Cirrhopetalum

The first flower on my cirrhopetalum orchid, possibly a sikkimense or auratum, after I had purchased it some three months' back but I really don't know its name because there's so little useful literature about this specie on the Internet. There are 11 individual flowers in the inflorescence, diameter about an inch across and all flowers arranged in a circle at the end of the rachis. So here are the side, top down and bottom up views.




UPDATE 1: Here's a close-up shot of the inflorescence, digitally enhanced and sharpened. If I can find another one, I'll post it up but in the meantime, this'll do. Just click on the image to view a bigger picture:


UPDATE 2: I did promise you this. Another close-up view of the cirrhopetalum.

Hero to zero to hero

I'm amazed and feeling incredulous at the turn of events. Wasn't it just about a week ago that the popular press contributed to the downfall of our healthy ex-minister after he admitted to a liaison with a personal friend? The way it was being reported, Chua Soi Lek's tail was between his legs and he had been forced to resign. All the sordid details of his affair were being aired in the open.

For any ordinary bloke, that would be the end of any career. Resign he may have done but he was promised by the Prime Minister that there would be a full-scale investigation into the video-taping of the liaison. The police went into high gear and quickly rounded up some people stupid enough not to have read the newspapers, listened to the radio or read the blogs.

Yes, for any other ordinary person, this shame would be hard to live with. But Chua Soi Lek is no ordinary person. No, he sniffed and chose the high ground. He used the right moment to make a few general statements and popular remarks about corruption and morality, and poof! Suddenly, his popularity soared to heights not seen below. See his grin? See the crowds around him, male and female? Never mind his secret liaison with a personal friend. Never mind the scandal. Never mind his admission. He's a hero again! A much-loved hero! Wahh....!!



Common, people, here is a man who admits to adultery. Do you know what this word means? My Collins Cobuild Advanced Learner's English Dictionary says: If a married person commits adultery, they have sex with someone that they are not married to. For good measure, the dictionary adds: An adulterous relationship is a sexual relationship between a married person and someone they are not married to. An adulterous person is someone who commits adultery. Clear or not?

So, despite whatever popular remarks that the good doctor may have uttered to the press, it does not absolve himself from an adulterous situation. Then why is the press treating him like some kind of hero? You'd think that if Chua Soi Lek is transported today to the United States, he would wipe aside Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton or Mitt Romney or John McCain or anyone else that're seeking party nominations for their presidential elections.

But here in Malaysia, he IS now a big local celebrity. A rehabilitation. A reverse "holier than thou" situation. He's unholier than you, so he has a right to pontificate about those "holy" ones. It's not about him uncovering some big corruption issues in the country. Or some other big-time morality issues. Incredible, disgustingly incredible!

Even as I read the newspapers, it's even being suggested (see below) that Chua Soi Lek can be of help to his political party in campaigning in the next general election. That's coming from someone whose name has already been tainted with the RM4.6 billion Port Klang Free Zone scandal. Boy, people really have short memory. Or selective memory. Imagine, using an outed adulterer to tell voters that he and his party can still be trusted. What sort of message are you conveying to people? What sort of political leaders do you think we really want?

A limerick for Jeffrey

I was bowled over by surprise this morning when my amateurish attempt at poetry was uncovered by RedFM and read by Shazmin over the national airwaves. It wasn't exactly five-star or three-star, just budget-class poetry. I was only trying to adapt the Old Mother Hubbard nursery rhyme as a short, light-hearted blog item about the cooking oil shortage.

But you'd never know what that could lead to. In fact, ever since this morning, I've been cajoled by a friend to write a short poem for him. I'm not going to use a nursery rhyme again but I'll use a safer, limerick format this time. Here goes:

There's this chap I know named Jeffrey
Talks a lot and can be full of blarney
But he has an ambitious dream
Which I hold in high esteem
So let's not judge him too harshly

Cooking oil - a short nursery rhyme

(Apologies to Old Mother Hubbard)

Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
To bring out her frying pan
But the cupboard was bare
Found no cooking oil there
Nary a drop in her old oil can

Old Mother Hubbard
Rushed to the supermarket
To stock some cooking oil
But the shelves were bare
All bought by hoarders there
No oil, her life's now in turmoil

Yes, a Perodua Kenari can do less than 10mph

Here's a news item spotted on the Internet:

LONDON, 4 Jan 2008: A woman was banned from driving for seven days after travelling at speeds of less than 10mph on the highway.

Stephanie Cole, 58, of Fishponds, Bristol, straddled the hard shoulder and inside lane as she dawdled along a stretch of the M32 near her home last August. In the back window of the car was a sign which said: "I don't do fast, please overtake."

