Kids say the darndest things

My ambivalence towards kids was reaffirmed by one little punk last Tuesday. Hollam and I went to UCC to eat lunch and as we went to buy our food, we noticed a lot of kids in the food court. Western has summer programming for kids to let them play sports and obviously to give parents some slack. Hollam and I were just having an ordinary chat when *ting*, something hits Hollam's eating utensil. To me it seemed as though something fell from the ceiling but he thought it was a bottle cap. We glanced around to see if anybody was missing a bottle cap and would likely have thrown it at their buddy but missed and hit us instead. We didn't really see anybody who was playing around so we thought somebody did it intentionally. So we saw a table of guys drinking bottled pop, but they didn't seem as though they would have done it. After a couple of seconds, we just went back to our conversation and then *whack*, something ricochets off my juice can. This time we absolutely knew it was intentional. My next plan of action was to look as quickly as possible around to see who was laughing. That's usually the easiest sign of guilt when throwing random food articles at people. I spotted 3 kids apparently trying to stifle laughter. A long stare at them was sufficient to let them know that I was on to them. So I thought. As I returned to my lunch believing that this childish behaviour would end then *zing*, a Skittle comes flying at Hollam. This time I have enough evidence to nail these brats. One boy was holding a Skittles candy package, a girl next to him was giggling and another boy was also looking in our direction. I told Hollam we should just stare at them and use our age to intimidate them. I now believe that using seniority really has no relevance these days (compounded with a past experience in which a bunch of us high school students were heckled by French elementary school kids)...these kids boldly and brashly just looked back at us without fear and even continued to laugh. Normally if someone were my age I might confront them, but being kids I gave them the benefit of the doubt and ignored them. Then I heard the unthinkable..."Ch, Chin, Chink...Chinky...Chink!" WTF?!?! That immediately sent waves of anger seering through my body. I paused for a moment to let sink in the gravity of the insult that was so cowardly yelled in our direction. Firstly, where do kids learn racist remarks like that? I thought we were past all that racist bullshit. This is Canada after all. Either someone they know is perpetuating it or we still have serious racism issues to deal with. Secondly, do they even know what Chink means? Thirdly, when did respect for elders become obsolete? I mean this one boy had 2 strikes against him. He was white and he targeted of all the people in the cafeteria, 2 Asian people, then called us Chinks. And then he doesn't give a damn that we are older. Someone like him was better off being punished by the camp councillor, so I went to the table where councillors were seated and told them what happened. They dealt with it promptly and took two of the boys off (the 2nd boy was ratted out by the 1st as being an accomplice). An ironic strike 3, the 2nd boy was black. It turns out that they were sent to the office to be picked up and taken home immediately. One of the kids was crying too, haha! I'm sorry but he does not get sympathy from me.

In my 23 years of living in Canada I had never experienced such blatant racism before. I was shocked beyond belief. And to think, I am probably 3 times more Canadian than that one boy because he was a third my age. Anyhow, I'm also fortunate to see the racism instead of being treated poorly for being "different" and not knowing it. I'd rather be treated like shit and know it was because I'm Chinese than to experience the more deadlier but subtle version of racism that is maltreatment for no apparent reason. I only hope that this boys grows up one day feeling ashamed of his actions and breaks the chain of racism.

Singapore Zoo

I think the Singapore Zoo kicks the Toronto Zoo's ass! It has this "open concept" in which the animals live in lush landscapes resembling their native habitat. When I walked in I felt like I was walking into Jurassic Park, minus the dinosaurs. But it was an overwhelming feeling of walking into nature. You don't exactly feel like you're looking at animals, but witnessing them in their natural state. You can get very close to them as well, and there are few visual obstructions. The only barrier between us and the lions was a moat filled with water. It was pretty spectacular. We saw pretty much all of the typical zoo animals: lions, jaguars, puma, chimps, orangutans, elephants, giraffes (they were boring), turtles, alligators, hippos, even raccoons! There were these striped little animals, kind of a cross between a porcupine and a groundhog. They loved the colour red, so when we opened our red umbrella, they all came flocking towards it and sniffing in the air. It was cute!!! I took a video of it as well. We also saw these miniature deer, called mouse deer. They would run across the pathway right in front of the legs of visitors. And animals like lemurs were conditioned such that they could freely roam within certain areas while people were walking through.

