Favourite Dance Scenes

The wonders of Youtube. I just remembered the unforgettable dance scene from Rocknrolla with Thandie Newton and Gerard Butler and managed to view it on Youtube. That led me to think about my favourite and the most memorable dance scenes from all the movies I have watched since young. I can only think of one other, which is tango scene with Al Pacino in Scent of A Woman. The whole setting; in a beautiful tearoom, a beautiful young girl and most impressively him being blind.

Feeling Good

Last week I rediscovered the fun of watching movies in the cinema. Total darkness, no distraction and did I mention, alone?

Up
(I did not know what to expect as I have never seen tralier of this cartoon.)
First of all, it is more suitable for adults. It will sure tug the heartstrings of people who have experienced relationships.
Moral of the story:- Letting go and moving on does not mean forgetting.

The Proposal
Funny, there were few moments of laughing out loud. I fell in love with the beauty of Alaska and the warmth of the people.
Moral of the story:- Too cliche to mention.

Harry Potter
Finally I have managed to catch the show. As per the book, but I was struggling to remember if Snape was innocent in the end.
Moral of the story:- None yet, but Good will overcome Evil

Coco Before Chanel
Despite some choppy development of the storyline, it is an extremely beautiful story. Not that I know of many French actresses, but Audrey Taotou (from Amelie) was perfectly cast as Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel.
Moral of the story:- If you want to fight convention, be persistent and thick-skinned.

Miss Universe 2009

Whichever way you want to perceive it, either I get to watch telly on Monday morning or why am I watching Miss Universe???

The past 10 years or so, many people particularly women have argued the irrelevance of beauty pageants and how these pageants belittle the true value of women. (That perhaps explain the quality of contestants we get in Malaysia and Singapore.)
As I watched the final 15 (no Asian) parade which was swimwear, I did not think anymore of it. If anything at all, having watched reality shows such as ANTP, Miss Universe is definitely a more dignified version of a beauty show minus catfights.

Oh and check out the irony of the swimsuit event. They got rapper 'Flo Rida (pronounced rider)' to perform 2 songs DURING the swimsuit parade. This has got to be a rapper music video wet dream!!! He started his performance surrounded by 83 women in bikinis who had to dance to the song "Jump." Poor women, especially those who couldn't dance.

Even though no Asian made it to the final 15, Ms. China won Ms. Congeniality while Ms. Thailand took Ms. Photogenic.

Anyway the evening gown event took my breath away. Ms Kosovo and Ms Venezuela were absolutely stunning! Ms South Africa has got this hot sexy thing going for her. Ms Venezuela looks like a Hollywood movie star from the 40s and Ms Kosovo has got the elegance of Audrey Hepburn. Ms. Kosovo is so gorgeous. You have got to see her strut down the runway in that blue dress and the hairdo. It took my breath away. But I don't think Kosovo nailed the interview. Sigh... if she does not get it, lets hope Venezuela does.

Is it just me?

When I was a kid, I used to watch Ms Universe on telly with my cousins and 6th aunt. Forget about feminism, sexism, demeaning women etc. We just watched it purely out of admiration for the beauty of the women and their dresses. My aunt used to marvel at South American beauties with their very exotic looks. In those days, mainstream media was limited to local papers, RTM 1, RTM 2 and TV3. The event gave us a glimpse into almost 100 different cultures at the same time, eventhough a distorted one!

Today I went through the list of contestants. My aunt is right, the South American beauties are gorgeous. I also look at our Asian neighbours' representatives.

Well, is it just me? Everytime when I see an Asian girl posing, or trying to pose with a sultry expression it just reminds me of bad soft porn (think Asian FHM). Very few does it well, or perhaps I expect Asian women to represent a more wholesome image; smiley with warmth and sincerity. Or perhaps they just can't quite carry it off. Perhaps to look sultry, you need to have a certain look.

Anyway if you haven't got anything better to do, do browse through the contestants. I did not realise that they are ranked for popularity even before the finals, and our country's rep ranks last.

What A Hole

In my whole life, I have probably encountered only 1 or 2 people who do not swear, at all. Swearing is so common, even my mother swears. Her favourite phrase is "dog poo" in hokkien. Most of us have our favourite words or phrases. (Please comment and share)

Most of the expletives we use have been uttered so freely for years, we no longer pause and think what it actually means. Take for example somebody cuts into my lane without signalling his car and I say "asshole!" If you actually visualise an asshole (albeit a real one) it is actually quite funny. Why asshole? I suppose it's rather self-explanatory being the exit point of our waste system.

How about "f***" and its various uses as an adjective, noun or verb. Why ever "f***"? I find this rather odd seeing that humans are sexual beings.

However I do take offence when swearing is directed at someone's family. I strongly feel that if you are upset with someone, just take it out on the offending person. There is no need to involve the rest of the family. I did make an exception to this rule once when someone on the bus stole money from my bacpack 12 years ago on metro bus ride from Kota Raya. I cursed the thief and his next 7 generations. I must have been inspired by the legendary Puteri Gunung Ledang, or was that the Langkawi legend?

We or most of us swear so regularly that most cuss words have lost their effectiveness or oomph. For example "oh s***" is so common to express unpleasant surprises and "f***" to mark the beginning of deep s***. In fact deep s*** is funny. Imagine standing in a puddle of poo!

