Current song: Teardrops On My Guitar - Taylor Swift; Stop and Stare - One Republic

Came back home this weekend to grab some stuff and go out. Strangely I've been in a rather... whimsical mood this entire week, for lack of a better word. There are tons of better things I could do, but I just took it rather easy and just went along, tacking bits of work here and there.

And oh, the first general election has just been anounced. Yay, my first election ever! Hehe, can't wait to exercise my citizenship right and civic duty.

And on another note, there's a movie that looks quite interesting to me. Generally I avoid spoof and parody movies, given that Meet the Spartans got thrashed and beaten to a bloody pulp by critics and movie-goers. Case in point, Mafia remains the worse movie I've ever seen in a cineplex. However, this trailer does look promising - staying away from the current trend of parodies of just spoofing nonsensically without any coherent storyline, and it features Drake Bell. Who was a child star with an early exposure on Nickelodeon, and co-starring with Amanda Bynes on The Amanda Show. (Yes, I admit it - I do watch Nickelodeon and Disney Channel). Click on the trailer below.

A bit late, but Happy Chinese New Year folks.

CNY this time wasn't that bad. I took leave on CNY eve (Wednesday), and also the following Monday and Tuesday. I've kinda forgotten how relaxing it has been to just chill for a long period of time, guess I've been racking up too much overtime in the weekends. And the usual CNY delicacies of course - like pineapple tarts (from Malacca), long yuk (dried pork), and love letters. And my dad even took us out on sushi. Yay!

Was thinking this time CNY would be quite boring and lonely, but didn't turn out so bad. On the third day, went out with a friend who was visiting her aunt. Ended up with choc-fuls of well, chocolates. Apparently her aunt had came back from UK laden with lots of chocolate. Got to sample lots of delicious chocolate - including large chocolate coins, chocolate with rum and lots more. And here I thought Ferrero Rocher only comes in one flavour - the dark chocolate with slight mint was excellent.

The next day, went to another friend's place again, and bumped into an old friend who was seeing one of my friends there. Damn, it has been what, 4 years since I've seen him? I seriously hate being reminded how old I am, and still amazed at how much time has passed since I stepped out of form 5.

Anyway I watched them played mahjong for a while, me never learning how to play myself. Watched them for a few rounds, and the rules and even the aims of the game still escapes me though I can sorta get what they're trying to to to win. After that we played gin rummy (I think that's how it's spelled) which I've never played before but watched my dad did a long time ago.

With all four of us of the same age, it was 4 rats squaring off. Which one of us would emerge as the top rat? Turns out I was the under-rat of it, as I lost more than 10 bucks after a couple of rounds. While my friend managed to loot more than 10 bucks (with me as the major contributor), plus an additional 10 bucks from the previous mahjong rounds. Sigh.. Maybe a red Mickey Mouse underwear would have done the trick to up my lucky star.

Anyhow, me back to work already right now, and am greeted with the sudden news that one of my colleague is leaving by the end of the week. Yikes! Now the lab's gonna be even more desolate. Not to mention she was the most senior one around, so we usually ask her stuff and its whereabouts and how-tos. Guess I'll have to take up bit more work from now on.

Here's me going to stuff myself on some CNY cookies I stowed away to my room.

The Hitcher

No, not the horror slasher movie of a couple who picked up a psychopathic hitchhiker. But I was in car with a complete strange. Just the two of us. For about 20 minutes...

So it goes like this. I pulled some extra work at my lab yesterday, and came back to my college around 6 pm. I had just turned the engine down and was putting up the sunshade when I spotted this guy walking near my direction. A Chinese dude, but doesn't look local. Likely from the batch of students from China that recently came to UKM. (And I just realised that 'Chinese' here has multiple contexts - foreigners use it to refer to people that came from China, I use it to refer to the stereotypical fairer-skin/slit-eyed populace in Malaysia).

Anyway, I was about to get off my car when suddenly he knocked on my window. Thinking maybe he needs some direction, I just opened the door. And then he asked in, in Mandarin obviously,

"Might I trouble you to give me ride to KTM station to buy some food?"

Though likely I'm making up half the sentence, since my Mandarin's like really bad, and I could only figure out that sentence by the words 'trouble', 'KTM', 'buy' and 'food'. And there were some other things he mentioned afterwards which I couldn't get. Anyway, near the KTM station there are some Chinese mix rice, which is quite popular among the Chinese students in UKM as it's rather near and cheap.

So anyway, I was faced with a decision. A complete stranger asking me to give him a ride. Stories of psychopathic killers, muggers with knife briefly flashed my mind. But he does look like a regular guy and harmless. And I'm partial to helping out people who need a ride as I was in their shoes not too long ago and know how inconveniencing it is. And it really has to take a lot of guts, not to mention pride, for him to actually ask a stranger for a ride. In his mind, I in turn might be the crazed killer (though from what 99% of friends tell me, I look too innocent to be considered a threat). After careful deliberation for a few seconds, I obliged and he got into my car.

And so we chatted, sorta. Have I mentioned that my mandarin is bad? And on top of that, his Mandarin also has a slight accent to it. But somehow we managed somewhat with my badly-pronounced and grammatically-erred Mandarin. And most likely half the time I was understanding him wrong and spewing nonsensical Greek to him. If I did, he played the part of a gracious passenger and responded appropriately, even feigning surprise when I told him that I don't really know Mandarin and I speak mostly in other languages.

Bits of conversation which I can state quite confidently as indeed being spoken about include: the course he's studying (IT), his intention to buy car, and him not adapting to the cafetaria food. When we returned, he thanked me profusely for the lift. I just smiled and assured him it was nothing. Ah... it certainly feels great to do a good deed. And that my instincts weren't wrong on giving him a ride.

Edit p/s:
My short encounter with him also made me realise how different, contextually, we are despite sharing a common racial descendant. He asked me whether both of my parents were Chinese (probably because I suck in Mandarin) and whether they were born in Malaysia. I'm not one for tracing my family tree, but I vaguely remember mentions of my grandparents or greatgrandparents arriving in Malaysia. So technically I'm at least the second generation being born and bred here, and he was slightly fascinated by this.

He also asked me whether the food stall was opened by a "China-ian (?)" (pardon my lack of han yi ping yin, what he said chung-quo-ren ". I was slightly surprised, and I replied by a "Yeah, by a Chinese (hua-ren)". Again, the context of the word "Chinese" is vastly different between me and him. As far as I know, no Malaysian Chinese refer to him or herself as "chung-quo-ren", but as "hua-ren" regardless of the many types of clans and dialects available. Likely because the former has a connotation to China, despite both words also means Chinese (the stereotypical definition of fair-skinned/slit-eyed people across Asia).

I guess subconciously, the majority of the Chinese populace of Malaysia was brought up and grew here, mingling with other races and embracing the culture here. That we've diverged so far from the first settlers who arrived here that we no longer identify with China or it being "the great motherland" or something like that. Which is what really angers me when a few years ago, we were labled as "pendatang" and told that "kalau tak suka, baliklah China". Which is insulting, as it implies we're not considered full citizens here. There is no other place to go to, no homeland which we harbour a secret desire to return to. It's time politicians and everyone in Malaysia realise that we're all Malaysians, irrespective of skin colour; and that we're all here together, for better or worse.