Deepavali open house

it was very generous of Kanna curry house to have an open house invitation for all Malaysians,the Chinese,indians n malays.The food was super hot and spicy but i like their tagline No diet today because its Kannas open house today. Throwing caution to the wind i ate everything from rava thosai,putumayam,roti bom, dalcha,brinjal pajeri,chicken perumal,deep fried tenggiri fish,fish head curry,cabbage currg.even ate kesari n coconut jelly with hot frothy teh tarik n spicy rasam soup. i feel like a fat hippo now n go to workout for extra an hour to burn off the calories.i thank Kanna curry house hospitality to serve good food to all semua lapisan masyarakat tak kira bangsa dan social strata.tbey get loyal clients support.

Food n music

Shakespeare said if music be the food of love,play on. i really hope to be able to wake up to a new day,to work out or to go on working. The day i lie in bed the whole day is when ive given up on life Either losing my body or mind is a sign of letting go.so to me its music,dance and food that has the deepest memory of being alive.To a person with dementia,food imprints evoke memories as does a familiar well loved piece of music or a dance step. I get bored of the same old diet and enjoy new foreign food.i cooked angel hair pasta with the truffle,porcini sauce in olive oil,sweet basil leaves,wine,mixed vege n shumeiji mushroom n paired it with portobello mushroom filled with minced chicken and panfried it was a wonderful meal. then for lunch today i ate vietnamese banh mi or baguette with lemongrass chicken chop,vietnamese spring roll with peanut butter dip.Vietnam food is influenced by french n chinese cuisine and this dishes epitomises it with iced coffee. Vietnam is the only indochina nation with sinic influence.tbe rest are indic bias. for dinner i bought basmati ponni rice to cook Spanish paella.i use tumeric,not costly saffron,paprika and bay leaves.added squid rings,shrimp,mussel and chicken and some green peas.bell pepper,tomato,the paella turned out like the one i ate on holiday in valencia and the valencia orange tree laden with fruit outside the cafe so we could pluck n eat fresh oranges.what a memorable meal with sangria to drink to hearts delite.i love mediterranean cuisine like mad.exotic herbs n spices,cheese n wine are heavenly

What's wrong with our public education system

Failure to prioritise on important issues see Malaysian public school systems going to the dogs.in this dog eat dogs world,global competitiveness is fierce to develop human resources. At higher education institutes,they focus on fashion policing like how short is your shorts and we see the closing of public intellect to new ideas and innovation. Then at high school level,students go for extracurricular classes and know more than the teachers at school about coding,software programming,playing musical instruments,modern dances or painting.What is worse removing standardised public exams enable weak students to be promoted without mastering basic skills like reading,science and maths until high school graduates are barely literate by PISA standards . Now i find many of my young relatives studying at international schools and learn so much more than the public school kids who will end up in the gig economy as food delivery riders or civil servants. The Singapore civil servants recruit the best and deliver to meet global service standard whilst we are shiock sendiri.How to be globally competitive if the public education system is going down the drains.We are not suffering from brain drain but no brainers syndrome.

Chat GPT

Now students have to write a short story in an exercise .they learn about characters,plot,climax,metaphor and style of language.How can a teacher detect if writing is done by a human or artificial intelligence.its really hard to tell. i started with the introductory paragraph and Chat GPT completed it in seconds while i was still cracking my brain after 40 minutes of frantic scribbling n rewriting. The humour of ChatGPT is really understated but could pass the exam with an A.The human composition is made with local slang and Malaysian fathers thinking unlike the American dad who dresses in outdated suspenders and a typical teenager lingo in American context.So Char GPT is too western centric unlike what a localised fiction with Asian father child relationship would behave and say. im gonna throw a few ingredients with western n asian flavour n see who can comes up with a more creative fusion recipe.Now Chat GPT has no sense of smell and taste bud so lets challenge it with a human culinary test. Shit Chat GPT is creative in cooking up a delicious dessert.i never thought it would think of tapioca pearls.i would use real tapioca and cut into cubes,make a bubur with lemongrass n golden syrup with coconut milk and a dollop of cooking cream infused with pandan leaves.i would add cubes of sweet potato and chopped agar agar so that its like Filipino halo halo. what Chat GPT created was like Malaysian sago pudding.

