What We Chose, What Will We Then Choose :: 'Expats'

I didn't read Janice Y.K. Lee's novel 'The Expatriates' (2016), and I'm too lazy to do so. I simply read a summary of it before watching Lulu Wang's 'Expats', which premiered as a limited series in February 2024 on Amazon Prime. Of course the network didn't drop all six episodes altogether. They did it week by week. Arrrrrgh. I hate the wait between episodes, so I waited for them all to drop before watching. 

This show is banned in Hong Kong, but the authorities denied that there's an outright ban. LOL Whatever. Well, if you live in Hong Kong and you're loading up the show on Amazon Prime, it tells you that the show 'is unavailable to watch in your location'.  (Reviews here, here, here and here.)

I didn't watch 'Expats' for Nicole Kidman. I watched it for the stories and the content, for Hong Kong, and to see what Lulu Wang chose to highlight in this show. The show's writers and researchers did a fairly thorough job of researching Hong Kong and all its social issues and their relevance in the context of this show, including the protests, and the ideal of democracy. When one does a show about expats, one can't avoid the entire topic of migrant workers. When we say 'expats', it's pretty much just a biased term in common parlance. 

Episode 5 is feature length, clocking 101 minutes. It was so good. I love how the show kept the language original — in its English, Cantonese, Tagalog and Punjabi. The entire series is ambitious to weave in every socio-political theme, including the issues and emotions faced by lower-income migrant workers and domestic help. Those who aren't 'migrant workers' and are supposedly expats, might sometimes be really struggling to make ends meet without a job that pays. Episode 5 is all of that.  The 'Hong Kong Syndrome' is also the 'Singapore Syndrome'.

The episodes focused on the family life of the various characters. They're fairly women-centric, revolving around their family relationships, marriages and how they balance managing a home with domestic help. It isn't just all about expats, per se. The show also included young people involved in the protests that year, and offers us a glimpse into the life of Olivia Chu (played by veteran Hong Kong actress Flora Chan), a wealthy tai-tai with two spoilt daughters and a distanced husband; she's staying on in this marriage for appearances and the tangible material benefits. 

The 2014 Umbrella protests and 2019-2021 Covid lockdowns are over, but then the National Security Law was quickly enacted and passed in June 2020 and came into force on the same day. When all these milestone incidents happened one after the other in consecutive years, the people of Hong Kong have made some hard decisions. So is there an exodus of expats from Hong Kong? Contrary to what the official Beijing and Hong Kong media would tell you, every other news media outlet says YES. 

The entire portion of Hilary visiting her family in the United States and realising that she no longer belongs was telling. She didn't forgive her father who was on his deathbed. Perhaps she regretted it, but she couldn't forgive him for the way he treated her and her mother for years, while being hailed as a saint by his other wife and second family. The way she completely rejected her mother's culture and beliefs was in the way she said "I didn't bring any of my Indian clothes" was like... wow. 

The show ended with us seeing Margaret, Mercy and Hilary make their eventual choices while living in Hong Kong. The show doesn't offer closure. It simply shows us what these women's choices are, and why they did so. Lulu Wang wanted to show how these women have choices even as they navigate the challenges of geographical dislocation, because they have privileges and sufficient wealth, and in an obscure manner, clarity and humanity. 

元宵 :: 龍鳳呈祥陽春錦繡、鯤鵬展翅華夏騰飛

And we're settled into the Year of the Dragon, immersed in 2024. I don't feel that the year has only begun after the Lunar New Year. My year kinda begun when I had to begin filing pieces of work. Hahaha. What I feel now, is immense relief — that we're finally done with all the 'festivities'. 

Over the weekend, we wrapped up 15 days of the Lunar New Year on the night of Yuan Xiao (元宵) with the friends. The moon was super bright and round, and all our bellies and hearts were full. Our gifts to one another were homecooked dishes. It was a delightful get-together with plenty of yummilicious wine, whisky and laughter.

The table was laden with everyone's contributing wishes and love. Of course this dinner was done with a theme and we knew that these are dishes that people enjoy and hadn't gotten sick of. There was a quick chat and nobody wanted to do hotpot. Heheheh. There were Peking duck, fish maw soup with crab meat and mushrooms, olive rice and snow crab claws with broccolini, steamed minced pork and squid, and finally a bountiful pot of poon choi (pen cai, 盆菜). 

I brought that pot of poon choi. Tbh, I didn't cook all of the ingredients, obviously. I wasn't going to roast pork or duck. I bought those. My specialty is in the soup base which I boiled up from scratch. Everything else was simply blanched and assembled with little difficulty. #ImpieCooks2024

But I wouldn't do it again in a jiffy. It is a damn tedious pot to prepare. Even with my superior sense of kitchen logistics, I still needed to use two pots and a skillet. What the. No wonder people do this once a year. You spend the rest of the year practicing by cooking other kinds of soup. If you're not really used to cooking Cantonese soups, then don't attempt poon choi because yours wouldn't have that umami that a superb pot of soup holds. Poon choi must 韻味, and not many restaurants can do it either. It's not about the ingredients; it's about the heat and push (火候).

It's rather tedious putting everything together because I needed three pots. I refuse to cook all these ingredients in one pot and kill the broccoli or the scallops. Who does that. Also, the bits of fish maw and sea cucumber needed to be soaked in water overnight and boiled to get super soft, and have them soak up all the flavors of the stock. Those are practically tasteless on their own.    

The wines tonight were beautiful. 2012. Mellow and rich. The digestif too, lovely nips of whisky. We didn't think we had space for dessert, but we did. Fruits appeared, along with a seasonal special of a kanpei-mikan pie and an opera cake from Pantler. Nobody could eat a slice of cake on their own. The cakes were literally cut up into four portions each. Hahahahah.

华艺节 :: 《移心》

I understand the skills behind making puppets and telling stories using different types puppetry. I'm not at all fond of puppets (they're so creepy lah), but I had to watch 'Transplant' 《移心》at Esplanade's Huayi Festival (华艺节). Even the man wanted to catch it — for our own Vedic metal band RUDRA. Billed as The Finger Players X RUDRA, the production saw the metal band play live in the shows.

Produced by The Finger Players (十指帮), the show's summary read,

There once was a family of four: the father vehemently denies his own infidelity; an erudite yet loquacious old mother is confined to her bed; a son grapples with the complexities of love amid academic struggles; and a wife is plagued by the three afflictions of greed, hatred and ignorance. Their lives take a dark turn when a mysterious yet alluring homeless damsel becomes their maid, personifying the malevolent forces that torment the wife’s restless soul.   Drawing inspiration from various tales in the classic anthology Liaozhai (also known as Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio), Transplant delves into the depths of human nature, where inner darkness can yield dire consequences.  

