a cafe with a Starbucks Java Chip Frap. Or take a walk down St James Park in London. Or watch movies and eat ice cream with PohPoh. Or go restaurant hopping. Or a long biblical debate with anyone, so that I could be enlightened and have something to relfect a upon.

Speaking of which, I took a liking to reading Weiliang's blog (linked on the left). Theres just so much depth and thought being put into those words. I admire the way he wears his thoughts on his sleeves and development them into food for thought for himself and his readers (how considerate!). Just leaves me so much to think about. Its very encouraging.

Also, and I presume that this will be to little effect, I'm currenlty in search of anyone who would be able to provide me with information on Asian American Diaspora in California. Asian Americans or with academics who have a research interests in the subject are greatly appreciated. Thanks - Special thanks to David whose given me a contact name.

:: Stuffy 4/17/2006 01:19:00 PM [+] ::
...

Sarah, I don't mean to say 'telepathy girlfriend!' I was about to write a I'd-rather-be-anywherelse-than-here entry until I saw that it would have been similar to yours. Of course, I've never exactly been to KL, so I can't say that I would like to go there. Not to add, when I was younger (in primary school) I was always made to go to JB with my parents. My impression? Tragic. It was plantation infested and only old men go to Palm Resort to play golf while they wives and children go off to the swimming pool. I dreaded it. I'm giving JB a bad tourist report and never going there again.

I've been trying to make my own milk tea, and I think i'm getting there, accept that I suspect that if I were to use condensed milk, it would taste alot more like the real thing - Real thing being Quickly bubble tea in Berkeley, SF. Anyway, about real things and trying to make imitations out of them was the main reason why I wanted to write a I would rather be anywherelse than here post. I miss fancy New York style cakes and Starbucks Fraps.

So any, after being pent up in the house for the last few days trying to organise my thoughts into an essay on Cooperation in International Relations, I would rather be ANY WHERE ELSE THAN HERE! But there is a larger more serious point looming. My concerntration is gone and I'm too easily distracted. I shouldn't even be writing this post or waiting for my NY pictures to be loaded up so that I could post them. I should be studying and I should be finishing my one last assignment which is due in ten days. I'm not even anxious?

But well, the weather has been clearing up and its bright and sunny. All the more, I shouldn't be kept at home. I hope tomorrow will be a bright Easter Sunday! A rather significant Christ-rose-again Sunday! Glee is me.

:: Stuffy 4/15/2006 05:57:00 PM [+] ::
...

I'm now back in Warwick recovering from dry-eyed-ezyma syndrome, city-withdrawal syndrome and poh-poh-withdrawal syndrome ad slept for most of the day.

I watched Capote on the plane. Theres something about that high-pitched lisp that Capote has which makes it difficult for anyone to take him serious. And his thick huge glasses like Elton John's just add to the satire. It was difficult for me to brush those idiosyncracies aside, but when I did, I realised that he truly was a man of great insights. I've read snippets of his writings before (however little) but after seeing the film Capote, it really inspired me to want to pick up a copy of 'In Cold Blood' and read it - that is, when I actually have the time because of assingments and researh constraints.

Anyway will try to get NY pics up before school starts. I love the big city, its like a great big movie set. So fun!

:: Stuffy 4/11/2006 03:50:00 PM [+] ::
...

Perculiarities

I was on the BART to do a one day shopping spree in SF before I leave in two days when I saw a middle aged women reading a book on '7 points to lead a fullfilling life' (to be more specific, she was a black middle aged women, but th key point here is not her race but her age). What is it with middle aged women and reading books on methodologies for life!? I wonder if I would actually start reading them once I turn 40, although I seem to think that I don't require 'dubious money-making products'. Well yes, I would actually be evangelical and tell you that my methodology of leading a fulfilled life is believing in God, although this statement has alot of implications and requires alot more understanding, so for reasong and explainations of whys and hows, I'd prefer it if interested parties send me a private email.

Anyway, I spent the day SF and spent 200 USD again, but on quite important things like a GRE book and a Fred Astaire and Ginger Roger's collection, both of which were discounted at 25% at Borders. The bulk of my other spending went to Victoria Secrets. I found the sales concept of Victoria Secrets very interesting. They're stuff are neatly categorized into sizes, so when you go to the changing room, they just pull out a box which match your size and give it to you. Its quick and easy, and you obviously feel like buying more. I'm not patronizing Triumph any longer. But this is just a subset of a larger point.