The zoo had a separate park called the Night Safari in which nocturnal animals could be viewed. I got to see the slow loris, a small primate in which I was looking forward to seeing. It was everything I expected! Cute, little furry guy eating fruits and grasping objects very slowly and deliberately. Other favourites included the bushbaby and the tree kangaroo. As an animal lover, I have to say that this was one of the best parts of my entire trip to Malaysia/Singapore.

**A few other notables about Singapore: It's very clean and urban. We went to Halia Restaurant in the Botanic Gardens which was quite good eats albeit Western food. We also went to a Japanese "buffet" in which sushi is brought out along a conveyor belt which snakes all throughout the restaurant. You basically choose what you want off the belt as it rides by. Shopping along Orchard Rd. area was absolutely amazing. There is no way I could have left empty-handed. There are these two spiky domed structures that are known as the Esplanade. I hear that it's like a shopping mall/place for dining but we never went there. People say they either look like fly eyes or durian. We walked through Chijmes (sounds like "chimes", what's with the J?) which has several restaurants and boutiques and bars. Everything was closed when we went there. If I'm not mistaken it used to be a convent. Go figure.

Pulau Redang Laguna Beach Resort

Onto the Redang trip. This place was an island paradise! It's no wonder that Asian movies are often shot there. In fact, we saw an Indian movie being filmed on our resort during a torrential downpour. It was rather exciting and I took a couple of pictures of course. The trip was long and though the buses were probably the most comfortable I've ever seen and been in, somehow I would substitute the 10+ hour long trip for an hour or two plane trip in a heartbeat. The buses were pretty cool though. The seats reclined almost to a flat-lying position and they even had a kick-out extension leg rest as well as a foot bar that folded down from the seat in front. There were drapes as well to cover the windows. We had a bathroom on the way up, but the bathroom was exchanged for TVs on the way back. Except Boon wouldn't let me watch War of the Worlds because he wanted to watch it in the theatre instead so I just read Angels & Demons instead. I thought I was going to be seasick on the boat ride, but it was most likely remnants of the bowel problems I was having earlier from the food shock inflicted on me in Malaysia. Anyhow we made it there alive.

On the first day, we spent time on the beach, which was right in front of our resort, beautiful white sand and clear water from the South China Sea with many different shades of blue. Lots of corals were washed up onto the beach so we had a hint of what we were to see later on. The water was very warm and calm, not to mention salty. It stings the eyes and leaves an intense bitter taste in your mouth. Then we spent some time in the pool which was extremely large and had a mini-slide and attached hot tub. I got to show off my swimming skills (ie pseudo free-style/breast stroke, smashing into the side of the pool, and struggling to stay afloat). Seriously, if you saw me in Jamaica, then you know to have an experienced swimmer around me at all times. There was of course, over the 4 days, all you can eat buffet meals 3 times a day. The BBQ on the second day was the best meal. And the Canadian in me could not get enough of green salad and pasta, even though there were plenty of native dishes to eat. I guess I needed to get my fill because I wouldn't see any more of that the rest of the trip. After the long trip, we had anticipated having a massage that night, and we longed for it all day. When the time finally came, to our horror, it was not just any massage, it was a Chinese massage which equals REFLEXOLOGY. Oh shit. Not again. I must say that I took it pretty well the second time. The girl was probably wondering why I wasn't wincing in pain...*she cannot beat me*...that was until she started to massage my back. Now that was a new experience. Knuckles, elbows, fingers, digging into my spine and shoulder blades! Crap!! Lady, I wanted to pile drive her after that. On top of that, we were lying on these massage tables where you put your head through some donut. To be sanitary, they put a towel on top of the part where your face sits, but I could hardly breathe. She was breaking my back, and suffocating me. Grrr....what do I have to do to get away from these people and get a normal massage. It always gets me because these massage ladies are pretty tiny but they pack a lot of strength. By the way, reflexology stores popped up more frequently then Tim Horton's in London, so it is a pretty common practice in M'sia. I really felt sorry for Boon though, it was his first time. I think I could hear tears rolling down his face. He got the full body too, and a guy was giving his massage.