Playwright and director Oliver Chong (钟达成) adapted several tales from Pu Songling's 'Liaozhai' / 蒲松龄、《聊斋》to weave this story of a family plagued by the darkness in human nature. He didn't shy away from perverse sexual allusions, sexual tension or family awkwardness. These are very real emotions plaguing the world ever since. (A Straits Times review of the show here.)

In the Director's Note, Oliver Chong said he took the plunge to introduce and incorporate the most unlikely of sonic component he could think of, which would be the genre of music that he knew nothing about, heavy metal. He found RUDRA and that positive exploration and collaboration became the show we watched. 

为了给创作注入新鲜感和趣味性，我决定引入我最陌生且最不 同寻常搭配的声音元素。我的搜索最终在我有幸说服传奇的吠 陀金属乐队RUDRA参与制作时结束，尽管我对这种独特合作方 式的信心和理解仍然有限。我完全是重金属音乐的新手，对吠陀 金属的了解更是有限。真诚感谢RUDRA的四位杰出艺术家—— Kathir、Shiva、Devan和Vinod对我们的信任，携手踏上这一 未知的冒险。 

愿《移心》这个深沉的寓言故事激发深刻的反思，照亮我们这 新的一年中延续存在的道路，引领我们迈向启迪与目标。 

'Liaozhai' has 491 tales across 16 volumes mostly about fox spirits, ghosts, and goblins. (《聊齋》491章多談狐、魔、鬼、妖，以此來概括當時的社會關係，反映了17世紀中國的社會面貌.) My problem with it — it's mostly about evil women. WALAO. So what if it's a satire or comment on 17th century human nature? No wonder they blame every disaster and misfortune on women.

There was a mix of puppets (animated by actors) and live actors on stage. I was super relieved that the life-sized puppets didn't come into play that much. Otherwise I would be really freaked out. There were only two. One was the bedridden mother-in-law/grandmother who needed diapers, and the other was the servant girl Ah Xiu who, well, could split into two. She is a demon (likely a fox spirit) who could bewitch and also do heart transplants on living humans to alter their fates. Puppet and actor inter-switched for that dramatic emphasis of supernatural forces at work. The demon's true self is brilliantly played by Ellison Tan.

There were three more demons who also doubled up as puppeteers. Played by Myra Loke, Angelina Chandra and Rachel Nip, they were dressed in black and were visible only to Ah Xiu and the audiences. Myra Loke also voiced the bedridden Grandmother who was helpless at being physically abused and could only live in her memories. 

A part of me couldn't help thinking that traditionalists in the audience would only nod and say, 'yeah, metal music is bad, is darkness, is demonic.' Whatever. I love how the production team didn't turn down the volume of the music. The beats pulsated, and made us question our entire being. I loved the partnership of performers, story and music. Metal is so apt to depict the darkness in human nature. It's up to us how we want to control the music and have it accompany our journey. I left the show happily humming the main refrain. 

'Second Sister' / 《網內人》

'Second Sister' by Chan Ho-Kei (originally published in Mandarin in 2017). \ 陳浩基《網內人》is translated to English by Jeremy Tiang and published in 2020. We go into cyber-bullying, sexual harrasment and the murky digital world. Same same heinous crimes, but done online with the aid of the internet. 

Protagonist Au Nga-Yee's younger sister fifteen-year-old Siu-Man was found at the bottom of their block, seemingly died by suicide. Nga-Yee doesn't believe it, and tenaciously digs around to try to solve the mystery behind her sister's death. She found it odd that nobody except for three classmates and a teacher attended her funeral. Wasn't her sister supposed to be bubbly and friendly? She didn't even think of looking for her sister's phone till a month after her death.

We uncover a tale of complicated human emotions and actions, life's circumstances and and an unfortunate twist of life, living and growing pains. On the one hand, there is the cyberbullying and ostracization of Siu-Man after she put a supposed subway molester Shiu Tak-Ping in jail. The case went to court. After the guilty verdict, the perpetrator's 'nephew' wrote a note as 'kidkit727' and posted it an online forum to accuse her of wrongfully accusing his uncle of the crime, and it blew up all over the internet. 人言可畏. Siu-Man was portrayed as a vicious schoolgirl who's on drugs, hung out at clubs and also sold her body. After the online furore cooled off, Siu-man seemed to have gotten over it, and out of the blue one day, she jumped off the block and died. 

Nga-Yee took out all her life savings to hire private detectives to look into her sister's death. She met N, a genius hacker and a 'revenge' dealer who seems to have all sorts of connections to everyone As the investigations went on, it was revealed that Shiu doesn't have any blood-related nephew. So who wrote that inflammatory and accusatory post that might have driven Siu-Man to death? 

Nga-Yee is a mousey librarian, not tech-savvy and not clued into the lives of teenagers these days. She couldn't connect much to her sister — all she knew was to work hard to support the family, supplement the family income, and after their mother died, she worked even harder to put her sister through school and saved up for her university tuition. She wasn't too into the sister's emotional state of mind. She couldn't find any diary or clues at home. But she found her sister's phone that held a ton of clues, including a string of harrassment emails from 'kidkit727' asking if Siu-man was brave enough to die.

Nga-Yee realized that she didn't know Siu-man's other persona and secret life at school. With a lot of help from N, she found out that the online harrasser weaved an intricate web of secrecy to hide his identity. As the plot thickens and we see all the different characters come into play. There's a complex social hierarchy at school and tattle-tales, LGBTQIA tendencies which this mission school frowns upon, a school girl expelled, a snitch wrongly accused. TLDR, Violet To was also ostracized by the kids in school. Siu-Man might have helped her friend Lily Shu to snitch on her too. Violet wants revenge. Although she didn't expect Siu-Man to really take her own life.

Violet is 'kidkit727'. Violet is the one responsible for going after Siu-man for an issue that she didn't realize it wasn't Siu-man's doing. Violet is aided by her brother Christopher Song. The different surnames hinted at a painful family history. From wanting Violet to die in the same way Siu-Man did, Nga Yee decided to let her off.  

A moment ago, as Nga-Yee looked at Violet in the window, she'd seen Siu-Man there. And that was enough for her to realize that no matter how much she hated this person, she didn't want to see her go down the same fatal path as her sister. She recalled Siu-Man lying in a pool of blood, and her own hysterical sobs. She wouldn't want even her worst enemy to be put in that position. 

Finally Nga-Yee could hear the clear, true voice coming from the bottom of her heart.

No matter how much she was suffering, passing her sorrow on to someone else wouldn't bring her happiness. 

As N withdrew his drones, Nga-Yee caught her final glimpse of Violet and her brother, and for some reason the famous first line of Anna Karenina popped into her mind. 

"Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in their own way."

