Tua Pek Kong's Birthday

The temple beside my office had been setting up for what seemed like a big event. Yesterday, my new colleague Ah Ling and I walked over to the temple to ask what they were celebrating and I was pretty surprised to hear them say "Tua Pek Kong's Birthday." I thought his birthday was beginning of the year between February and March?

So I asked around as to why this was so....

You see, I'm still learning more about Taoism each day.

So from what I've found out. Yes, Tua Pek Kong's actual birthday is around February. But a Tua Pek Kong temple may celebrate his birthday a second time that year to to commemorate the opening of the temple or anniversary. There are usually a few days a temple may choose to celebrate the birthday or other auspicious events.

Now I understand. This event is pretty big. There have the Chinese wayang outside the temple and a huge area across the street that is serving dinner.

I've also learnt that this temple is called Soon San Teng and was founded in the late 19th century and has remained at the same location. The original temple was an attap-thatched house situated between banyan trees, and so Soon San Teng is also known as 'Banyan Tree Da Bo Gong (Tua Pek Kong) Miao'. The temple was later rebuilt into one with brick walls and tiled roofs.

Today, Soon San Teng temple celebrates the 8th Lunar Month which coincides with the birthday celebration for Da Bo Gong (Tua Pek Kong).

I met my mum after work and we had dinner at the Indian restaurant before heading to the temple to pay our respect and to watch a few minutes of wayang and take photos. Was a real interesting evening. I would like to head to the birthday celebrations at Pulau Ubin next year. That is an even bigger event! I just need to get the dates right.

The Cast of Potted Potter

Yesterday, my daughter together with two of her best friends caught the Olivier Award nominated Potted Potter at the Raffles Hotel Jubilee Hall. Any fool could have guessed that the girls had enjoyed the performance tremendously because my daughter couldn't stop talking about it once she got home and the girls kept texting back and forth about it.

My daughter then tweeted about the performance and one of the guys from Potted Potter replied. I then told my daughter that this could be the opportunity for her to tweet them back and asked if they would meet her for a photo and autograph? At worse, they won’t reply or just say ‘no’. But with our track record of meeting celebrities … why not give it a shot?

A few minutes later, they replied and would love to meet the girls. My daughter was over the moon!! Bet you five bucks she didn't even sleep properly last night! I did tell her to not get her hopes up too high until it happens because anything can happen with celebrities and performers.

So all of today, while I was at the office, she kept texting me about it and while she was doing that, the two wonderful performers were tweeting me about this evening. Looks like the plan was concrete. I then got in touch with the mothers of my daughter’s two other friends and arranged this meet-and-greet.

We were supposed to meet the performers; Benjamin Stratton and James Percy outside the venue after their last show.

Our first stop was Raffles City in hopes we could find some Singapore souvenirs. We did managed to buy two Singapore keychains and two postcards. Then walked over to Raffles Hotel.

We didn't have to wait long. Right after the show and as soon as the crowd started to clear out, the guys came right out! That was another thing that really impressed me. Most performers would take their time and rest and come out when they were ready but these guys wasted no time…rushed right out to make three young girls so very ‘giddy’.

About two minutes into meeting the girls, a couple approached them to ask if they could have their photos taken with them. Ben and James politely told them sure they could right after they meet with the girls. Gosh…. I really hope the couple weren't pissed waiting so long and I hope the couple didn't think of the guys as snobbish because they are not. They were just fulfilling what they promised 3 young fans. You cannot hold that against them.

The girls presented them with the souvenirs and postcards and they were like little boys on Christmas day. I suppose they really weren't expecting it?

My daughter presented them with her drawings on their performance set and they absolutely made her feel so special. Told her she nailed it and all. They signed a copy for her. The guys were also amazed with the girls’ home made wands that lit up. And about 10 minutes later, we said our goodbyes.

What great guys!!

Some may say they are not even well known celebrities and blah blah blah but they are two guys playing to sold out houses all over the world. They could have said, “No. Sorry we don’t have time”…but instead they agreed to meet three young fans.

I, personally didn't attend the performance. I would not have understood a thing because I am not a Harry Potter fan. But from what I have read about it and learned from my daughter, this performance was the Unauthorized Harry Potter Experience.  A parody. Benjamin and James takes on the ultimate challenge of condensing all seven Harry Potter books and a real life game of Quidditch (I hope I spelt it right) into seventy hilarious minutes.

However, I have been told that even if one did not know the difference between a horcrux and a hufflepuff, you would still have enjoyed Potted Potter and you would be roaring with laughter. Darn it!! Now they tell me…. I am just going to have to wait till they come back around here to catch them again.

Before I end this post, I would like to thank Benjamin Stratton and James Percy again for making 3 girls so very happy. I think they were on Cloud 9 that evening. I wish you guys all the best life has to offer and the very best of success because you deserve it. Thank you.

And as if that meeting wasn't wonderful enough. I walked in to my daughter’s room to find her jumping and almost hyperventilating because Benjamin Stratton had tweeted about meeting them and posted a photo of the gifts the girls got them.

Kudos to Benjamin Stratton and James Percy from Potted Potter!

Blast From The Past

I usually don’t have lunch when I am at work if I had taken breakfast in the morning but today was pretty exceptional and I am glad I went along with it.

My colleagues asked if I wanted to join them for lunch. The whole group was actually heading out together and that alone is pretty rare. So yes, I went and as we got out of the car, I was back at a place that held lots of memories to when I was a kid.

We were at Lorong Mydin for the great Wanton Noodles.