geopolitical strategic

China should stop supplying military aid.to the junta.to be fair supply the aid.to the resistance too as they align with ethnic territorial militia to fight for self rule. the Chinese has lots of.business investments in Mandalay and northern Myanmar and these investments will be disrupted by civil war. Myanmar when returned to civilian and non military rule stand better chance of sttracting foreign investments to spur growth.Look at Vietnam that draws in foreign investments.from Korea,Japan,China,the West and Asean so that its GDP has improved the living standards of its populace. its national airline is expanding globally as tourism flourishes.Myanmar has pathetic infrastructure linkages from railways to highways to port facilities. Myanmar has strategic geopolitical position bordered by 2 Asian supowers of India and China.From India it can develop software engineering projects as indian software engineers are highly sought globally.With China,they can attract hi tech investment in microchip manufacturing and EV batteries as the nation has mineral resources like rare earth. By leveraging its geopolitical position it stands to gain a lot from Asean investments too and Thailand can boost its fast moving consumer goods production with its expertise in agribusiness like Frozen and canned food production. So if the junta returns power to the people,the peoples lives will improve instead of regressing. Rohinya refugees will not ovetwhelm neighbouring coutries and opium and drug production reduced There will be less reliance on the black market economy or the illicit business of scamming and gambling. The restoration of the popularly.voted government will restore peace and order.

Self portrait

i feel the plants are much better looking than me.i feel i look like a paper effigy of myself which i can burn into ashes during the Humgry Ghost festival.

Vegetarian Thali set lunch

i ate korean chicken ramen with a green tea drink at KLCC food court .it cost a bomb and came out to rm30 include tax. i ate vegetarian north indian Thali set cost only rm10.90 and a cup of masala tea at rm 5.even after tax its much cheaper than food court in KLCC cutthroat price. maybe vegetables cost less than chicken.but im an adventurous foodie and persuade my younger colleagues to sample exotic Turkish food or north indian paneer puri and kulfi.Even my korean kids like pani puri,vadai and putumayam.why settle for ordinary food when you can sample out of the ordinary.

Graffiti art

Graffiti art is now visuals in public spaces adorning sidewalks and buildings.the blank canvas has vivid letters,bold pictures and artistic depictions. Cant they bring snippets of poetry to promote Malaysian literature to graffiti art with vivid lettering.singapore literature is promoted on public transport like MRT coaches and in the UK the underground has poems pasted on walls instead of crude messages. Think city should get us to think in the city ". Wading through swirling Milo brown waters to reach Museum Telekom to check out what is on Kuala Lumpur Tenggelam or Kalam Cis! i really betul betul benci flashflood" thats why the city is named Kuala Lumpur Although born in Kuala Lumpur just pray i dont become a real stick in the mud adoinya la

KALAM

Todays session at Kalam literary fest which is the confluence of writers and ideas.Really thrilled to listen to Amir Muhammads talk on a scintillating out of print novel written in the 1960s of the taboo idea of liberalism.Liberal is a dirty word nowadays.Erotic literature doesnt have to be censored when its suggestive without being explicit.I think the crowd represents a good mix of youths and the.not so young.Amir Muhammad has a large fan base bridging different generations and races But to attend the afternoon session was the highlight of the festival cause i got the autograph from the panel moderator Faisal Tehrani,the author of the Koro Riots.He is an anarchist at heart cause his writing is thought provoking and pushes the boundary..I bought his next novel written in Malay because of a controversial word in the title Babi,Kongkang , Panda.Now Babi is a haram word in Malaysian society that now they call it khindzir.so even the movie Babe is banned in Malaysian cinemas because it sounds like Babi.Words are toxic and can corrupt young minds.Babi,Komunis and Liberals are threats to national security declares the guardians of preservation of moral decency. Its so exciting to listen to translators point of view and three southeast asians in the literary scene,a Cambodian,Vietnamese and a Burmese.Ive seen translated fictional works of Thai and Indonesians but never came across Burmese,Vietnamese and Cambodian English translated fiction so to promote better regional understanding of Asean neighbours,its time for bookshops to stock Asean fiction.We understand our neighbours better through mass media like Thai movies,Phillipines soap operas or Indonesian dangdut.Movies and pop culture helps to foster understanding and bridge differences.of course in Malaysia,regional food from Vietnam,Thailand,indonesia and The Phillipines are available but food doesnt allow us to understand the hearts and minds of others,only pop culture and literature can do so.If we can enjoy Japanese manga,anime,KPop dance and music,then learning more about Asean pop culture is not daunting with the age of the internet.Asean youtube channel of soap operas is a good start.why we may pick up a smattering of the language too.