Then we have a parallel story. There's this weasel of a character in Sze Chung-Nam of GT Technology. I was wondering why he is in here. I actually thought he might be Violet's brother, who wasn't named till the end. He had quite a fair bit of air-time in the book as an IT worker in GT that might be bought by tech company SIQ and he even met tech titan Szeto Wai and wanted a bigger role inn SIQ after the merger. I wondered what Szeto Wai was playing at. 

It was only towards the end of the book that I knew what the writer was getting at. LOL This Szeto Wai is really N. N isn't just Nemesis. N's real identity is Szeto Wai, tech genius and tech titan. WTF!

Sze Chung-Nam is the actual subway molester, a serial offender at that, and pathological in selecting his victims. He has a penchant for grooming 15 year old escorts for sex and power gratification. N was actually going after him before he found out that this Sze Chung-Nam is the real perpetrator who assaulted Siu-Man in the subway.  

I enjoy how the mystery unravels and how the story ends. There's no romance going on between N and Nga-Yee. Maybe, if a television adaption chooses to do that angle. In this book, their camaraderie comes across stronger. Through this revenge plot and engineering of things, there's a genuine connection between two souls who aren't used to talking to other people, but who aren't intrinsically evil either. 

I especially like what N stands for, and how Nga-Yee found a resolution that brought her peace, and she's able to move on and finally live for herself. As the eldest child and daughter, she's dutiful and always put her mother and younger sister first. The emotions came through strongly in this excellent translation. 

There were many ways for this to go wrong. If Sze ended up getting convicted of the lesser offence—indecent assault—and did only a month or two in prison, he'd be even more brutal and dangerous, and those girls might end up worse off, not to mention all the new victims he was sure to find.

.....................

This high-stress city could make these sorts of criminals double down on their behaviour. N decided that he would strike only when he was assured of success—he wouldn't act against Sze Chung-Nam until he was certain of putting him away for ten to twenty years, so there would be no repercussions for his victims. 

All the Mikan This Season

My charity chapter always order boxes of decent ponkan for our seniors. Each gets a box, and after all that, the suppliers often give us like three to five complimentary boxes. I was given one too. Hahaha. Fine. I took the smallest box because I would just use them as decor or to standby for emergency 'gift exchanges'. 

I'm not really supportive of buying tasteless ponkan for the home just to do the lunar new year exchange of wishes. I love orange juice, but I'm not a fan of the fruit per se. I don't like eating it. I don't mind a small cute Japan-grown mikan that's been chilled. So for the homes I happily visit, I prefer to get them a box of super edible mikan, or stock a few boxes of good mikan at home, then hand them out in a pair placed in a cheerful fabric holder.

The man loves mandarin oranges and mikan. He binges on them big-time every season. He's found the species of Red Beauty (紅美人) mandarin oranges that he likes. There were boxes of it stocked at CS Fresh two months before lunar new year. Then they went out of stock and our usual suppliers at the markets didn't restock. So the man swopped out to quaffing mikan. Ooof!

Sanuiki Udon :: 讃岐うどん

Felt like having the fat Sanuki udon (讃岐うどん) for those days that I assembled a simple meal for the man and I. Those two packs have been sitting in the larder for a while. Time to finish them before restocking. Udon is about as instant as it can get without being full of sodium and too unhealthy. 

Placed a raw egg in mine to make it kamatama udon (釜玉うどん). The man isn't keen on raw eggs, so I poached his. Made a stir-fry with this meal — cabbage and beef slices and beef intestines. Obviously the intestines have been sliced and prepped at the supermarket, and I simply bought a tray of it. #ImpieCooks2024

That made for quite an easy and filling meal. This was lunch. The man had a whole morning calls and zipped to the gym. When he came back for lunch, he ate quite a bit of udon. He also quaffed all the cabbage and beef. Heh. 

On another evening, the udon was paired with vegetable, fish and prawn tempura. I knew the man wouldn't want that much carbs. But see, for udon itself, he could literally count the strands. I gave him five strands of udon. Ha! I intended for him to get most of his protein from the prawns. I had to wear double layers of gloves and change them out twice to clean the prawns and them in batter. Often, I'd just pay more for raw ingredients at Meidi-ya since the seafood counter staff do a great job of cleaning them up.

I'm not keen on deep-frying things. But since I was already making the batter, I'd just fry them up. Nobody said I needed to fry it till actual restaurant tempura standard. As long as the insides are cooked. LOLOLOL It would just be 35 pieces of small items — 10 Tiger prawns,  5 slices of pumpkin (I bought the small whole kabocha), 5 pieces of sweet potato, 5 pieces of shiitake, and two fillets of black cod and sea bream (that I cut into 10 slices). 

An air fryer might be helpful. I dunno. But I don't have one and am not about to get one, I'll just use the regular method of deep frying. My tempura wouldn't be that crisp, but they sufficed for my purposes. The oil splatter cover was very useful — made the splatter manageable. Although I still had to wipe down the kitchen and countertop twice after. Zzzzzz. 

Three Plates of Pasta at Fico

J took me out to dinner at Fico, intentionally choosing an outdoor table so that Choya could come along. The odd little storm that happened an hour before dinner cleared up quickly and nobody got drenched strolling to the restaurant. 

We skipped all the appetizers. I didn't think they needed space in our stomachs. Heh. We went straight to mains. However, I couldn't quite believe we ordered a total of THREE plates of pasta — two spaghetti cacio e pepe and one linguine vongole. The portions aren't gigantic, but it's a ton of carbs. I would have to work it off the next day, and wouldn't complain about burpees. Hurhurhurhur. 

I had the 'S$78 free-flow drinks for 1.5 hours' thingy. I knew I would do three drinks, and it doesn't make sense by per glass. Neither do I want to just get a bottle and feel ill finishing it, nor waste it. The S$78 for a glass of prosecco and then two glasses of red was absolutely cost-efficient. But I didn't want J to pay for drinks. I'm a drinker, and I'm not about to allow friends who don't drink pay for my alcohol. Heh. It's like... a personal rule. :P

We had two plates of pasta first, then a main of pork loin with parmigiano, colatura and red endive. And J couldn't quite shake off the gorgeous pepper and cheese, so we split another plate of spaghetti cacio e pepe. LOLOLOLOL Choya smelt the shaved cheese on the pasta and promptly sniffed the air. I gave her the cheese that was on the rim. She couldn't have those in the plate. Heh!

J wasn't done. She wanted dessert. All right. An apple torta and a burrata gelato with strawberry and tomato jam appeared. Burrrrrrrrrp! Rolled our stuffed and happy stomachs home. 

A 650-g Nami Grilled Platter

The friends asked me to pick a makan venue. I gave it a thought and decided on Nami Korean Grill House. I shamelessly asked to sit outdoors because I know these friends would have no issues with it. Not when all of us practically live without AC for most of the activities we now do. 