Cole admitted driving without reasonable consideration at North Avon Magistrates' Court and was told she would have to take another test at the end of the ban. "I didn't intend getting onto the highway, but all of a sudden I found myself on it and I could not get off. I just panicked. I hate that particular stretch of road and I avoid it normally. It is my nemesis."

Cole had been travelling from her home to a stationer's when she was arrested in her Perodua Kenari mini people-carrier.

She was relieved when the police stopped her for crawling along. "I thought "thank God" when I saw the blue flashing lights. I thought they could help and I asked them if they could drive me home." Instead, they charged her for going too slow. Cole, who has multiple sclerosis, said she depends on her car for getting around. "I will try and retake the test. I will have to do my best when driving, and hope it is better than it was."

Nice and tired

Boy, was I super-tired last weekend. Two days, my wife and I went up the BM Hill. Two days, it rained.

On Saturday, we hiked up the hill track at about 4pm, joined the tar road at the 2800m mark and walked down. Halfway, the sky opened and we were drenched.

Yesterday, we knew better and waited for the rain to stop before we walked up the tar road at about 5.15pm. And because it was so refreshing after the rain, we decided to continue past our usual mid-point station until the tea hut at the 1500m mark.

I caught some nice photos during the walk yesterday. Here is the link to look at them.

Penang Bridge

Ominous-looking rain clouds over the Penang Bridge and Pulau Jerejak. I snapped this photograph recently from one of the ferries plying between George Town and Butterworth.

Ultraman, Part 2

Last 10 July, I had discovered this house in Bukit Jambul that sported two huge Ultraman statues in its compound (one was partly hidden by the palm tree but you can see it clearer here):


In November when I trained my camera on the house again, I was surprised to see one of the statues missing:


This month, I was again surprised to see the remaining Ultraman statue missing too. Me thinks, Ultraman has gone off on an adventure and will not be returning...

Snake's feast

Is this a lucky carpet python or what? Would you consider it lucky since it caught the attention of audiences worldwide? Not many snakes can have such a worldwide claim to fame but this one in Australia did, recently.

Notice the bulge in its body? You can see it much clearer in the second picture. Inside are four golf balls. All because the snake was hungry. What happened was that the python had mistaken the golf balls for eggs. A family had placed the golf balls among their chickens because they wanted to encourage the hens to lay eggs. But the snake crept in and thought they were food.

The lumpy snake was caught and the family took it to the vet who x-rayed it. The vet, Michael Pyne, made an astute observation: "Of course, golf balls don't digest very well." He couldn't figure whether to squeeze the balls out from the snake's head or tail, so decided in the end to just cut it open.

Well, operate he did. The snake was given a clean bill of health and would be released back into the wild once it recovered. But do you think it will have learnt it lesson? I very much doubt so. But I wouldn't want to see it back on the operating table.

Alamak, what's this?

My great-grandmother on my mother's side was a nyonya lady. What this means is that I have Peranakan blood in me. And I'm proud of this lineage because the Peranakans or the Straits Chinese are a vanishing breed. My great-grandma (God bless her soul because I'd never met her or knew her name but only prayed to her ancestral tablet when I was small and still living in Seang Tek Road, Penang) must have been a productive matriach in her days because she begot seven children - two girls and five boys. So you see, on my mother's side, I have a rather large extended family of relatives.

Now, as nyonya ladies go, they like to latah a lot. Latah is a peculiar condition of hyper-startling usually found in adult women although I do know one or two baba men - again a dying breed - who are similarly afflicted. I don't know whether they are still alive. Nobody knows what causes a person to latah but it doesn't take much to set them off. You only need to poke them in the ribs - I said the ribs, not the boobs - or creep up suddenly behind them and they'll go off with their latah sessions. It was quite fun, actually, to my young mind. My grandma on my mother's side had a favourite latah expression. When startled, she would go with the incomprehensible "puki lok hai". It was such a natural reaction to her, the way she would lose control of her behaviour and said something funny.

However, I never heard my dear mum latah much. There were the odd times when she went Alamak but that was about all I ever heard. There were more frequent times when my grandma went Alamak. And I'm sure there were countless times when my great-grandmother went Alamak too. Occasionally, I would also go Alamak. It was all so cultural, all so in line with my Straits Chinese upbringing.

However, developments here in the country have placed a huge question mark over whether I, as a descendant of my great-grandmother, a proud, well-bred Chinese nyonya lady, can continue to utter Alamak with such gleeful abandon.

We, the Straits Chinese in Penang, bastardise languages a lot. That's why our Penang Hokkien is such a colourful dialect. For example, what is satu kupang in Bahasa Pasar is chit puat in Penang Hokkien. Puat, I would imagine, is the bastardised version of the Baht, the currency used by our northern neighbours.

So what is Alamak? What does it mean? Where did it come from? For sure, it's a word long used by the Peranakan community in the Straits Settlements and beyond. It is still used all over Malaysia and some say, Singapore and southern Thailand too.