Lost soul

Teenage angst they call it A lost soul seeking refuge in words She is a banana,they sneered Yellow skin but white at heart She has no mother cause she lost her mother's tongue. Youre just a worthless piece of shit the words rang in my ears. to shake away the daggers pointing at me i took the plunge dived into the well of darkness the burning voice ran like rivulets down my naked body as im entombed in the womb praying to be reborn in a new life to begin a fresh start im coming,im coming to promises where skin doesnt matter when language wont divide us im finally home

The garden of thorns

bought rose seeds to sow in my garden of imagination bright cheerful blooms popping up ive watered them with my tears fed them fat granules of chicken dung that stink and attracted buzzing flies a few tender shoots pushing through the dirt but the hungry cat mauled it he had vegetarian delight but one small rose plant lived so i dig a deep pit and discovered the soil was thin and miserly under were huge chunks of concrete buried by the builder of my home the rose plant grows on arid soil but i tended it with lavish care My garden of thorns rips my skin tears open my silent heart and punctures my last drop of hope yes the rose has blossomed into painful memories

Sunday zumba

Why not remove tax on books

If the government is serious on incalculating the reading habit,why not remove the tax on books?The cost of imported books is higher than some imported food.its so bloody expensive to buy serious academic books like Howard Zinns Truth has its own power or civil disobedience and democracy.im also eyeing Kishore Mabuhanis book Can Asians think and the Asian 21st century.Most academic books are costly because of extensive research unlike entertainment fiction. Now instead of Professor Kangkongs books ,im eyeing indian economist Amartya Sens book The Argumentative Indian or the history of South China Sea.

Kalam literary festival

attended a talk by famous Malaysian cartoonist Lat in Kuala Lumpur He depicts daily lives and idiosyncrasies of ordinary citizens in yhe 1970s when life was slow and simple and simple joys of life celebrated with talk and food time. in the Q and A time there were so many fans asking questions that i missed my chance to ask him if he would consider working with digital artists to make an anime or graphic movie of Mat Som or Kampung Boy.Then i realized he talks a lot about the good old days when life was simple so he may not enjoy the technology of computer animation.When i went for the talk at awesome gallery by Astro head of animation n digital design,i see they are worlds apart.AI animation software like Mid journey has taken the tedious work out for animators but cant replace the astute observation skills of Lat on normal Malaysians quirk and foibles or his sense of subtle humour.Humour is rooted in our cultural context that AI wont find funny. i got a free pictorial book at the fest and love the vivid colours. it reminds me of local movie animated by local company.the anime Seafood the movie was funded by Al Jazzera.So our young are creative iam so sad and disappointed those attending English literary events are mainly elderly Malaysian whether Malay,Chinese and Indian.No young Malaysians because very low proficiency in English.A seasoned journalist said young Malaysians write news article in Malay and goggle translate.Ive noticed the young Koreans do the same so that without a template,they cant string a coherent message Malaysian animators have talent but lack backing. why cant Think city organize short story telling competition,poetry recital or stage live theatre competition in high schools n colleges to improve English literacy and love of reading .i wish they would stage plays or musical theatre at literary fest in future.All discussions only so work with actor studio to stage workshops or plays next time.More audience participation is better.