Day two we went snorkelling in the open sea. Thank goodness I had a life jacket with me. There were many beautiful fish, of all different colours and sizes. I spent most of the time trying to follow them around, but they were too quick for me. After we came back from the snorkelling trip, we walked along the beach a little bit and we came across this little hut on a neighbouring resort that made hand-drawn batik paintings. I snatched a couple of those up. The colours were far more vibrant than the batik paints I used to make my pillow with in Gr. 11 Fashion class. The weather changed really quickly after that, and the ominous storm clouds that surrounded the shore were getting darker and darker...until all of the sudden rain started to pour down harder and harder. We were caught in the rain and ended up half-drenched by the time we reached our resort. That's when we saw the filming of the Indian movie. Later that night we ate dinner, then went off to the recreation centre where I discovered Carrom. It's kind of like table pool where several discs, either black or white are shuffled into pockets in the corners of a square playing board. You use your fingers to flick a disc (the cue ball) into another coloured disc (one player tries to score the black discs, the other player the white discs) to deflect it into the pockets. There are a few other rules as well. As I was trying to discover this game, a little Chinese boy came up to our board and started staring, obviously curious about what we were doing. Then he just grabbed one of the playing pieces from off the board! What the! Who does that? Don't parents teach their kids not to bother other people? He didn't look like he understood it either when we told him he couldn't do that. If you've ever seen "The Grudge" with SMG, he looks like that scary kid who haunts the house. After that I tried some Milo (chocolate drink), got some ice for my itchy nose and called it a day.

Oh we saw this little baby cat and its mom hanging around by the stairs. The kitten was so small but very friendly and playful. I picked him up and petted it. The mother didn't seem to mind. Later when we went for dinner, we saw the kitten again, this time he was crunching on some food. When we went to take a closer look, we saw this reptile head on the ground, severed from its body. The kitten must have been eating it. The grossest thing was that the head was still moving!!! Yucks!!! The kitten no longer seemed as tame and innocent as we had first thought.

Day three we went snorkelling again in the morning. This time we went to Marine Park, a conservation area for fish. This time the fish were everywhere! We got to feed them with bread and they LOVED it. They even eat it right out of your hand, but I only tried that once because as my hand was being swarmed by 20 fish or so one of them missed and bit my finger. It was so awesome!! The corals were so nice and colourful too. I thought at first that it was man-made. How could something natural be so bright and colourful? We had hoped to go on a sunset cruise or go fishing, but nobody else on the island wanted to go, so we couldn't charter a boat. We spent some more time in the ocean and played in the waves. Oh and we played beach volleyball and it was so much fun. Boon did pretty well for his first time playing. Although he's tall, he was afraid to block the ball against this crazy giant Indian guy (part of the movie crew) who would spike it down every chance he got against all the unsuspecting players on the other side. Good thing he was on my team :) There were some nice snorkelling pictures taken of us so we bought those. It rained again that night and of course we were soaked again trying to make it back to our room.

Our room was so nice, it had 3 beds in it. One king and 2 twin beds. It was very spacious with a balcony. It even had an arrow on the ceiling pointing towards the direction of a mosque for people to pray. The sign on the outside of all room doors says "do not feed the monkey". The whole time I wondered where this monkey was, and if there was only one. Finally on the last day, before we were leaving, I saw 3 monkeys playing in the treetops and jumping onto the roof of the souvenir/More More Tea building. The sand was so smooth and clean I had to take some with me. Then it was back to the boat ride, then bus and another 12 hours to get back to JB. We stopped a couple of times to get food. Other than the resorts, Terengganu is a very conservative Muslim state. Little did I know, wearing my bikini top under an open tank top and shorts, I was probably violating every conservative rule in the book. Whoops! Anyway, we came back with tans and full bellies. I'd love to go back there soon.

Malaysian observations

It's been over a week since I've returned from Malaysia and I still haven't had the chance to write any of it down! The sole purpose of this blog's existence is to basically record events and memories that my Alzheimer's brain can't remember, so I better get on it before it's too late and *poof*, what was I saying again...