Could Alamak be just the Peranakan way of saying Allah Emak or God's Mother? The expression is ingrained deep in our culture but nobody knows its exact origin. It's our way of life to say Alamak with perhaps a slap on the forehead for better dramatic effect.

Last month, the government warned a church in Sabah to stop printing a Bahasa Malaysia version of its newsletter because it was using the word Allah to mean the Christian god. Later, its printing permit for 2008 was issued without any pre-condition. Today, I learnt that the Cabinet has reaffirmed its stand that the church cannot use this word in its publication. It looks like a head-on collision between the government and the church, and its heading to the law courts for a hearing.

Even as a non-Christian, I am interested in this case. How it will be resolved will have wide implications in this country because the Christians will not accept any decision unfavourable to them.

Also, the very essence of Peranakan culture may be threatened. I don't want to have to check myself from saying Alamak. My forefathers have been using this word in an affectionate way for a long time. I want my grandchildren (when the time comes, that is) to continue using it for a long time to come.

Chief Beer Officer? Cheers, hic!

When the Four Points hotel chain (a division of Sheraton) wanted to recruit a CBO (chief beer officer) for its new worldwide beer programme, its job advertisement drew thousands of applicants last year.

Who wouldn't be attracted to this job? It would involve visiting breweries, beer festivals and bars, and selecting beers for hotel menus. The part-time position attracted more than 7,000 applications from more than 30 countries -- the most the hotel chain had ever received for a job opening.

The hotel said among those that applied for the non-paying job included MBAs (both Masters of Business and Beer Administration), self-proclaimed beer snobs, certified beer judges, beer journalists and hundreds who have traveled the globe in search of the world's best brews. Over 50 percent of applicants have brewed their own beer and five percent claim to have served as a beer mascot.

The winning candidate was a 27-year-old brewery manager from Phoenix, Arizona who reportedly decorates his home with beer barrels. Read about it here.

Aftermath of Soi Lek's resignation

Some interesting quotations from Chua Soi Lek's press conference yesterday to announce his immediate resignation from all government and political posts. Let it strike a chord in the hearts and minds of selfish, corrupt politicians who hide behind political privilege and engage the denial gear to protect themselves and their political careers:

"Healthy political culture embraces no corruption, no moral lapses of judgement. A healthy political culture should not just be confined to just term of office. That is easy. Anyone can fulfil it. The terms of office are the easiest to fulfil. Three terms, two terms. Healthy political culture should be all embracing and not just term of office. What is more important and what is hoped for and demanded by Malaysians is to be clean from the aspect of no corruption and also in the question of no moral and ethical weaknesses. To me, this is more important and more difficult to achieve."

"Some Malaysians can be said to be “holier than thou”. This means they are all ulama (religious teachers). A lot of people think I am a baggage to carry because they behave "holier than thou". Maybe the support (for Barisan) will increase because then they think all they have in the Government are all very clean."

"I feel proud at least that I dared to admit, that I never said that it was not me (in the DVD). I never said that they must prove that it was me. And I never even said that it was doctored."

"National leaders in a democratic country are elected by the rakyat so they have also to listen to the rakyat."

The honourable thing to do

"I am relinquishing my position as Health Minister, MCA vice-president, Labis MP, Johor MCA liaison chief and Batu Pahat MCA division chief."

MCA vice- president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek, who yesterday admitted to being the man in a sex DVD, copies of which are widely distributed in Johor, has resigned. "After making my confession, I had hoped that Malaysians would be able to accept my apology. Unfortunately from the feedback I received, they could not. Some have a holier-than-thou attitude."

It is the honourable thing to do, albeit rather reluctantly, I would suspect. It would have been really, really honourable if he had resigned yesterday, not today, on his own accord without waiting for feedback. But I'll overlook that point. The important thing is, he's willing to take responsibility for his actions. Will other politicians, tainted by the whiff of sex or corruption scandals, have the balls and be brave enough to emulate Chua Soi Lek when found out?

AFTER-THOUGHT 1: I'd like to quote three comments by Kalimullah Hassan in today's New Straits Times:

1. Chua could have played the denial game, like many prominent people and politicians throughout the world, including in our own country, played each time they are caught in embarrassing positions. "The tape was doctored; it was not me; it's a political ploy." But no. he came out and admitted his role.
2. Chua has displayed a sense of accountability that not many -- in fact, very few -- politicians, on either side of the spectrum, have ever displayed or shown in Malaysian politics.
3. We should ask ourselves one question when judging Chua -- who are we not to forgive him who has asked for forgiveness for have we, too, the fallible human beings that we are, not sinned at one time or another?