The friends hadn't been to Nami, and they were quite excited about the menu. N wanted to try its ganjang-gejang and the spicy chicken feet. Bahahaah. I told her to pick the soy marinated crab because Nami's iteration is especially good; the spicy chicken feet is decent too, but many other places do that just as well. N loved it! The man loved it too. Nobody else tried this at Nami before either. Hehhh. 

Since we were a table of four, ordering a platter of grilled meats made sense over a la carte items. The 650-gram Nami platter of beef ribeye and shortribs + pork belly and collar fed us all nicely. The kitchen showed us our meats and grilled them for us. Yay. Nobody wants to smell like grilled meats; you won't have that option if you insist on dining indoors in AC. Sitting outside is a great idea.

Easy beers and makgeolli accompanied our meal. Had a bowl of lovely steamed sticky rice each to mop up all the stew and meats. NOMS. We ate everything. We congratulated ourselves for not over-ordering. There isn't any dessert at Nami, except for ice-cream, I think. Whatever it is, nobody bothers about dessert each time we're done with dinner here. LOL

A 6.30pm dinner meant that we could all go into food coma later, and still have sufficient time to do things like read, shower and chill out before actually falling asleep. Hurrah! Old people are all like this now. Hahaha.

Pizza, Pasta & A Seabass!

It was great to have H and S back for a bit. The bonus is to catch them for dinner and long chats too. They didn't need to have a meal in AC either. They're just glad to be out of the -20dC winter and thick snow at home. 

That night H couldn't join us for dinner, but S and their youngest son F could. S specifically wanted Choya to come along too. Off we went to a casual meal at D.O.P. The sheltered al fresco tables meant that it was cool enough for everyone. Its dependable menu is always welcomed. 

The man was so pleased to split a pizza with F. Hahahahaha. Well, the man really doesn't get to have pizza often if he eats with me only. Obviously. He can't take that much carbs either and has to take home half the pizza. F's metabolic rate means he could more than polish off half a pizza on his own, and still inhale his full plate of tagliatelle with beef cheek.  

We passed on having a bottle of wine that night since both the man and I had to field calls. S wasn't going to have too much wine either. F declined a drink. I was so tickled. F is old enough for alcohol, but he isn't fond of it. Oooof. Although he would get much better quality of alcohol with us than with his NS (National Service) mates. He did inhale the shot of limoncello at the end of the night. 

After months of not seeing one another, there was no time to be missed and we quickly caught up. Distance and time don't dull this friendship. What a lovely evening. 💛

Chinese Families and Their Secrets Pre & Post 1965

Had a sombre read in Suchen Christine Lim's collection of 14 short stories titled, 'The Man Who Wore His Wife's Sarong' (2017). However, all these stories are all about the Chinese families in Malaya pre and post 1965, and some dated back to the Japanese occupation. It also included stories of inter-racial marriages, a domestic helper's experience and folly, and drugs and the death penalty. It's as the title indicated, 'Stories of the Unsung, Unsaid and Uncelebrated in Singapore'.

I enjoyed the abrupt endings of each story because the author left it to the reader to decide how it would end or how the story turned out. There're many themes touched in this book, most of all familial obligations and social norms, and adherence to what is 'normal'. Life was hard back then, and family was everything, including minor wives, concubines and mistresses, half-siblings and such.

Cross-dressing, LGBTQ characters are fleshed out. They led a life of secrecy and pain because they knew that 'normal' society wouldn't accept them, and maybe not even their family members. But the point is not in the LGBTQ characters or their feelings — it's in their stories, which are as painful and normal as any heterosexual person's lived-through experiences. 

The book opened with 'Mei Kwei, I Love You'. Two young girls who were abandoned and taken in by the  temple priest of the Sun Wukong Temple led very different lives. 

Rose was somehow looked down upon, raped by said priest and was left 'cursed' child, leading a life as a cabaret performer, and later on, a mama-san running a private brothel. The other, Cha-li became the adopted daughter and took over the priest's role as the Taoist deity of the Monkey God. Cha-li never knew what Rose went through or what her adoptive father did to the latter. 

Decades of separation closed by a terse reunion between Rose and Cha-li. Cha-li was overcome by guilt, and also love. She still loved Rose. But could Rose overcome her bitterness to accept it? It ended on a big question mark of whether the childhood friends and lovers made their peace with each other.

She couldn't face Rose. She wanted to shut her eyes, shut out the noonday glare, but she forced herself to keep them open, fixed on the green lawn outside sizzling in the midday heat. 'I... I can get a flat big enough for the three ... three of us ... er ... you and him ...' Her voice trailed off.

The eponymously titled short story in this book was pretty cool. It meanders, but it got to the point. Molly, the narrator's Uncle Kim Hock is the man who wore his wife Gek Sim's sarong. There were the mysterious consecutive deaths of Kim Hock's mother followed by his wife in a matter of two days. The daughter-in-law was apparently bullied by the tyrannical Nyonya mother-in-law, and after being all meek and obedient initially, morphed into a hard woman who stood up to bullying. Molly was only a six-year-old child back then and didn't know if her deceased Aunt Gek Sim was indeed a witch who had incurred gambling debts and kept a toyol in the house. So Uncle Kim Hock loved pink and cross-dressed. The mother had an issue with it.

And if you think about it, Uncle Kim Hock loved his wife and she him. Not in the way the world expected. Not in the way Uncle Kim Hock's mother and sisters had expected. But it was love nevertheless. The love that accepted him for who he was. I can't claim to know him well. I can't claim to know his wife. She was the dreaded landlady in my childhood, the witch. But she was the mother of Tommy and Johnny, and the grandma of their four children. Witch or no witch, she must have taught them something about love. They didn't judge their father, why should we? 

The last story of the book is titled 'The Lies That Build A Marriage', which was earlier published in 2007 and placed into its own short story collection. That was some painful family history. As I read through, these stories and family secrets could have belonged to any of us, to our grandparents. If they didn't say a word about anything, they have taken all their secrets with them to the grave.

One more story that I didn't mind is 'The Cleaner's Son'. In a nutshell, old woman Ah Gek has had a hard life, and also worked as a cleaner before she got fired. She borrowed money from the local loansharks, but couldn't return it and the interest compounded. Said son in this title is John, who is gay and HIV-positive and absolutely depressed after the death of his partner. His three sisters lead their own difficult lives too, not seemingly able to escape the poverty that enveloped them since childhood. 

Ah Gek also needed money to pay for her son's HIV drugs. She agreed to run an errand for the loansharks in Johor Bahru. She didn't know that she was a drug mule (at least from how the author presented it), and got caught and was given the death penalty. She was placed on the death row for 10 years. Ironically, in Changi Prison, Ah Gek didn't have to worry about loansharks or not having a bed or food and shelter. This is one of those cases of tragedy and poverty, and genuine ignorance about drugs and scams. And this is when I wonder what people think marriage and having children is about. It's like, you labor your whole life, and what for? Is it worth it? 

