Why I Love Thee

1. For the dark eye rings & eyebags you've given me.

2. For the deafening scream you gave.

3. For the endless worries about your health, weight, appetite yadah yadah.....

4. For the faceas you've squirted on me.

5. For the smiles & laughter.

6. For the baby talk that only you would understand.

7. For the firm grip you've given.

8. For the hugs that you long for.

9. For the funny faces you've made.

10. For the love that you gave.

Great balls of flowers

Chinese New Year has passed peacefully so far (thank goodness) & had a tour of the flower fest. Crowded & hot. Phew~

Tomatoes are good for health & kanahchee. Wait a minute, isn't it supposed to be FLOWERS fest?

Really have got no idea what's that. Supposed to look like a hand with 5 fingers. Eh????????

Tok tok chang!!! These flowers should be reflective of CNY.

Sea of red erm... flowers.

Lavender field.. Nice! :)

Great bolahs of flowers PART 1

Great bolahs of flowers PART 2. The flowers can't get any better complements than kanahchee & i.

My 第一次

Yesh, my 第一次.

First time celebrating CNY as a married couple, which means pao-ing ang pao to my cousins & ah pui's bro. I can picture them rubbing their hands in glee, lining up for the red packets now. To my cousins who are reading this, WAIT TIL CNY!! And wait til you guys get married, will get kanahchee to do the same thing back to you. Grrr.....

Since i'm totally new to this, would be at a lost on how much crispy new notes to change & more importantly, how much to change. You never know about unexpected ang-pao hunters waving the mandarin oranges at you. And to give parents & in-laws ang paos (err.. how much to give??)

And the most headache of all, reunion dinner. Urm.. although i'm carrying kanahchee, doubt it's possible to polish off 2 dinners within 1 night. *gulp*

so this calls for: planning, planning.. STRATEGIC PLANNING!!!

First time celebrating CNY as a preggie. Great, gotta have people coming up & commenting on my tummy & weight. 'Your tummy this & that, your weight that & this.' Gotta bring my earplugs.

First time not buying new clothes for CNY. Call it either a pro/con for being preggie. Most of the maternity clothes sucks! And if they look good, it would cost a bomb. Even though i'm a shopaholic, i'm not gonna be a sucker and pay a few hundred for a dress that i'm gonna wear for 6 mths. Really saving up money for the ang paos.

With 2 weeks to CNY, Happy Chinese New Year folks! Gong Xi Gong Xi~

AaaahHHHhhhhhHHHh...!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is way too traumatising for me, gonna keep this post short.

Discovered that i've gained 9 - 10kg since i'm preggy & i'm only into my 24th week! It's like another 16 weeks to go, & i may even gain 20 kg in total?! Can't believe it, i may be hitting well into the 60's. Nooooooooo................ AAAAAAAAaaaaahhhhhhhHHHHHHhhhhhh....!!!!!

The importance of hip

The hip here doesn't mean funky or modern. Rather it's, yup, the bum, butt, buttock, arse, ka ceng, si fat or whatever language you wanna call it. Guess you know what i'm referring to now.

Have not thought much of the hip except for when (a) i'm furiously jiggling it on the dancefloor, (b) buttock-butting with friends, or (c) i'm trying out new clothes & realising in horror (again) at how huge my bum bum is (or should i say, i've realised for the umpteen time that i've got a beyonce butt. :p)

One of the perils of carrying kanah chee is my ever expanding & loosening pelvic bone, which has unfortunately caused me to have a painful butt. Literally, i've got a pain in my ass! And what a painful ass.... bummer. Have not realised how important the butt is until now. Nearly every movment we made involves the hip. Be it, standing, sitting, lying down, squatting, walking. Oooh yesh.... now i've got a painful beyonce ass.

Happy New Year!

Okay, the title of this post sounds damn cliche, sometimes, oldie doesn't mean mouldie... this the most apt i can think of. And since i'm already 2 days late, let's not wait any longer. HAPPY NEW YEAR folks!! :)

Another new year, another new beginning, refreshed vigour at work/school (dream on!), renewed resolutions (for wat?!!??!). Don't understand why would people bother to make resolution. Hadn't heard of anyone who manage to keep to theirs. So to get into the resolution making mood, mine would be to eat well, rest well, play well, live well. There.. should be simple enough for me.

It all begins with a +

Was stuffing myself with clarinase to stop my nose leakage when a little voice went off for me to do a double check. So there i went to buy the kit. Yah.. DE KIT, The 'p' kit. P...r...e...g...g...y kit. And the sign that greeted me when i checked: +.