The big picture is - Americans have such creative ways of marketing their products and their marketing concepts are one of the best I've seen so far. My experience in Palo Alto last summer was also another case in point. I visited a shoe shop and when you pick out a pair and ask for your personal shoe size, the sales person comes back with 3 other pairs of the store's choice for you to try on as well. Not that this concept isn't practice elsewhere, it is practiced on alot of online shopping sites (ASOS being one, right JinHua?!) but it was just refreshing to actually see it carried otu physically. I bet you, LA's shopping disctrict near Sunset Boulevard probably have appoint-made-only shops with similar concepts, but only more enhanced.

With that said, I'm not shopaholic, and my shopping only comes in spurts (and is not a constant thing), especially since I'm a country bummpkin in Warwick.

I'll update more about New York when I have the time.

:: Stuffy 4/06/2006 11:45:00 PM [+] ::
...

I finally updated my blog links of so and sos'. Those who have stopped blogging have been given the boot, while new entires fill the spaces. I feel so... organized.

Am going to New York tomorrow. The funny thing is that I'll be seeing Hubert there, but hes not coming with me and hes flying two days later. I'll explain why is it the case later.


Anyway, I'll tag a few people so that they have something to write and for me to kaypoh about. I'll title this:

What are your friends for?

for example:

My friend, Eng Tat: 'Wah 8 years of friendship!' This is the friend whom I can hold conversations about most under the sun, get irritated at his stupid antics and listen to him bemoaning his love life. His physical measure is no comparison for his measure of friendship, in fact, it is a far cry.


I tag this to: Mr Cheong, Mr Cher, Vai, Sarah, Ruhan, Sam, Jinhua

:: Stuffy 3/24/2006 06:23:00 PM [+] ::
...

End of Term House Parties YEAH!

Kicking off the start of SPRING BREAK

To celebrate three birthdays, I spent my Friday afternoon making Hainanese Chicken Rice, while Rainbow made Herbal pork ribs and Janice made the Birthday Desserts. Rainbow and I spent the afternoon buying decor ad decorating our newly renovated home. Of course, we didn't have furniture, so everyone had to go zen - line the floor with newspapers and sit in a circle. Although I wish I bought one of those IKEA drap clothes for everyone to sit on, except that due to geographical contraints (that IKEA was nowhere near coventry) I couldn't do so.


This is the Chicken Rice I made. Took me 3 hrs to cook for an army.


Zening in our newly renovated kitchen


Me and Rainbow bought some decorations for the party. Its '2X' cause Edwin is 22 and Hubert and Pingli are 23. So we're trying to be fair


My Indian Ching friend - Angkit, whose Rainbow's LB dance partner and Pingli's housemate


Mr Cher - my favourite naval officer and Hokkien bruadder


Its Port! Did you know that Port is made from Portugal!? =D


Mok!


Mok and Janice, my other favourite naval officer. Check out what she made for dessert ...


P-E-H, the three birthday boys' initials, we were trying to form a word and the most appropriate was PEH, cause the three of them are all lao ah PEH...


Pingli and Edwin - The last time I called Edwin I found them both delirious after finishing a bottle of Irish Meadows between themselves, and then Pingli cycled home!??!?!!? tsk*


Monday was Edwin's actual Birthday, so we went over to his place for dinner. The one thing I like about going to Edwin's place is that it always reminded me of a Hong Kong Restaurant. This is not withstanding the fact that he lives with three Hong-kies, who are by the way are fantastic cooks who occasionally moan that 'Aiyah, Hong Kong girls cannot cook ah!!'

But Foodwise and Music. It really is like a Hong Kong restaurant. They're celebratory meals are always elaborate - today we had Char siew (done by Sam and Pingli), Ginseng Chicken, Gao Choy, Pineapple Rice, roast chicken and a few other dishes. And as usual Edwin's playlist of songs are always - David Tao, Jay Chou, Sun Yan Zi, and I'm sure if you're a fan of chinese pop, you'll be able to fill in the blanks.


The Chefs of 260 Prince Charter Ave - Edwin, Pingli, Eric and Samuel. Hou Keng Ah!