I just couldn't believe it was still there. Not much change to the coffee shop either, other than some minor renovations. What surprised even more was the familiar faces running the stall! It was the same husband and wife and my goodness….they have not aged!! (Is it the preservatives in their noodles? … ha)

Seriously, I have not been there since before I left for the USA and who knows how long before that….so I am guessing it’s been more than 20 years! How can this couple not age a day??

I told my colleagues that I was sorry to burst their bubble but I actually discovered this great place for Wanton Noodles long before they even did. I explained to them that I frequented the stall since I was a child!! Yeh, that long ago.

Our plates of wanton noodles finally came and I couldn't wait to get that first bite in to my mouth to see if that has changed or not.

I thought I had died and went to heaven. The goodness was still there. The taste exploded in my mouth just as the memories did in my head. It definitely brought me back to the day when my parents used to take us there for lunch, or the evenings we would have dinner there after a magic performance when I got a little older.

They served the wanton noodles just the way they did 20 years ago. Imagine it’s just a simple dish that fills so many stomachs for generations? They managed to keep the noodles in the same texture and chewiness as the good old days. The taste was just as traditional as how I remembered it to be.

The broth was extremely flavourful and the prawn dumplings were really fresh. The chili certainly did not disappoint either. Absolutely heavenly!

Oh! Did I mention the coffee shop was still as packed as it was back in the day??

I will have to take my hubby and kids to try this fabulous wanton mee and to make new memories… and what better way to make new memories with my family then to have my parents with us so we can bring back old memories too?

What’s The Big Deal About Chinese?

Today, my son came home from school with his portfolio and as I was browsing through the work he has done,… class reviews and teacher’s comments, I noticed that his Chinese teacher, on one of his recent Chinese worksheets had circled his name in red and had written some Chinese characters beside it. I presume that it was a direct translation of his English name.

I found that very uncalled for, offensive, rude, insensitive and callous!!

The last hour I spent going through my paper work from 2012. I came across my son’s kindergarten documents where I had asked the teacher to give him a Chinese name as I thought then it was a must since he was taking Chinese as his second language.

His kindergarten Chinese teacher did give him a Chinese name but also told me it was not necessary for it as my son isn't Chinese and so I did not register it. Since then, we have not bothered with a Chinese name.

Where am I getting with this? The point is that I searched through these records to be sure I did not make a mistake. I wanted to be sure that I did not register his Chinese name. But while doing this, I realized that what his kindergarten teacher had given him, wasn't even the one the Primary school teacher had written.

I am pissed! Actually I am more than pissed!!

WHY would a teacher ‘mark’ my son’s name in RED and correct it with something that to us doesn't even exist and should NOT exist? Do Chinese teachers go around giving names to students just for the fun of it? Do they give names just because they can’t pronounce the English ones? If so, then maybe they are the ones in need of going back to school to learn some English?

Imagine you gave birth and I’d go fill out your child’s birth certificate with a name I think would be good for your child?

I wonder how she would feel if I named her son for her? Worse is I’d give her son a name of a different race! How does Osama Bin Laden? Hmm…. Sounds nice don’t it? She may not think so….but I do….. 

In all honesty, I would have been alright if she had just written the Chinese characters beside my son’s English name but to mark it in red and make it seem like it’s wrong is unacceptable.

Sheeshh…..

The problem with this country is they stress and focus so much on the bloody Chinese language. Isn't our country a multi-racial country? Yep I figured….so why the stress on Chinese alone?

Bad enough our non Chinese/Malay/Indian kids are forced to take a second language…now they want to force a ‘foreign’ name on to our kids too??

Yes, knowing Chinese would be good especially when China is coming up in this world now. But do you realize that they are teaching English in schools in China? I moved to USA and what did I do with my Chinese certificate? I used it to wipe my bum! Ha.

Really. I didn't need that certificate when I was in America and it didn't hold me back.

What I am trying to say is…so what if you can’t speak or understand Chinese? Lots of other countries in the world have survived without it and still doing extremely well. So stop trying to force any damn language down our throats.

I can’t even exempt my non-Chinese kids from dropping the subject. WHY?

Even on the MOE website it states that kids can be exempted if they’re from overseas. Yeh, no doubt my kids started kindergarten here but Chinese is not in their blood. Hell! No one speaks the language at home!! This is approved on a case to case basis… ??? A crock of shit. I was denied twice! WHY? Because I am Chinese? Maybe I should try and apply for the exemption again since I had changed my race to Eurasian?

So they want kids miserable throughout all of their school life…. Hating to go to school because they hate Chinese … because they are struggling… and because half these Chinese teachers are not even fit to be teachers and who belittles these kids. If they think they are all high and mighty, I have no problem telling them they are not. BECAUSE technically, you will get on better in life if you speak good English!

I always thought that “mother-tongue” meant a language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period. Like in some countries (namely Singapore), the term mother-tongue refers to the language of one’s ethnic group rather than one’s first language. So for my kids, shouldn't it be English??

Oh well….

As long as we’re here in Singapore, we shall ‘abide’ by these silly rules until the time is right. After all, aren't we all just ‘robots’ programmed to be living in this perfect little country abiding by all these perfect little rules that is supposedly to make us perfect humans?

I don’t push my kids with Chinese. Every new teacher they get, I make sure I get my point across that I will not tolerate them pushing my child to excel in the language to a point of hating school because of it. For me, as long as my kids excel in the other subjects in school, I will be more than happy.

For now, I am writing to my son’s school and putting the principal and also MOE on CC (carbon copy). I should demand a written apology from this ‘high and mighty clown’. What do you think?