Language in my opinion also determine the oomphness of a swear word. Until today, I still find hokkien words to describe the male and female reproductive organs to be outrageous. I generally reserve the use of those words for exceptionally pissing off occasions ("piss off" is a recognised phrasal verb in English).

Well, my swearing days are numbered since Eddie is picking up words very quickly these days. I will soon resort to spelling, if not in English will then be "p-u-k-i-m-a-k."

Country Curry Fear Factor Style

In my first year of living in England, the Accommodation Office assigned me to an apartment with 5 other Thai postgraduate students. I thought it was rather odd, considering that the whole point of studying abroad is to be exposed to a wider spectrum of culture. Well perhaps the Accommodation Office presumed that we Asians like to stick with our own kind. Or perhaps they wanted to protect me from the wilder side of university life.

Do not get me wrong, I loved my Thai housemates. The assortments of Thai food they used to cook were lovely. Of course not all Thai people like spicy food. Only Fai, whose mother is a Cantonese (there are Thai people who are of Chinese descent, mainly Teochew e.g. Thaksin), loved really spicy food. She used to get shipments of yummy ingredients from her mother. She used to cook one type of Thai southern curry which I found vaguely similar to our Penang Assam Laksa. It was so spicy, fishy and extremely pungent when mixed with bamboo shoots. Each time she cooks that dish, she would always offer me a portion of it. Both of us dug in while everyone else complained about the smell in the kitchen.

Since then, I came across that curry once in Phuket when we were experimenting with the Thai written menu. The one I had in this lovely seafood restaurant in Phuket was SO spicy. I do not think I have ever eaten anything that was so spicy that I just could not eat it! People who know me would know about my high spicy tolerance level. In fact I do not know anyone who could eat anything more spicy than I, except for Sig.Ot. Each mouthful of the curry was followed by huge gulps of water plus the cool condiments that were served with that curry dish; cucumbers, long beans etc.

This time round in Samui, I ordered Country Curry with fish. It tastes vaguely similar to the one Fai used to cook, but a tad too sweet to my liking. That was not the bad bit. There was no fish to be found in the curry except for unidentified bits of stuff inside the curry. I swear I have never ever seen anything like that.

Item A

It was not fish stomach, because it was chewy and very “flowery” in appearance. Reminds me of sotong that have been carved to bloom when cooked, but much more complicated patterns.

Item B

This is the bit I could not get over with. They were a bunch of bubbles, like oversized pearls stuck together. Sig.Ot thought that they may have been the insides of the lungs of something, because of those bubbles. I reminded him that this was supposed to be a fish dish and fish don’t have lungs!

Left (Item B) Right (Item A)

Sig.Ot ate those stuff, and I could not bring myself to eat them. They looked way too gross (some may disagree due to the horseshoe tick eggs!). In the end, I did bring myself to try the bubbles. Sig.Ot described the texture to be similar with the horsecrab eggs; chewy. We decided that the bunch of bubbles were perhaps the eggs of a giant fish. Must be one hell of a fish because they taste nothing like my favourite salmon roe, and I doubt these eggs, if they are indeed eggs, will ever feature in a fine dining menu.

Trash vs. Arrakis

Gone were the days when I could read a book a day during my holiday break. My record was 15 books in Phuket 5 years ago.

To be fair, this time round was not too bad considering that I have Sig.Ot and Eddie to look after. I managed to read 4 books in 15 days. Two of my choices were quite horrid. I did not realise Louise Bagshawe writes trash. I thought terms like "spearing" could only be found in Mills & Boons. Maybe being a wife and mother changes you. I am no longer as interested in the copulation description as I am with the plot.

• Dune by Frank Herbert
• Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert
• A Kept Woman by Louise Bagshawe
• Married Lovers by Jackie Collins

I know, such contradictions. I am a big fan of Dune. I rarely, very rarely re-read books. However Dune was worth every single page. It is so spectacular how great one's mind could be to imagine such possibilities and to create an alternative universe with this gift.

My HeartBurns

My trip to Thailand always include outings to the local market. The treasure, oops I mean food, you could find there is absolutely heavenly.

This is also the opportunity I take to stock up on my curry paste collection, especially the super spicy version of everything (red, green, sour, panang) which not only leaves your mouth tingly but with a serious heartburn too.

On top of that, I was going to buy all types of curry paste as a present to our neighbor down the road, a 90 year old great grandmother whom Eddie visits every morning. Since she loves cooking and occasionally share with us her delicious nyonya specialities, I thought the gift of curry paste was befitting. Furthermore, I will be visiting my family next week and I am sure my parents would enjoy the curry too. I ended up buying 11 bags of individually packed curry paste from the market and was so pleased with my curry haul!

And why oh why did I not think of the stupid airport???

I hand carried them all in a paper bag, and they were confiscated at the gate scanner. The lady told me I could not bring them on to the plane, as they were like "lotion that you put on your skin." What kind of a stupid comparison was that?! Yes I understand what she was trying to say but her choice of example merely infuriated me. I did ask her whatever happened to the 100ml allowance in clear plastic bag because they were all in clear plastic bags. She told me there was no such thing eventhough I swear SIA allows lotian and toothpaste in the approved quantity of course, on my long haul flights.

My heart burns and yearns for my lost curry paste.