She saw herself shrinking smaller and smaller until small as a bug she'd scuttled away from the Virgin Mother. She had failed as a wife and mother. Fought her husband. Fought her children. Fought them throughout their childhood to adulthood. Yet not one of them would bend to her will. Not even Kow Kia. She'd loved him the most. Did he live with a Malay man? She was blind when she should be mute like the Holy Mother. Maybe that's what children want from their mother. An inscrutable maternal silence.

华艺节 :: 《13・67》

I made it to watch one show at Esplanade's Huayi (华艺节). That's 《13・67》, a multimedia theatre production in Cantonese staged by Hong Kong experimental theatre group Zuni Icosahedron (進念・二十體面). The theatre group's funding comes mainly from the HKSAR government. (Wow. Not a surprise there. It means their programming and content is scrutinized and uhhh... approved.)

The play is directed by the company's co-Artistic Director Mathias Woo (胡恩威), and the main storyline has been adapted from author Chan Ho-Kei's (陳浩基) crime novel 'The Borrowed' (originally published in Chinese in 2014 titled '13・67'). 

The English version titled 'The Borrowed' is translated by Jeremy Tiang and published in 2017. It's a collection of six short stories (or novellas) following the exploits of Chief Inspector and Detective Kwan Chun-dok from 1967 to 2013 and his protege Detective Sonny Lok. Kwan's impressive and legendary prowess and career spanned 50 historic years in Hong Kong, against the backdrop of the 1967 riots, the 1977 HK Police and ICAC clashes, 1989 Tiananmen protests and massacre, the 1997 handover, SARS 2003 and beyond. 

This is a new-to-me book, and thankfully I managed to read it in time before watching the play. I was on the NLB waitlist for the book and only got a digital copy the night before the play. I sped-read through it to at least get a sense of the cases and the author's intentions. Thank gawwd it's in English. I can't speed-read in Chinese. Wow. The English translation is impressive. I think I'm just going to read all the books if they've been translated by Jeremy Tiang. Hehehehe. I intend to read it in its original Chinese too, when Kinokuniya has processed my order and delivers it. (Reviews of the book here, here and here.)

Zuni invited audiences to their The 1hr 45min play/musical/show that showcased 20 venues in Hong Kong following two main routes in the book — the kidnapping route and the bombing route. If I had known this earlier, or watched the show's September 2022 premiere in Hong Kong, I'd be able to explore the actual venues in person. In Singapore, all we could do was to check out the links, notes and photos of the actual venues mentioned. 

The set and the backdrop were the huge projector screen. Videos, clips, surtitles and its English translation, explanatory notes, graphics, etc. It was a multi-sensory show. multimedia, sound, projection and lighting effects made this a multi-sensory show.

Six cases, six murders. Notable years in Hong Kong history. This theater production didn't do these cases chronologically either, and switched up some of the scenes for brevity and ease of production. In the book, the cases begin with the one in 2013. These cases are titled 〈黑與白之間的真實〉 2013, 〈囚徒道義〉 2003, 〈最長的一日．The Longest Day〉 June 1997, 〈泰美斯的天秤．The Balance of Themis〉 1989, 〈Borrowed Place〉 1977, and 〈Borrowed Time〉 1967. 

I thought that the theatre production was done pretty well. Director Mathias Woo spoke in both Mandarin and English before the start of the show and at the end of the show — he addressed the audiences to explain why and how the production came to be, and he was very surprised but happy that such a small production got invited to perform in Singapore. I'm thankful too, that the Esplanade Huayi programming team chose this! He was very proud that arttech (defined as the coming together of art and technology) has been pretty successfully incorporated into this production. I agree. He did say that this production was initially done for school kids and teenaged students, to help them understand more about Hong Kong history and the underbelly of society. However, I thought it translates well to older audiences too, save for one case - 〈黑與白之間的真實〉.

The 2013 case 〈黑與白之間的真實〉 was done entirely as illustrated panels as though it's a graphic novel. No actors were onstage. Just music. The only problem I had with the panels being flashed one by one — I forgot what the previous panel said. I wanted to see four panels together on a screen! I bet you half the audience who didn't read the book didn't know what the case was beyond some rich family's fight over the will when patriarch was injured and comatose in hospital, and his subconscious brainwaves could only answer YES or NO to Detective Lok's questions. After the show, as we were strolling out of the theatre, I heard many people asking one another what was this case about. LOL For this specific adaptation that's done like a comic, only those who have read the book would know. 

人日 :: 頌新天歲歲無慮、逢盛世年年有餘

Plopped onto my seat at Miraku, and V asked, "Aren't you 45 last year too? Since when do you care about being forever 45?" I was like... whuut. So she said that she kept reading 45 for this year, and had to double-check my blog archives which actually said I was 45 last year. 

I was like, 'But I even used a calculator to be sure!' I opened it up and pressed..... '2023' and went OH WTF.  I cracked up so badly. My girlfriend, keeping it real for me. I hope she does that forever. Yours truly FORGOT that we're in 2024. I had told a number of people that I'm 45. Had to go amend the blog post (since this is read mainly by friends lol) and promptly loaded up an IG story. 🤦🏻‍♀️

There wasn't any shiny fish tonight. SAD. But there were kinmedai (金目鯛), kuromutsu (黒むつ), nodoguro (喉黒. Or akamatsu アカムツ) and such. I was happy. As it is with an omakase meal, the restaurant took loads of effort with its presentation. There was even a mini yusheng of sorts that they created for these two weeks of the Lunar New Year. Not for lo-hei, but to eat it. Many vegetables. Eat your vegetables.

I ate loads of fish this week and presumably gotten loads of luck buffered in for the year. I wasn't expecting for more sushi, and then this birthday dessert platter to appear to wish me more luck. It did! V had arranged it with Miraku when I came in 10 minutes late. Teeeehehehe. Alllll riiiiight, tonight I properly turned 46. 🤣

年年有餘年有魚 :: 喝魚湯

既然是求‘年年有餘’，就吃點魚吧。中午時刻想喝魚湯。最喜歡的味道就是那碗 Fortune Center Diner's Shack 的馬鮫魚片湯。那是一碗簡簡單單用魚骨熬的家常湯。是一對夫妻開的。兩個人撐著的店鋪沒有其他地方快手快腳、客人下了單，他們才開始燙魚片。我們在店鋪11.30am 一開門點了兩碗湯，還得等上45分鐘才喝到第一湯匙。

今天11.30am 到，也是等了近一小時才開吃。點湯時也要了兩碗帶走。是給朋友送上的。每次來這裡，我們都爾外加了碎肉，苦瓜，魚蛋。這樣子才美味。加了這麼多菜也才$11左右，還比其他魚湯鋪來的美味。這麼優惠的買賣，值得等！

我喝湯喝慣了。大熱天也照喝、無需等到雨天才會想起什麼廣式湯。今天恰好是雨天。從他們開張到今日，那味道沒什麼變，還是好吃。沒有味精，鹹度剛好，魚肉新鮮。配米飯或粗米粉都行。魚蛋上沾點辣椒超妙。這一家的魚湯真是好喝。

年初二 :: 彩鳳來儀迎大治、金龍起舞慶新春

The banks sent me red packets for the Year of the Dragon and new notes, in consecutive serial numbers. That saves me a trip to the bank. I keep some, but mostly I exchanged them out with friends who need/want to use new notes for their angpows. I don't particularly bother about new notes. If I do get cash (from change) through the year, I squirrel away fit-for-gifting notes and use them whenever needed. I'm certain that nobody will complain about it. If they have a problem with my notes, do return them to me. I would appreciate it. 