Malaysia was hot. The second last day that I was there, it was so hot that I was sweating by literally just standing in the sun's rays, and almost sweated as much as I did playing badminton. The only positive thing I can say about that is at least the UV index isn't as high as in Canada and I didn't feel like I was BBQ-ing (the one being cooked). I don't know how to calculate the humidity but apparently the humidity can reach 100% in Malaysia. I'm not sure if I had mentioned that before. One time we were eating mini skittles sours, the kind that has a sour sugar coating on the outside and as soon as I opened the bag, the sugar started dissolving from the from vapours! Sours probably aren't as popular there as they are in the great white North. Here are some other interesting observations that I made while there:

1. Lizards are equivalent to the squirrel in Ontario. I tried several times to catch one, but like squirrels they seem to be able to out-maneuver me.

2. It's trendy for girls there to have light skin rather than dark skin. At the Watson's I saw skin-whitening products rather than skin-tanning products.

3. I forgot to check if water in the toilets flush in the opposite direction.

4. The houses in Malaysia really are open-air. I wish that they would learn to adopt screens over the windows though because the mosquitos loved me and I had no place to hide.

5. People LOVE TO STARE! I had forgotten how much Asian people like to stare. I felt like I was being looked at through one of those observatory windows in the zoo, displayed for people to freely gawk at. It's not as if a person staring even tries to make it subtle, it is out-right eye-raping (stolen and adapted from the Wedding Crashers, great movie!) It's a strange sensation. Maybe it's par for people who live in Malaysia/Singapore/Asia but coming from Canada where nobody looks at you, it's an anomaly. It got to the point that I was having fun with it. Waiting to enter the subway, we stood on the arrows of the "in" lane ushering us into the subway and as we waited for the doors to open I saw about 6 faces smooshed up against the door as a large crowd was preparing to exit. Of the 6 faces about 3 of them were staring at me. I decided to choose one of them with whom I would have a "stare-off" with. I don't think he realized that he was involved in the game but that was to my advantage anyway. So a stare-off is basically when you stare at each other and the first person to look away is the loser. He commenced eye contact, I locked into his eyes, 2 seconds later...it's a tie...5 seconds later, he's thinking what the hell is going on here, why is she staring back at me?...8 seconds later, hey buddy are you gonna look away yet or what? Weird look comes across his face...he looks to the left, YES I won! Loser. But I must admit in some way, it does feel good to know people are looking at you. It's kind of like when you are playing a sport and you have spectators who are there to watch you, so subconsciously you are performing better. OK maybe that's not the same thing but hopefully they are staring for a good reason (and not because I have toilet paper stuck in the back of my pants).

6. Speaking of toilet paper, Malaysia has a lack of it. Although everything in Malaysia is extremely cheap, I still couldn't wrap my head around having to pay to go to the washroom and then paying an additional fee to obtain tissues to wipe your ass! This is one of the best reasons to be a guy in my opinion, tinkle and shake.

7. Water from taps must be boiled, and although water is boiled, it still tastes funky. If you leave water out for too long, ants like to gather in it and consequently drown themselves.

8. The soil is orange. Unlike here where it is dark brown. Imagine drawing pictures as a kid in Malaysia...what use would you have for the dark brown pencil crayon?

9. Real estate is like that in any other city, always expanding. However, in Malaysia buildings are often started but never completed. The owners simply run out of money so ghost buildings are not uncommon. It is also common for shopping centres to dwindle and go out of business.

10. At many Malay stalls, there are no set prices on food. It's basically like a buffet, you take which ever food you like and how ever much food you want. Then you show the lady, and she will point to the plate of heaping food and estimate how much it should be. Basically, if you're a foreigner, you will most likely get screwed over but it will still be cheap as hell. Then after you've eaten and get up to leave, you tell her how much you owe and pay it.

11. Food in general was hot (with the exception of Chinese food) but not too hot. Boon's aunt Su Ing practically drank Sambal though; she must be made of fire.

12. Stray kitties everywhere. Some stray dogs too, but I mostly paid attention to the cats. These kitties were not your typical cat that you would see in Canada. Most of them were malnutritioned and get this, they had deformed tails. I wondered if this was some sort of Malay mutation that occurred over years of being in the wild, but then one day I saw a cat with a stumpy tail and it was still bleeding. Ewwww...something was attacking these cats. There were very few and fortunate cats that I saw with full tails.