It's Great To Be Needed

Which Cancer Causing Agent are you?

Well, to the TFYErs, being a useful and needed sun sure beats being the useless, purely aesthetic moon (the star of romantic scenes, no pun intended.. or the creator of pretty swishy swashy waves) who lives off the light from the sun.

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

Dried latex on my face.. The make-up trial for Secrets From My Room...
The latex seemed to work only on the lower half of my face, but nevertheless, that looks a little scary already.

The latexing process:
1) Liquid latex, that looks like white glue, is plastered onto our faces. (Latex smells strongly of ammonia)
2) While our skin is held taut, a dryer blows the latex dry.
2) Upon drying and releasing the skin, some creases in the latex over our face forms.
3) Repeat 3 times

The Only 2 Reasons Why I'm Glad My Malaysian Mum Converted Her Citizenship

Blogging makes me more conscious of the morality of my thoughts, or rather the portrayal of my morality.
Therefore, to prevent myself from looking like a critical snob, I shall give only 2 good reasons why I am glad to be a Singaporean, why I wouldn’t want to stay in Malaysia on a long-term basis and/or in support of a Singaporean citizenship (versus a Malaysian one) advertisement.

To begin with, here’s a little history on how this thought evolved:
My Mum grew up in Taiping, a small mining town in Perak, Malaysia. She then came to Singapore to take up law, after which she started working in the city, characterised by the poised Sir Stamford Raffles, Merlion with evil colour-changing glowing eyes, Courtesy Lion and Clean-and-Green smiling frog.
Falling in love either with the quaint country or with the man she met at the Sonny Lau Dance Studio who would later become her husband (I have no idea which came first), she converted her citizenship and also registered my sister and I as Singaporeans. That is one of the many things I’m eternally grateful for.
Anyway, Mum, Sis and I make frequent trips to Malaysia (often K.L.) for our annual shopping trips and relative visitations.

I just returned from the Chinese New Year spent in K.L. and of course, another bout of mad shopping.
This trip was a longer one for me this time around – 5 days (usually, we stay an average of 3 days, basically only during long weekends when Mum doesn’t have to worry about missing work). An additional two days meant a lot for my general experience of Malaysian life.

Back to the 2 reasons, here they are:

1) I don’t like Malaysia
a) The water from the taps and cisterns is a muddy yellow (it looks as if the toilets are never flushed). I prefer rinsing my mouth with recycled pee in Singapore anytime to almost unfiltered genuine pee in Malaysia.
b) I don’t feel safe even in the shopping centre. I also very much prefer the inexperienced and pathetic graffiti of the word “Sars” on walls near my home to “F*ck you cina”.
c) The majority of cars there are way due for scrape. (Apparently, I’m quite aesthetically fussy even on the roads.)
d) Where mosquitoes are rampant, I have to wave one hand behind me to resemble a cow’s tail while trying to shit, in order to shoo off mosquitoes ferociously trying to feed on my succulent rear even in my fourth aunt’s condominium penthouse.
e) The architects habitually miss out the most basic home-building requirements such as water drainage holes outside the shower area, water pumps for units at higher levels (I was forced back into the time of bucket-bathing because the low-pressured showers there produced only a small stream of water good enough for brushing teeth) and an-adequate-length tap heads (which means your toothbrush always touches the sink while you try to rinse it under the tap).
f) The areas in K.L. are named Section 32, SS11 etc. versus the colourful and even laughable names of the Singapore housing estates and road names.
g) Malaysia’s toilets are perennially irrigated because of the Malays’ habit of washing up after they excrete (a good hygienic but really impractical and messy habit).
h) There aren’t bus-stops within walking distances from most homes and no MRTs going to every major town. i.e. I’ll never sustain a home tuition career there nor will I be able to go pak-tor-ing (dating) without my Mum if I did not own a car and a license.
i) Despite being a couple of degrees further away from the equator than Singapore, K.L. always feels hotter than my dear “air-conditioned nation”.