I'm not quite Aunty Scrooge, but I highly disapprove of handing out red packets to strange children. Even if you point out that this cute child is the daughter of my grandmother's second cousin's cousin's daughter's kid, I'm not handing out even $2 to you. I don't care! I'm not a 'it's the holidays, it's for luck! It's for the children' kind of person. 

I did get angpows from the extended family as a child. I kinda visited these relatives for the first few years after I got married, and handed out tonics, tarts and angpows to thank them for all the kindness. After that, I drew a line and stopped visiting since it was pointless once the children grew up and the elders passed on. 

I'm quite pleased that by this year, the angpows that I'm handing out to 'relatives' and friends' children are controlled and limited. It's not about the money. It's the thought that goes with the angpow. Yes, exactly that. They wouldn't be people I see just once a year, and know their lives 'intimately' through their social media updates. 

I'm also most certainly not going to hand out angpows to unmarried cousins who are fine independent adults drawing a five-figure monthly income. Not when I don't see them for the rest of the year, and there isn't a bond built. Hello, 'blood relations' mean nothing to me okaaay. Traditions be damned. 

Most of us in a stable job actually feel slightly embarrassed for accepting angpows from our peers or even older folks. The times when we don't feel bad is when the angpow is given to us out of love, and we do see the giver regularly through the year, so that we could reciprocate in kind, or get them something they might want on another occasion. 

Red packets are also handed out by way of appreciation to the estate's security team, cleaners, my hair and nail technicians, the usual friendly staff at my go-to restaurants, Choya's walkers, my pilates and gyrotonic instructors, et cetera. It's like, I know them, and would know even specifics about them, but I don't know their preferences for food or way of life. Under these set of circumstances, I choose to gift red packets than to get them pineapple tarts or cookies that they might not fancy.

I didn't even visit that many homes — only four over Day 1 and 2 (初一、初二). But in the run-up to Lunar New Year and from the past two days, Choya has already gotten herself a fine haul of angpows, even from unmarried folks. 'For luck', they said. Fine. Thank goodness the amounts given aren't extravagant. They're genuinely super fond of her. These silly faeriefolk. I rolled my eyes. 

People, you know that your angpow are just going to contribute towards Choya's raw meats and overall food right? Heh.

年初一 :: 赤兔追風千里志、金龍拱日萬家春

Our friends grilled a batch of char siew done Malaysian style and gifted us a generous portion. We could do an easy char siew rice with a sunny side up. But I decided to use them as a topper to noodles. I whipped up a bowl for myself that night for supper. Thought I would repeat it for the man. 

After we went out to the park to play on Day 1 (初一) of the Lunar New Year, I assembled lunch for us. Char siew and scallops noodles in dashi. Had thawed out scallops this morning. Dried them out and seared them in butter and a sprinkle of parsley, thyme and salt flakes. The man needed protein, so scallops would serve him well. He doesn't need to do chicken or beef daily. Fish and scallops or prawns are fine too. #ImpieCooks2024

Of course Choya had her scallop. Seared hers too — one scallop with a drop of butter. LOL Well, she has an omelette too, with a stalk of bok choi and dried basil. She was hungry and all excited from the smells, and couldn't wait to tuck into her lunch.

Boiled up an easy dashi with katsuoboshi and kombu. Stared at the stash of noodles. Decided to use hippari udon (ひっぱりうどん). Harvested a bunch homegrown bok choi. Blanched those in the dashi and scooped them out. Vegetables should stay a tad firm and green. Skipped the mushrooms and added an egg instead. Added fried shallots and a dollop of sambal belachan to the char siew before serving. 

I Turned 46 🥃

Two February babies marking the month.

My lunar birthday is on the third day of the New Year. Thank goodness nobody needs to know about it or mark that since we only do one date on the Gregorian calendar. Nowadays, I'm not particularly bothered that my birthday usually falls within the Lunar New Year period because I no longer fulfil anyone else's expectations to visit people whom I don't care for. 

I used to resent it so much if my birthday falls on the eve (除夕) or Day 1 / Day 2 of the Lunar New Year. If I hadn't learnt to say NO, I would ironically have to spend my birthday with irrelevant people who don't feature largely in my life. I didn't have a choice back then. Now I do. The moment I turned 30 years old, I began not giving a fuck about what people think of my decisions. I never really did; I was 'giving face' to the elders. Now, fuck it. They can think all they want, but they aren't the one dealing with the fallout. They get their happy and 'face' from people turning up; they neither care nor understand what it costs the other party. 

This year, February 9th is on the last day of the Year of the Rabbit, and the eve of the Year of the Dragon. I'm quite laissez-faire about it. I don't want any sort of dinners or parties. I don't need any fancy gifts or flourishes. I need mundane, steady and predictable. I don't want to have to handle things that explode in my face.  

However, the busy festivities this year would also mean friends are absolved of feeling obliged to mark the occasion. Which works for me. 生日而已，無需大費周章. At this age and phase in life, I'm very happy with a text or a coffee meet. Easy drinks and dinner if we find a common time or date. A few friends generously celebrated my 45th in advance.

This year, my birthday fell on the eve of the Lunar New Year. The weather cooperated and Smol Girl allowed me to have nine solid hours of sleep. Started the day with one last coffee of the Year of the Rabbit at Nylon before they close for the holidays. Then I spent it quietly at home. Before February 9th was over, I had a beautiful dram of Bowmore 25 y.o for a nightcap.

お節料理と豚バラと豆腐の味噌鍋

Trotted to Kizuna to pick up dinner and totally got distracted by the four-liter bottle of whisky. I completely forgot that Kizuna does cocktails in the evenings come mid-week. I ended up chugging three super refreshing highballs. Hahaha.  