Me and Rainbow were bored, so we took pictures of everything



This is half the food displayed, there were alot more, unfortunately pictures are with Eric and he flew back to Hong Kong





(photo)
Edwin and his famous marinated fruits vodka. He was quite amused by his giant strawberry


Actually, most of Edwin's guests were all girls, except for Hubert, so they had alot of food leftover, which of course made the Hong Kong people very disappointed.

Anyway, me and Hub stayed to watch Police Story 2 with Samuel and Pingli. Edwin had to much vodka and went upstairs to sleep at 1am. We left at around 4am and me and Hub still had brownies that Janice made before leaving for Egypt. So I slept at 6 in the morning.

Well, to the 1983s and the 1984, I'm sure your birthday weekend had been a food-filling one.

:: Stuffy 3/23/2006 02:31:00 PM [+] ::
...

Mr cheong, since you tagged AGAIN...yes I filled in the meme.

1. A song by a Beatle:
Yesterday

2. A song featuring piano as the main instrument:
Valentine - Jim Brickman

3. A song with a woman's name in the title:
Oh Carol - er I forgot who sang it, but it goes like, 'O Carol, I am but a fool, darling I love you...' I know its from the 1970s cause my dad sings in on karaoke.

4. A song with a man's name in the title:
Hey Jude - Beatles

5. A song about money:
Money money money - ABBA

6. A song with weather in the title:
Let it Snow, let it snow, let it snow

7. A song with parentheses in the title:
Huh?

8. A song made by a punk band:
I hate punk

9. A song with the word "song" in the title:
Your Song - Ewan McGregor, I can't remember the original singer's name...*annoyed

10. A song you love so much you stop and listen whenever you hear it/ put it on repeat mode and never get sick of it:
I don't really like repeats though.

:: Stuffy 3/21/2006 06:51:00 PM [+] ::
...

Oven food does not work for me.

I burnt an oven throw-in piazza and a souffle and they became burnt only after 15mins.

Its a good thing I bought two of each, so I didn't go hungry. But its the thought of burning two things going to waste.

:: Stuffy 3/16/2006 03:02:00 AM [+] ::
...

Online Shopping

Thank you for shopping at ASOS

My main objective was suppose to be shopping for Hub's birthday present. Well I did, but then I got carried away and ended up buying a whole lot of things. I do have justification for what I bought, but I also realised that it could be a little too frivolous on my part.

And I don't even wear earrings. But I bought 3 pairs of really nice ones. Two which I'll give to Janice. The other one, probably to my sister, or if I actually go pierce my ears, I'll wear them. But the former thought seems more likely. They are really nice, will put up a pic of them shortly.

Anyway, its a good online shopping site, but works well for UK residence only.

Justification for things bought:
*Lip Palette and Necklace: Latin and Ballroom Dance comp, need makeup
*Skirt: For summer attachment office wear
*3 tops: French Connection jersey has no justification, the other two are for formal wear when I realised that this term, I had no formal wear for any of the formal events, and looked highly inappropriate.
* The rest of the items are for other people



This is the pair of earrings which I thought looked really unique. Any takers? I'm selling for 6 pounds = 20.00SGD

:: Stuffy 3/06/2006 04:21:00 PM [+] ::
...

Received a call from my Dad this morning. I can't remember what he said cause he called me at 7am, but I think the gist of it went like this:

Dad: HELLO DARLING! (My dad is always very excitable. And John says hes jumpy)

Hi Dad

Dad: When do you finish exams? Do you want to see me in Frankfurt to see a match? Then you can fly home with me.

Ok, me and Mich are planning to go to Eastern Europe after exams, when are you there?

Dad: 29th

Ok, I'll see you there. But I have to fly back from london cause my flight is free only from there

Dad: The flight from Frankfurt is paid for, if you come, AND you get to sit with me (**which means business class)

Are you sure?

Dad: Ya, okay, so you coming with me right?

Ok, but..

Dad: OK BYE! *Slams down phone

___


I went back to sleep after that, so I hope I'm not dreaming. Well, if I wasn't, I should be going to Frankfurt then. It took me awhile to realise he was also refering to World Cup 2006. If I do go, this means that I'm one up with my sister who went for the last one in Korea/Japan while I was studying for my Alevels. This year, shes studying for her O levels.

:: Stuffy 3/06/2006 04:04:00 PM [+] ::
...