2) I love Singapore


On a brighter note, I feel pretty in Malaysia because the fashion there is usually 2 steps behind Singapore’s and the girls there are more conservative and less exposed to the image-consciousness found in Singapore (sadly brought about by the epidemic of slimming advertisements and skin/flesh-bearing fashion). The girls there hardly dress up; the daily garb consists of T-shirts and jeans, very much unlike Singapore where there is a varied style of trends (close-to-nakedness, Jap, pop, bohemian, grunge, radical…).
In Singapore, I’m considered a plain cosmetic-virgin Jane who has retained the hairstyle of a 5-year-old girl (especially by the standards of those from my theatre group). In contrast to that, I appear trendy and maybe even overdressed while walking in a K.L. shopping centre.

Another positive side of K.L. (to balance my commentary) would be her absence of rude gawking hum-sup-guis (lecherous men) and equally offensive and kiasu housewives divulging the 30%-discount wagons.

But I’m still not moving Malaysia anytime soon, as long as my sanity (or perhaps the absence of it) remains in me.

Wart Removal -- Method 1: Burn, Method 2: Freeze

I had my first wart removal treatment at the National Skin Centre today. They froze my toe with liquid nitrogen that came from a metal cylinder similar to that of the Baygon can, but with a nozzle that looks like that of a welder.

A wart is a viral skin infection that usually comes from the generous courtesy of common swimming pools, which have a high concentration and rainforest-like variety of unfriendly bacteria and viruses, albeit being heavily chlorinated at hair-bleaching levels. Warts (and boils) are also what young children are told witches have all over their faces.

The last time I had a viral wart removed was 8 years ago, according to the records held by the National Skin Centre. I was in primary school then and hence allowed to scream when the doctor injected anaesthesia into my big toe several times. The doctor then told me that I could scream as loud as I wanted to because the room was soundproof. She must have regretted giving me such a friendly and light-hearted assurance. Unfortunately for her, and my Mum, who could accompany me because of that "tender age", I took her comment very seriously. 10-year-old Weiling then could scream just as piercingly as she can now if she was tickled.
When the anaesthesia took effect, the laser woman began welding the bottom of my big toe. As she aimed and shot a narrow and precise jet of blue flame or something along that line of imagination, a “piak” sound (similar to the sound accompanying a spark from an electrical socket) would follow.
It was more traumatising for my Mum than for me then. Apparently, unknown to my Mum, I was aware she was nearer to fainting at the smell of barbequed flesh then I was to letting out another scream. I asked, “Hmm, what’s that smell ah? Smells chao tah (burnt).”
That was probably a cruel comment on my part in view of the fact that I knew my Mum was feeling so quesy. As if to console me, she nervously laughed and said, “Oh yar ah, what’s that smell? Barbeque perhaps.”

Anyway, back to the more recent incident, I was the noisiest patient the nurse ever had today, in addition to owning the title of the having the highest-pitched voice (which gets even closer to ultra-sonic when I’m nervous or excited). I didn’t scream this time. No, no. I behaved better. I just whimpered and whined. I clenched the cushion so tightly through the 5-minute affair and leaving my finger pressure marks behind, the next patient would have no problem knowing where to place his hands.

My Mum was one bad experience wiser this time around. She didn’t stay in the room with me. When I asked her whether it was because she was scared, she didn’t respond. Then I asked her, “You shy ah?” Her reply, which came in a series of positive facial distortions, signalled a “yes”. She added, “Char si lang!” (translated: so noisy until dead man wakes, noisy to the point of murderous, or something along the expression of “You’re embarrassingly noisy.”)

Tears began gathering in my eyes about 10 minutes after the whole episode. Post-traumatic stress I think.

Ly laughed at me when I told him over the phone about what had happened. Stupid boy… I hope it was a laugh of endearment and not contempt.

The Reunion Dinner

Reunited with my father. That's all. Just for one night.

We had our half-hour "reunion" dinner at the famous Mahatir-visited Nasi Padang coffeeshop at Zion Road, before Mum, Cui and I go onto our night train to Kuala Lumpur before 10PM. Dad deliberately came back from Batam (where he feeds another family and runs a pseudo karang guni business, which in reality is the mere maintainance of a shop turn storage den) on the calling of tradition's guilt.

So it was dinner with 4 immediate members of the family -- a rare occasion indeed. Oh, and a family photo too. Ha ha, how quaint.