Dinner was to be Kizuna's lunar new year take-home menu of an Osechi Box (お節料理) and Pork Belly Miso Nabe (豚バラと豆腐の味噌鍋). It's a tad hard for us to sit down for dinner at Kizuna; it's much easier for us to pop by to collect pre-ordered food.

The selections for the osechi box were gorgeous! It came with a notecard explaining what each dish contained and what auspicious wishes they represent. They were so nicely prepped and pickled! So much care went into the box. Loved them! It was a super filling box!!! These portions were good for three persons and definitely sufficient for four if we had added on another dish of say gyu-don or something. 

The cafe packed and layered the ingredients for nabe so neatly for me in a donabe, but I had to transfer it out to an ugly pot to heat up. That's because the donabe can't go onto induction hobs; I don't have a portable 'fire' stove using those gas canisters (I don't like those things). Diluted the miso with water, and it became a very tasty stock. 

With this meal, I still needed chilli. Opened up the bottle of Shan Cheng sambal belachan gifted by S. I love it, and it goes so nicely with belinjo crackers, keropok and soup and all. Cooked sticky white rice in the donabe to go with the soup and such. Could have done udon, I suppose, but never mind. Sambal belachan went better with rice! Teehehehehe. Had sake, chilled. It's a gift from our friends who chose a festive expression of junmai daiginjo — Hiroki ‘Huat Ah’ from Shiwa Sake Brewery in Shiwa-Cho, Iwate. 

What a feast! ♡

Galettes for Dinner!

I haven't been to Gather for a while. Then the invite to dinner came along. The shop and chef that inspired the crepes/galettes at Gather, Chef Hatakeyama Taku was in town! 

Chef Taku of Au Temps Jardis in Tokyo would take over the kitchen and churn out crepes at dinner for three days. A set dinner was trotted out for galette enthusiasts to uhhh gather. It was definitely a fun event!

I had calls to field later in the night and such, so an early 5.30pm dinner worked much better. I wondered why they didn't have Chef Taku do brunch and lunch. Two galettes for dinner were really filling. You would really need to like them. There were no other side dishes. 

The set dinner came with a choice of savory galette, and then a dessert of sweet galette. There were three drinks allocated for us, but I only asked for watermelon juice, and water. I didn't fancy cider, and didn't want coffee at this hour. There was hot or iced chocolate on the menu too, but I passed. I really wouldn't have minded a highball. Or sake. Hahahaha.

I opted for a savory galette of minced meat and onions with potato mash, then a dessert of strawberry, sweet milk, raspberry sauce and a very generous dollop of chantilly cream. I couldn't finish the dessert and handed half over to my dining companion. She happily finished the chantilly cream. LOL

The Kamogawa Food Detectives

I didn't know if I wanted to read this book since it was so similar in its plot to another series. This book reminds us so much of of Cafe Funiculi Funicula in the three books of 'Before the Coffee Gets Cold'. But Libby gave me a 'skip the queue' digital copy, so I borrowed it. Never question why one gets books early. Oof.

It's 'The Kamogawa Food Detectives' (originally published in Japanese in 2013) by Hisashi Kashiwai, and translated into English by Jesse Kirkwood in October 2023. We're in Kamogawa Diner in Kyoto. The nondescript diner is run by retired policeman Nagare Kamogawa and his daughter Koshi. Nagare's wife Kikuko has passed for two decades, and he never remarried. They don't do any sort of advertisement for the diner, and the one-liner ad in a food magazine didn't provide any addresses or details. They would like to keep it that way.

After Nagare and his daughter Koishi meet the clients to get all the details from their memories, it usually takes about two weeks to investigate and then recreate the dish. Father and daughter do the investigating and cooking respectively, re-creating their clients' memories of 'lost' dishes of their childhood, or a dish a deceased loved one used to cook for them. Nagare and Koishi help their clients to recreate those happy experiences, ease grief and pain, and even help them come to terms with some things that they themselves never knew, until hindsight alerted them to it.

There're six stories titled according to the foods missed by the clients. The book terms it as 'chapters' — (I) Nabeyaki Udon (II) Beef Stew (III) Mackerel Sushi (IV) Tonkatsu (V) Napolitan Spaghetti (VI) Nikujaga. Once I read the first story, I realized that there isn't anything supernatural in this book. It's simply a deep understanding of recipes, how people cook, how they think, and how this father-daughter team go about recreating these specific dishes for their clients.

(I) Nabeyaki Udon 鍋焼きうどん is one of my favorite homecooked dishes. It's so easy to whip out. And this story got it right. It's the ingredients that make every home's version of nabeyaki udon different. The water, dashi and udon used make a huge difference to one's memories of this meal. Hideki Kuboyama missed his deceased wife Chieko's nabeyaki udon and would love to taste it one more time before he moves to north to Takasaki and marries his new wife Nami. 

It was quite fun to know that Chieko's little chant of "masa, suzu and fuji" before she sets out to do groceries referred to the shops she needed to stop by. The food detectives finally figured out that it meant Masugata (market), Hanazuzu (for fresh udon and prawn tempura) and Fujiya (for Matsumae kombu and Soda bonito and mackerel flakes to make dashi). The final touch was hilarious. Nagare had asked Koishi to throw a whole fistful of powder into the soup at the end. Koishi didn't know what it was. Neither did the readers. It was quite funny when Nagare finally told her/us.

'Instant dashi powder. He'll need to get used to that stuff if he's going to live with Nami.'

'So that's why he thought the stock was a little saltier than he remembered!'

'Yes. If I can just get him to think that's how Chieko's version always tasted, then even if Nami's version is a little less ... delicate, he shouldn't have notice the difference.'

The second story of (II) Beef Stew has got nothing to do with the last story of (III) Nikujaga. These are very different dishes. The beef stew in this story was really referring to a western-style stew with roux that Nobuko Nadaya ate in Kyoto in 1957, like 55 years ago. With patchy details provided by Nobuko who couldn't even remember the name of the young man she met and spent the day with, the detectives found the beef stew in question, eaten at a restaurant named Furuta Grill and even retracing her steps spent in Kyoto that day. Ahhh... of a missed chance at a possible love and marriage, and regret. 

(VI) Nikujaga is 肉じゃが, a meat (usually thinly sliced beef) and potato stew. It's literally niku 肉 - meat and jagaimoゃがいも - potatoes. Everyone calls it the 'taste of home', of 'mom's cooking' おふくろの味. I call it おばあちゃんの味 because my paternal grandmother sorted out my diet mostly growing up. She made it more salty than sweet for me. I loved it on rice.

In this story, a self-made entrepreneur and slight cocky Hisahiko Tsuda is looking for the nikujaga of his childhood, a dish that he thinks his mother made with high quality ingredients because his family then was well-off. He bears anger and resentment towards his stepmother Sachiko and not-blood-related older stepsister, and recalls an incident in childhood in which he found two pots of nikujaga on her stove, one with meat and one without. He's even slightly overbearing in his abrupt attitude and tone to Nagare and Koishi by telling them that if they can't recreate these flavors, he will have a celebrity chef do it with A5-grade Matsusaka beef and Hokkaido potatoes. 