Warwick University on strike


Hey all,

As I am sure you are more than aware next Tuesday (7th March) will see our lecturers striking. The AUT and NATFHE voted overwhelimgly in favour of strike action and action short of a strike. This type of action could include refusing to cover colleagues' work, marking students' work or taking part in the exam process as part as an ongoing boycott.

The unions have said that taking industrial action is an absolute last resort in their ongoing pay dispute with their employers, and that they remain committed to resolving the dispute at the negotiating table, not on the picket line. They have also stressed that they want to cause as little disruption to students as possible.

Our Union is supporting our lecturers in this dispute and will fight to ensure that our lecturers are better paid and better resourced. We believe that good working conditions and pay levels are necessary for academic staff, if a high standard of education i! s to be upheld.

For more information please see here;

http://www.aut.org.uk/media/html/r/d/payaction_studentfacts.html

SUPPORT YOUR LECTURERS, SEND YOUR COMPLAINTS TO THE VICE CHANCELLOR!


and Don't forget to VOTE NOW in the Students' Union referenda!

http://www.sunion.warwick.ac.uk/portal/voting/


Best Wishes,

Brian Duggan

Education Officer and Deputy President

University of Warwick Students' Union


Although the strike is not representative of the whole university, my politics lectures and seminars are cancelled because of the strike. But since 3/4 of my module happen to be economics, I'll still have to be in school this tuesday.

The Economics Department probably did a cost-benefit analysis and decided that it wasn't going to enhance society's welfare, and therefore wasn't up to participating. Just a note on my Economics Department - all its lecturers and administrative secretaries are the equivalent of 'Care Bears'. They carry out frequent charity drives and the like. And when you go to the Economic Undergraduate Office, you're greated by a slogan which says 'Everyone makes our day!'. On the other hand, the poliics department gives Warwick its radical stance (click on wikipedia link above to read about its industrial related links and radical political beliefs). They are somewhat Marxist and this is obviously the key to why they are participating in the picketing.

Over last few weeks, I did see coursemates carrying out strikes for Free Fair and Funded education. Not that Tuesday's strike would be anything to the equivalent of the Russian Revolution despite it being a strike and 'action short of strike' event. Its an event worth seeing and I'm currenlty wondering how many departments in the university and how many universities will be on strike that day.

:: Stuffy 3/03/2006 06:41:00 AM [+] ::
...

NASS

I forgot what I typed into wikipedia that made me search for NASS. We actually have our own wikipedia webpage, but the following excerpt is something that I didn't know.

In 1953, the Kongsi assumed management of Tuan Mong High School, renaming it as Ngee Ann Secondary School. It has won several awards, including Singapore Quality Class Award and Best Practice Award in Teaching and Learning.

Tuan Mong High School? 1953? Either I've been ignorant, or something on wikipedia is wrong.

:: Stuffy 3/02/2006 04:04:00 AM [+] ::
...

Midnight Snack



Scottish Smoke Salmon

Salad Lettuce

Finely sliced pieces of smoked ham

Feta Cheese with herb dressing

Lemon on the side

:: Stuffy 2/27/2006 11:49:00 AM [+] ::
...

Ideal Midnight Dessert

I found the ideal homemade midnight dessert.

Buy Green and Black's Organic - Chocholate Ice Cream (Dark) ( Any kind of ice cream will do which is not too sweet because the sweetness has to come from the cookie, hence dark chocolate is best)

Buy Sainsbury's Quadruple Chocolate Cookies - decadentl rich chocolate cookies bursting with milk, white and dark chocolate chnks and finished with a base of smooth milk chocolate. (This is only found in UK's Sainsburys, however for an alernative, use any kind of cookie which has a smooth texture, in between the likes of normal cookie and short bread texture)

Pound 2 - 3 cookies into half a tub of ice cream. ( I was too lazy and unhygienic to scoop it out of a bowl)

Eat

I haven't tried any other alternative mixed. But if the precise recipe has been followed, it definitely tastes much better than NYDC's mudpie. Whatever it is, never use cheap ice cream or cookie because it will leave you with a very hollow taste. I shall make this for anyone who pays me a visit.

:: Stuffy 2/26/2006 03:50:00 PM [+] ::
...