Nothing could be more positive than that. Was i elated? surprised? horrified? let's just say the first thought that ran through my mind was 'wha lau!!! buy toto also not so accurate lar.' :p

went through somemore test just to make veeeeeeeeeeery sure that the jackpot has been hit. TA DAH!!! yesh... APS has never hit the jackpot, and this time round, it's a lucky triple seven. Woohoooo.... so, here's introducing *drumroll* kanah chee aka poddie chee aka attap chee... *kanah chee aka poddie chee aka attap chee... takes a bow, and continues sucking thumb*

been 5 months since the discovery, and wish me luck guys, for a smooth delivery. :)

Sniff sniff...

Happy b'day to me... happy b'day to me.... This gotta be one of the most miserable birthdays i've spent in years.

My body is a wreck. Hacking & sniffing, cramps (twice in the night!!!), stiff back & neck. So even if i'm supposed to enjoy my healthy organic lunch at dempsey, i'm busy keeping my nose dry & looking dignified. While i'm supposed to be enjoying the buffet dinner at trader's htl, i'm busy trying to figure out the taste of the food. Ah... is this a sign of ageing?!?!???!!!

Shall stop my whining... & back to my sniffing. *SNIFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF*

Holiday!!!

Who's the smart aleck to make us work in Dec?! It's a sin.

Yup, you've guessed it. I'm in a hyper holiday mood, starting right in the beginning of Dec. Thks to my ingenious planning to scrimp & save my leave.. hehe... have calculated, i'm working a grand total of less than 10 days this month. WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

X'mas & b'day ain't helping either. Have been gorging myself for the past week, and more to come. *gulp*

To everyone out there, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Forget about working (for this month at least). Go party, shop, laze around... heck... just relax! :)

Battle between the good & the evil

Have been trying hard to adhere to a healthy diet these couple of months. And as many of you know, most healthy food = yucky food, or not dat yummy food. :S

To top it off, it isn't helping when i'm polishing off my 3 meals out everyday. Imagine lor... no mummy's homecooked nutritious food, & gotta battle the temptations everyday. Argh!!!

FINALLY, the day has come when i succumb to temptations. Was standing right in between the porridge & laksa stalls yest. Literally the angel n devil rgt beside moi. Have been fighting off the craving for laksa for months. AHHHHHH.... the laksa was beckoning to me & was happily lured to it. Even managed to polish off prata for supper.

Right.. it's devilishly unhealthy. Neh mind, it's only for yesterday night. What with me sticking to a decent diet of veg, meat, fish (yucks!), i'll need a holiday at times also. It's like swimming laksa bliss when u finally get to savour your cravings. :)~

Talk about temptations, the worst was when my Malay neighbour was deep frying chicken. Aiyoh, just let me swim in the chicken fat and munch on the crispy deep fried chicken.

Weddings....

have attended a few weddings this yr, and *ahem* haf also held one myself. i'm usually not a huge fan of weddings, and would only attend if they are held by (a) relatives, or (b) close friends.

attended my first wedding function at fullerton over the weekend. okay, i know.... what to do?! i'm suahku & my relatives and friends are too poor to hold the event there as well. :P

which idiotic chap design the ballroom to incorporate stairs leading down to the hall? insensitive dude. DUH! try wearing 5 of your mom's longest dress,3" heels (AT LEAST) , & to walk elegantly down the darn flight of stairs without holding onto any railings, except for your pathetic hubby's arm. gdluck to the bride if she marries a skinny dude. kinda pity the husbands, imagine ur wife digging their nails into u while they are desperately balancing themselves while floating down the stairs.

urm.. no offense to bossa nova fans. i like bossa novas.. in fact, i listen to it at work, chilling out, stoning.. watever.... good music, BUT bossa nova is soooooooooooooooooooooooo overplayed during weddings. how many 'fly me to the moon' can u endure within a yr?! newly weds... be innovative! come up with something new.... *desperate whimper*

AND... the emcee may adore the newly weds.. in fact, most of the guests do. if not, nobody would be stupid enough to attend a wedding, pay good $, & yet can't fill up our poor tummy. But, do spare us with endless clapping of your accolades to the couple. yes, yes. ah pui soh experienced that before. try clapping intermittently for 15 minutes, & you would get what i mean. not only do i fill like throwing my wine glass at the emcee, but at the couple too. alrite... i know u two are lovey dovey, goo-ey, mushy, oh-so-ador-y. bleah.