Hisahiko tasted Nagare and Koshi's nikujaga and said that it tasted exactly like Sachiko's stew, not his mother. Nagare promptly put him in his place. It was nowhere near high quality beef as assumed. It was canned beef his mother had used, because that was a lean cut of beef — Yamto-ni / soy-stewed beef. Hisahiko didn't like fatty beef. He remembered the stew with a reddish tinge because he hated carrots and the mother had to mash carrots before they went into the stew. By the time Sachiko took over the cooking, Hisahiko had stopped minding carrots and she just started chopping them up the usual way. There was a whole book of recipes both his mother and stepmother wrote and shared for him.

'You only ever ate one type of nikujaga stew, Hisahiko. One mother simply handed the baton over to another.'

'So Sachiko went to the trouble of making a separate stew, just for me...' murmured Hisahiko, gazing into space as he remembered the two pots on the stove.

'Still, I imagine that whatever that celebrity chef cooked up for you will make much better content for a trendy women's magazine. I caught a glimpse of it just now, and it's certainly a good fit for your image. Canned meat would come across a little rustic, wouldn't it?'

I quite like the little stories behind the dishes. I especially enjoyed how Food Detective Nagare linked up the meagre clues, and seemingly solved the issues without much trouble. Like magic. Hehehe. I like how the author set the clues to connect together to piece together a story from each character's incoherent memories.

I was seriously hungry after finishing the book. These were all the comfort foods of my childhood, and up till now! These are the dishes that I can cook without a recipe only because I remember the flavors and still hold memories of how my grandmother used to do it. 

Except for the Napolitan spaghetti. Or maybe it's spelt as 'Neapolitan' in some places. That was and still is the one thing I absolutely dislike in its Japanese pasta iteration. It was the one childhood dish that put me off ketchup forever. I had severe allergies as a kid, and there were limited food items I could eat. I wasn't and am still not allergic to cheese, gluten, wheat and tomatoes. I remember people kept feeding me pizza and that Japanese Ketchup Pasta in Singapore and Japan. Ugh.

So Who Is The Dog Killer?

I watched 'Under the Silver Lake' (2019) years ago, and decided to re-watch it now since it's on MUBI. I'm not re-watching it for Andrew Garfield or Riley Keough. I initially found it utterly confusing and decided not to waste brain cells on deciphering it. People gave it an average of a 3.3/5 rating. Hahahaha. Now, I want to. I'm trying to look for the undercurrents of conspiracy theories put forth in the storyline. 

It's such a cool surrealist neo-noire black comedy plus mystery. David Robert Mitchell put so much symbolism and comments into the film that I had to re-watch and cross check it against reviews and explainers on Youtube. 

Sure, it's set in Silver Lake, Los Angeles in 2011. It's a critique on Hollywood and show business, 'male gaze', exploitation of women, sub cultures, subliminal messages in advertising and media. But exactly how it was done, is absolutely brilliant. The Copiale Cipher mentioned as a running headline on television news in the show, the code written as graffiti on a bathroom wall as Sam (Andrew Garfield) barfs in the toilet, morse code on signboards, et cetera. 

Then we get graphics on tees that decode to reveal it to say 'BWAR THE DOG KILLER', which was something first scene showed as writing on a glass window. What is that parrot all about? Daniel Netzel has got a wonderful 27-minute explainer on it. 

I jumped into rabbit holes on Reddit, sub-Reddits, Quora, Medium, Substack, and such. I was like, am I watching a film on pause to try to decipher all these? I wasn't watching the actors, I was looking at the venues, walls, floors, clothes, paintings, and everything else. Referencing and using the Copiale Cipher wasn't enough, they even put in the Hobo Code. I felt like I gotta decode codes within a coded film! 

They made up a 'Cult of the Whale'. But I know Vietnam's Vung Tau and Danang have a Whale Festival in September that's nothing like a cult although there're parades and all to commemorate traditional folk culture and honouring the fishermen and seafarers. There's the 'Owl's Kiss' that runs off the owl perched in the corner of the US dollar bill. Is it? Hahaha. Go jump into this rabbit hole. 

It's convoluted for sure. It felt like we're watching Sam's sanity fade away as he starts living in a fantasy. As he turns increasingly nocturnal and despondent, he's obviously struggling with deteriorating mental health Is Sam actually the dog killer? 

Donated A Pint of O- Blood

I didn't think about donating blood this year till HSA urged donors to come forward because Group O blood stocks are critically low (below six days) and would like to get their stockpile up to 12 days. So I made an appointment and toddled down.

Unfortunately I forgot to factor in my period. The day of the blood donation would be on Day 3 of it. I haven't donated blood during a period cycle. I usually have light periods, so I still went ahead with the appointment at the blood bank. I always tank up on iron-rich foods three days before a blood donation, and avoid caffeine and alcohol. But I thought that this round I should add on iron tablets. J aided me in my no-alcohol quest for the three days before by having dinner in a restaurant that isn't conducive to having alcohol. Ha! She also supplied me a strip of Maltofer. Yay. 

My blood flowed fast and that bag filled up within five minutes, a lot faster than the other donors. Ooof. It kinda hurt towards the end and when it hurt sharply, I actually felt faint. Then I was done. But I knew the vagus nerve was overstimulated and the vasovagal response was kicking in. The room spun, my ears rang, and I felt like puking. So I called for assistance before I completely passed out. 

The staff said my face went completely pale and in one swift move, three staff tilted me over (on the chair lah), removed the needle stat, and wrapped puncture site up within seconds. They gave me a cold gel compress behind the neck. I needed that. I was actually warm and breaking out in heavy perspiration.

This is the first time I had a vasovagal response while donating blood. Hmmmm. I guess it could be the period cycle. While blood donors aren't restricted to age, the list of criteria for blood donation is stringent. It does explain why donors in the age group of 16-25 would be ideal. They haven't gotten ill or nothing major has set in. Given the strict requirements and after the COVID-19 vaccines, it has cut out a huge swathe of the population as donors — there're so few of us in the 40s age group who are eligible as donors. 

But yes, I gave the full pint of very usable and healthy O- blood. Hurrah. Doing my bit. There, civic duty done. Karma met. Went home to eat dark chocolates and quaff a litre of coconut water. Had a lie-down for a bit, and felt tons better. Went out to The Feather Blade to have an easy and properly done steak for dinner. Made perfect with a big glass of easy shiraz. 😉

As of today, Red Cross SG says that our blood stockpile is back up and holding.
We gotta keep it that way. We should continue to donate.