I was talking to Mich a couple of days ago and we were comparing life experiences abroad, she at Denmark and me in Britain. I remember that when we were younger, our childhood literature was coloured with European authors. The first basic literature was of course, Peter and Jane (the whole series from 1 to 12b), then we progressed to Enid Blyton's whole fairy tale series, Noddy, Hardy Boys, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the like (not to mention Hans Chritian Anderson, like obviously). That was the world we knew. As I got older, I read classic novels from authors like Kipling, Emily Bronte, Victor Hugo etc. My world of the west was idealised by these fiction books - of dim lighted quaint cobble stone streets, hot pies, sweets and biscuits, tight lipped men with long coats and polite greetings and crisp accents.

I remembered that just for fun, I asked Mr. Thompson, my former A level History Lecturer whether he 'shopped at Marks and Spencers, visited the Queen on Sunday and drank tea at four o'clock.', he just replied nonchantly that the only time he shopped at Marks and Spencers was to get underwear.

Its quite funny, but I think if I were ten again, I would imagine meeting Mich upon her arrival on a steam train from Denmark. Of course, our meeting is one of great importance and urgent business. Because Mich found an old 16th century map of Transylvania with new mysterious undiscovered areas, once believed to contain the treasures of the Dark Ages, she has asked to seek my expertise. I am, by profession a mapmaker and she, by profession, is a renown archeologist who migrated to Denmark. (Of course in this story, she still has to be my cousin). After much intense debate and discussion, we would embark on our journey to the East of Europe, hoping to bring back new knowledge of our exciting discoveries.

Not that thats going to happen now, I'm actually meeting her in a 10 person dorm near a dingy underground station called Bayswater (they have very good roast duck from a Cantonese Restaurant there which my father likes to go to). Mind you, with modern techonology, she's arriving by a budget airline and I'm coming in on a two pound coach.
Obviously, we, having no profession whatsoever, are two poor undergraduates ( the lowest common denominator in the academic world). We'll go to a British pub for cheap food and sitting at Hyde Park feeding ducks. Of course, we are still meeting for important and urgent business which still involves going to East Europe in summer (if time permits). *winks

:: Stuffy 2/24/2006 11:39:00 AM [+] ::
...

The Pizza

I'm waiting for my prawn noodles (not instant mee, I did it from prawn paste and mee sua noodles) and herbal soup to cook.

I must have been eating a fair amount of boiled chinese noodles, chicken and rice and I needed a good oily, fried, greasy giagantic pizza to balance it out. Yesterday, I bought a large BBQ Chicken piazza, and because the weather was so cold, I cabbed home. This essentially meant that the pizza cost me 14 pounds. I knew on hindsight, even before making my purchase that no pizza is ever worth it in the UK unless it was being shared (my minimum sharing persons for a 14 inch pizza is 2). But for craving sake, I didn't mind losing 12 pounds.

I managed to finished half of it ( and my teddy bear took a slice as well), but Hub wasn't home to serve his functional purpose, or to put it in a nicer way, he wasn't home to share it with me, and Janice and Rainbow don't eat pizza.

Mich, when I see you in london, we shall go eat pizza k? Meanwhile, eat all the Anderson's ice cream you can.

:: Stuffy 2/22/2006 10:37:00 AM [+] ::
...

Can't Sleep

Was talking to a future colleague (*laughs Adel, I can't imagine I'm using this term)of mine and asking her about internship. I also received an open letter from my former Sunday School teacher about a mission trip and he said that he has a 3 month old son! Two people whom I haven't met in a year and a half. Has it really been that long? Time passes by so fast and each term in Warwick keeps getting faster and faster, its catching up with my heels, or perhaps it has already proceeded to be ahead of me.

In a few weeks time, I'd be relieved of my L&B duties. Yay! Then its L&B Gold Medal test. And Economic Summit. Double Yay!. Hand in 2 assignments. In 5 weeks, its Spring Break and I'm going to New York.



I found this off Tat's blog. Everyone seems to festive!

Chinese New Year Celebrations
Went over to Edwin's place for dinner. It was a warm, personal dinner. Me and my housemates (Rainbow and Jan) and Puilai, Edwin, Eric an Pingli - essentially a mixture of Singaporeans and Cantonese speakers (specifically HK and Guan zhou). Of course, the guys did the cooking, and they have proven to be much better cooks. We had a sumptous chinese dinner of char siew, herbal chicken soup, veg, lemon chicken and roast chicken.