Diary of a self-confessed shopaholic

Dear Diary,
Finally after a two year hiatus, i'm back at Bkk again. woohoo!!!! finally!!! a chance to quench my shopping thirst.
Day One - MBK
How to give this place a miss? what wif the 199 baht shoes and shoes. but prices seem to haf increase in MBK. it's more of 259 baht shoes, instead of 199. but who cares?!?! we are in bangkok, the beginning of the crazy shopping spree. JUST BUY!!
Day Two - Central, Paragon
Not much bargain to hunt for in isetan. DISSAPPOINTED!!! but nonetheless, managed to grab a few narayas. I nearly broke my leg walking Central, and i really felt like sitting on a wheelchair when we reached Paragon. Now i understand why Thais are generally skinny - the diet & the walking are a killer for couch potatoes like moi. Didn't even managed to cover 1/4 of Paragon & i'm already screaming for mercy for my poor legs. H..e..l..p... ah pui soh is defeated by shopping for the 1st time.
Day Three - Chatuchak
No trip to bangkok is complete without a visit to CTC. Newsflash: CTC is now opened on Fri nites & weekend evenings... YEAH!! more shopping.. more splurging... more blood-gutting bargaining.... more lugging of shopping bags for ah pui. WOOHOOOOO....

BUT, age is really catching up on me. haf to lug my iron clad legs back after 1 afternoon worth of non-stop shopping. argh.... should have trained up on my stamina before going to bkk. *bang wall*
Day Four - Platinum Mall & Suan Lom Night Mkt
We have the good fortune of being neighbours to Plantinum Mall. (more yeah!!!) Ah pui was astonished that we spent the entire afternoon scurrying in the 6 level-high malls. Hello, what do u expect? 5 levels (san foodcourt) of clothes, shoes, bags??!!! It already is a miracle that i cover the mall within 1 afternoon.

Hehe, the proudest moment must be when i'm paying for 6 bags at wholesale price. Nearly did the victory dance in front of the cashier. S$24 for 6 bags... BWAHHHAHHHAHHAHAHA....

Went suan lom on ah pui's insistence. Bleah.... sacrificed my snooze fest for a bleah trip.
Day Five - Home Sweet Home
Bye bye bkk. Til we meet again. *sooooooooooooooooooooooooooobs, BWAAAAAAAAAH* But before, the tears, more last minute grabs from MBK.

Some of my humble conquests:



Bags - woolala... some at wholesale price :D





Clothes (part 1) - my black collection. Don't ask me what got into me to buy so much blacks. Must be my never-ending quest to look thin.








Clothes (part 2) - my coloured collection. okay, a grey sneaked in. smart ass. :P









Shoes - could have bought more, if ah pui is not nagging at me, AGAIN.

Chee...

Disclaimer: No malicious thought is intended for this post. All names suggested are to be taken in good faith, fun & the spirit of having a good laugh. Cheers~

Top 10 Names for the Surname CHEE:

1. Kuah Chee
2. Air-Tap aka Attap Chee
3. Moi aka Muah Chee
4. Kanah Chee
5. Kimberly aka Kim Chee
6. Lye Chee
7. Chee Ki
8. Chee Ku
9. Chee Li
10. Chee Cheong Fun

Take your vote for the best name that goes with Chee! Closing date: 31.10.07.

APS

I'm watching Kumar... i'm watching Kumar.... lalallla

But come to think of it, i'm nearly paying thru my nose to watch the Queen performing, when i could previously watched the Queen in Boom Boom Room. APS = ah pui soh = another pathetic sucker.



Another not to be missed...

My best friend's hubby is....

In all fairness, my best friend's hubby is.... hmm.. *scratch head* urmm... *think hard!!* eh.... *focus!!!* ......

Ok ok... my best friend's hubby is:

1. A man. Right, that sounds utterly lame. BUT... that pretty much sums up everything. Period. I mean... MAN, man, Man, mAn, maN, whatever the permutation, is that. A MAN. Need i further elaborate on a MAN? Whomever he should be, he's the MAN of my best friend.

Thanks to you, for sharing with her best friend. :)

A Best Friend is....

A best friend is my:

1. Lover - yakking through the night, only stopping for toilet & supper breaks. Heh~ more time has been spent on the phone with best friend than any of my bfs or Ah Pui.

2. Fellow patriot - spurring the S'pore economy with our relentless shopping.

3. Fellow detective - proven & effective sluething work in sniffing out our missing shopping bag as a result of overloading of our hands with even more bags.

4. Family - deciding between sacrificing granny's b'day dinner for best friend's wedding.

5. Counsellor - aunt agony for my troubles & grievances.

6. SOS - 1st person i called for my 1st ever experience in killing the despicable roach.

7. Time-killing device - 1st person i called if i should kill time while waiting for the bus or watching my nails grow.

8. Reference book - dispensing tips on child-bearing, hrm aka human relations mgt :P etc.

9. Decision-maker - what should i wear??? what bag should i carry??? should i do mani/pedi???

10.Time-machine - reflections on our stories & history together.