Really appreciated the sweet gesture from the 3 blokes, and a very gentlemanly one at that. (Although Mr Cher owed me one for the intensive Cha dance session for the One World Week Carnival in which he dragged Puilai along to be his partner, and the poor girl had to learn the steps in 3 days. Anyway, Mr Cher, if ever I have to go on board your ship for some business, you have to do the cooking when the ship reaches port, cause you know janice can't cook right? *hehe kidding

Headed for Rach's house for another round two - steamboat. But couldn't really eat that much, despite packing in a few fish balls, prawns and red bean soup. Almost everyone was there, Malaysians included. Me and Hub stayed till 12, and then time suddenly became 2. We tried to call a cab back, but no cabs were available (possibly because there are too many Chinese in coventry and all of them were out until 2 celebrating CNY). Poor Sherwin and Rach were up with us despite having to prepare food for the Asian Food Fest the next day. I didn't quite understand why Hub didn't seem to want to go home, but it could be because our place was under renovation and Rach's place was all comfy. Besides, they even had a TV to watch, which made time seem to pass even fast. In short, we went home at 5.

As if that was not enough Chinese food. Hub and I went to the new Chinese Noodle Bar at Coventry after Church with that excuse that it was CNY, so therefore, it was a must to have Chinese food in the absence of home.

This Saturday, we're going to birm for a Sing Soc organised CNY dinner.

:: Stuffy 2/03/2006 06:15:00 PM [+] ::
...

Mr Cheong, I actually took the time to do your survey. So appreaciate it.
Steph

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:
1) Steph
2) Stuffy
3) eh sotong

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD:
1) vapourize -only one

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1) my long toe
2) my stubby hands
3) my fat cheeks

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1) nothing

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:
1) heights


THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
1) Bible
2) Bear in yellow T
3) Bed - I need at least 9 hrs of sleep everyday

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:
1) standard things before I go to bed, its 2am

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS OR MUSICAL ARTISTS:
1) Frank Sinatra
2) Henry Salvador


THREE OF YOUR FAVOURITE SONGS:
1) name each one from the artiste above

THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP:
1) I have what I want

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE (in no particular order):
1) I want to kill Eng Tat for pestering me to do this
2) I want to step on Eng Tat and make him grow shorter
3) Eng Tat is such a good friend

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE PREFERRED SEX THAT APPEAL TO YOU:
1) Bear nose
2) furry paws


THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:
1) listening to lounge music
2) cafe lounging
3) restaurant hopping
THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:
1) sleep.

THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING/YOU'VE CONSIDERED:
1) I think you made me take this survey to swan me right!!

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:
1) Cairo - visit valley of kings
2) Shanghai - haven't been to China
3) Switzerland -Ski!

THREE KID NAMES YOU LIKE:
1)N/A
2)
3)

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
1)N/A
2)
3)
*Sorry Tat, I really can't think

THREE WAYS THAT YOU ARE STEREOTYPICALLY A GUY:
1)that when I was young I would wear jeans and a baggy oversized T-shirt and play playground warfare with an all boys gang
2)pretend to watch football with the gang even if I don't enjoy it much (its the company you see =)
3)CS-ing

THREE WAYS THAT YOU ARE STEREOTYPICALLY A GIRL:
1) i can max my credit card
2) i like a fuzzy soft bear
3) i nag

THREE PEOPLE THAT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE TAKE THIS QUIZ NOW:
1) Eng TAT again.
2) Megs - because Vai had to do it.
3) Sam, yes Mr Kidd, I'm pulling you into this too. you need to write something on your blog

:: Stuffy 1/25/2006 05:42:00 PM [+] ::
...

Dear Vaidehi,

I met a nice boy from Bangalore today whom I wanted to send in a package to Singapore just for you. Hes as tall as A - Horse, not as skinny as Horse, not fat, but buff and he earned plus points for recognising that I was Singaporean because of my accent ( he lived in Jakarta for 2.5 years and therefore either met alot of Singaporeans there or travelled extensively to Singapore).

He was one of the exec members in Economic Summit, but I was never fully acquainted with him until he came for his first latin and ballroom dance lesson. I tell you, an Indian boy who can dance, Vai, I really really think I should send him in a package to Singapore for you (if you happen to be over and out with Horse). Yep, hes 1985 alright, and hes in my course, yep not engineering. *snicker hurhurhur

Matchmaking,
Aunty Nonya

:: Stuffy 1/19/2006 02:43:00 PM [+] ::
...