11. Tabloid paper - the bearer & receiver of gossips.

Thank you, my best friend. :)

15 KPH

Happened to see this sign at East Coast Park at the walkway for pedestrains & inline skaters. Did a double take when i saw it. I was like HELLO?!?! who is the smart aleck with pea-sized brain who thought of this & the bird-brain who approved it?! *don't roll eyes... don't roll eyes*

Hmmm.. since when did any normal human beings see roller-bladers strapping on speedometer on their skates or pedestrains having speedometer on them. ok ok.. granted that bicycles may make illegal entry onto the path (orh.... notti cyclists!!! how can?!), how many bicycles actually have speedometer?!?!? DUH!

To be constructive, feel free to adopt any of the suggestions below to avoid exceeding the speed limit:

a. Strapping shackles onto inline skaters. Approximate max speed for such skaters would be at around 1.5kph.

b. Pentagon/octagon wooden wheels for cyclists. Approximate max speed for such cyclists would be at 5mph. Drawback is danger of catching fire during hot weather due to friction between tyres and ground.

c. Auto-stop devices for skaters & cyclists travelling at more than the speed limit. Don't laugh at such devices. These mayb a god-send to virgin skaters preventing any fatal accidents when they are travelling downslope. *achoy!!*

d. Pedestrains to strap speedometer on their foreheads that would emit loud beeping sound if they should exceed the speed limit. This should be able to shame those speedy gonzales who think that the whole track is for them to zip around in. Members of the public to cooperate in the ORH-ING & finger pointing process.

Dat's it! i can't stand it anymore. *ROOOOLLLLLLL EYES!!* @_@

The Never-Ending Debate

The never-ending debate of women's sexuality, rights, empowerment & the yadah crap took its stand here as well. The ever-changing moral values would just ding-dong the article over the next millenium & beyond.

Hmm.. what's with women asking for equality & adopting the i'm-a-woman-but-yet-i'm-macho attitude? Just give me the due respect anytime.

Translation

Read the article in the papers over the weekend:
________________________
Lost in translation II

THE column in this space last week was entitled 'Lost in translation'. It was apt, for it turned out to apply to the writer as well.

I had written: 'When Coca-Cola first entered the Chinese market, it called its drink ke-kouke-la. Unfortunately, the Chinese characters the company chose for those phonetic sounds meant 'bite the wax tadpole' or 'female horse stuffed with wax'. Coca Cola scrambled when it discovered its mistake and came up with ko-kou-ko-le, meaning 'happiness in the mouth'.
Well, my sources turned out not to be altogether correct. A translation howler did occur, but it wasn't quite Coca-Cola's fault. And the company did settle upon a felicitous name, but the transliteration of that name in hanyupinyin is ke-kou-ke-le, not ko-kouko-le. The latter, it turns out, is a butchered version of the old Wade-Giles transliteration of the name - k'o-k'ou-k'o-le^. Those little ticks do matter. The apostrophe in k'o, for instance, signifies an aspirated sound, and without it, ko would be pronounced like the unaspirated ge in pinyin. Not knowing that, numerous sources have Coca-Cola known as kokou-ko-le in China. That looks like hanyu-pinyin, but isn't; is supposed to be Wade-Giles, but ain't.

Lost in translation, indeed! From English to Chinese to WadeGiles to Wade-Giles butchered to hanyu-pinyin to hanyu-pinyin misunderstood - it was enough to set my mind spinning. With the considerable help of two knowledgeable readers, Mr Phua Kok Heng and Mr Ian Lim, my senior colleague Mr Leslie Fong and my old teacher Professor Koh Tai Ann, I spent the better part of a week navigating the mysteries of the Chinese 'Coca-Cola'. Fiddling while Rome burns, one might say, but the mystery proved irresistible. The ke-kou-ke-le story, it turns out, is more interesting than I had imagined.

It began in 1928. Coca-Cola got a toehold in Shanghai and planned to penetrate the hinterland. But before it could, the Coca-Cola trademark had to be transliterated into Chinese characters.
The problem was there were about 200 Chinese characters, with a wide range of meanings, with sounds vaguely resembling Co-Ca-Co-La. While the company was sifting through them, Chinese shopkeepers, taking the initiative, put up their own signage, 'adopting any old group of characters that sounded remotely like 'Coca-Cola' without giving a thought as to the meaning of the characters used', reported H.F. Allman, a former legal counsel to Coca-Cola in China. Some of these signs adopted characters with bizarre meanings - 'tadpole biting wax', 'tadpole crunching wax tadpole', and what not, depending on the version of the story one reads. The howlers, according to Coca-Cola's official account, were the fault of the Chinese, not culturally ignorant Americans.

Other versions of the story have another Chinese, one Professor Jiang Yi, riding to the rescue. A well-known artist and poet, Prof Jiang was residing in Britain in the 1940s when he came up with ke-kou-ke-le in a competition. Some say he received a prize of £25 for his brain-wave, some say more. Whatever it was, Coca-Cola got a winner cheap. Branding experts nowadays would have charged much more - upwards of £250,000.

The characters corresponding to ke-kou-ke-le can be translated literally into English as 'can- mouth-can-happy' - or idiomatically in Chinese, ke-kou ('delicious') + ke-le ('enjoyable'). In Hokkien, the characters are pronounced approximately ko-kowko-luck; and in Cantonese, horhow-hor-lok.

The Coca-Cola example reveals the possible felicities, as well as pitfalls, in translating Western brand-names into Chinese. After all, the words 'Coca-Cola' do not evoke much in English. We know, in the dim recesses of our minds, that the drink is called thus because its recipe originally included coca leaves and kola nuts. But the fact that it may be 'the Real Thing' does not inhere in its name. Because Chinese is ideogramatic, it is possible to choose especially meaningful characters to convey the phonetic equivalents of English words. Thus, the Chinese 'Coca-Cola' can declare itself 'delicious' and 'enjoyable' - 'the Real Thing' - in its very name.

Many Western brands have exploited this capacity to produce felicitous results. Thus Mercedes-Benz is called ben chi in China, which means 'galloping swiftly'; BMW bao ma (for the first two letters of its initials), meaning 'treasured horse'; and Louis Vuitton lu yi wei deng, which suggests 'stepping up to the upper class'.

Even brands that have been unable to find phonetic equivalents for their names, have managed nevertheless to adopt felicitous Chinese names. Pepsi, for instance, is known as bai shi ke le, or 'hundred matters enjoyable'; and Nestle as que chao, or 'sparrow nest' - quite a coup, considering that 'Nestle' is a German surname meaning 'small nest'.

Companies do not always get so lucky. Consider Goldlion, the Hong Kong men's garments and accessories company. It was first known by the Chinese equivalent of 'Gold Lion'. In Cantonese, that is Kam See - which, unfortunately, sounds very much like the Cantonese words for 'gold loss', not at all an auspicious link. The company soon got itself a new Chinese name by splitting 'Goldlion' into three parts - 'Gold' (kam) + li ('profit' in Mandarin or lai in Cantonese) + 'on' (understood as 'come on' or lei in Cantonese). Thus, it became known as Kam Lai Lei in Cantonese (or Jin Li Lai in Mandarin), meaning 'gold and profit come'. Amazingly enough, they did.

Considering the lengths to which companies will go to find the correct Chinese transliterations of their brand names, it is understandable why Chinese Singaporeans were annoyed a couple of years ago when the Bayfront MRT station was initially called Bei Fu Lan. As this newspaper reported then, Bei Fu Lan didn't mean anything much, except that it sounded like 'Bayfront' mispronounced in English. Worse still, 'fu lan sounded like the Chinese word for decompose'. If Coca-Cola could have paid £25 to Prof Jiang to come up with ke-kouke-le, surely we could have paid somebody $250 to dig up something more lively than a decomposing body.

By the way, I've never asked anyone what my name in Chinese - Cha-Nah-Tha, I think it is - actually means. I fear discovering it means 'hanging toe nail' or something dreadful like that. If you do know what it means, DO NOT e-mail me unless it means something nice.
_____________________________

Have some silly translations that i just discovered. Pick ur brain & have a short brain-teaser.

1. 水上烟
2. 联合公园

Answers ready??
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Stumped?
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Pulling ur hair out at how annoying i am???
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Ok, ok... before i get bashed... the answers (drum-roll...!!!!)

1. Smoke on Water (for the uninitiated, it's the anthem by Deep Purple)
2. Linkin' Park

bhwahh... it might just be better to just leave the names as it is & to perserve the dignity of the names, instead of shredding it to bits & leaving it for ridicule. *tsk*

Postmodernism

Dis the book that i'm currently reading.





Being the shallow me... was decieved by the illustrations in each page. Thought it would be easy reading, but it's actually heavy-duty material. Have to re-read the paras a few times before fully grasping the idea behind it. Eh... it's largely attributed to my bloken engrish. Ideas raised make good discussion topics for like-minded frens tho. :)