AFTER-THOUGHT 2: Jeff Ooi, in his Screenshots blog, had picked up a report in Merdeka Review (sorry, you'll have to check that page yourself as it's all in Chinese) that claimed several ministers had called for Chua's resignation during the Cabinet meeting this morning. Mmm... I wonder who could be those ministers, the holier-than-thou ones that Chua had alluded to above? From his own party? From the other political parties in the Barisan fold? Will we ever know? Interesting, eh?

Switch to Sony

I don't know whether you'd consider this to be a betrayal of one's ideals but the owners of the Switch outlets that sell the full range of Apple products in Penang have now opened this Sony shop at the Queensbay Mall in Bayan Lepas. The shops are barely a hundred metres apart.

I suppose the two businesses complement one another because some consumers like Apple products and some others prefer non-Apples. Consumers will be pointed to the other outlet for an alternative choice. In business, practicality comes first and the most important consideration is to think about your bottom line.

Hello, 2008

I'd like to greet 2008 with two of my latest orchid blooms:

... and a new shoot from my Dendrobium Senile that looks positively like a little gremlin's ears:

Goodbye, 2007

What can I say about the New Year except that I missed all the fun at the Autocity in Juru, Province Wellesley. Originally, I wasn't meant to go there but my son wanted to meet his friends there. So I thought to myself, maybe it'll be fun for the whole family to go there ourselves for dinner.

We set off for Autocity from Bukit Mertajam but by the time we had arrived at the Jalan Kebun Nenas junction, I knew that it would be terrible to find a parking space. We entered the Autocity and went round and round the place and finally had to turn out to park by the roadside. By which time, my aunt was feeling slightly nauseas from the ride.


Nevertheless she recovered and we went to this place, Golden Triangle Restaurant, for Indochinese food. The set dinner was expensive. For three persons, the tab would come up to RM168++ whereas ordering the above dishes ala carte, it cost me only RM62 after tax. BTW, they were delicious, although the tom yam soup and the eggplant dish were too spicy for my wife's liking.

Jeremy by this time had left his friends to join us. We finished eating at 10.30pm. We saw people now making their way into Autocity on foot. Cars were already prohibited from turning into the grounds. A concert was in progress but they were all the Ah Kua type of music.

Feeling bored, we left the place and went home, not wishing to waste another one and a half hours till the countdown. When we drove off, there were still cars trying to make their way to the Autocity. The roads were jammed. Drivers were trying to cut into one another's queue. Where were they going to park? I didn't care to find out.

In the peace and quiet of my own home, I sank into bed and went to sleep. Oblivious that the countdown had begun and in the very far distance, ships were blowing their horns to greet in the new year.

Happy New Year!

Red hot chilli pepper

I was told that this is an extremely hot chilli pepper. I was given just this one sample. I don't know what's this variety but if I'm correct, this may well turn out to be the famed Dorset Naga which is the hottest chilli in the world, measuring 1,598,227 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). It's a native plant of Nagaland in Bangladesh. I'll be trying to grow it. Already, I've snipped open the chilli and sown the seeds in a pot. I've also put the chilli to the tastebud test. Yes, it's true. It's extremely hot.


Oh, by the way, here are two humongously huge chilli peppers that I saw at the Gold Coast in Australia last month. I don't know how hot they are but knowing the average taste of Westerners, their chillies are usually nothing much to shout about.


Contrast them with the local favourite: the Malaysian chilli padi. Though they're small about 3cm long without the stalk), they pack a mighty mean wallop, measuring between 50,000 and 100,000 SHU. While not as potent as the Dorset Naga, by any measure that's enough to bring tears to many locals' eyes.


And this is the white variety of the Malaysian chilli padi. Still on the plant. They are equally potent.

Mealybug infestation

In the past few days, I had noticed but not paid much attention to some fluffy white stuff that clung to one of my orchid plants. Not until today, anyway. The white fluff kept on appearing and lodging itself so finally, I had no choice by to take a real good look at it. Imagine what I found!



These are called mealybugs: tiny slow-moving white insects, measuring 2mm-4mm long, that feed on plant sap. I was alarmed. I had no idea how to rid the plant of these insects in the most practical way. Searching through the Internet, there were various suggestions on the types of insecticides I could use but I wouldn't know where to get them locally.

Then I struck on an idea. Maybe, it can be used on a temporary basis until I could find a more permanent solution. Why not try to dislodge the pests with a jet of water, forceful enough to dislodge the pests from the nooks and crannies on the plant without damaging it. So I tried just that and now, the plant looks clean. I'll have to monitor the plant daily for the next week or so to make sure that the pests are eliminated. If not, it's the water treatment again...

Rain or shine?

There is no greater contrast than the weather forecast from the two big rivals in the international broadcast arena. I was looking for the weather forecast for Penang and had seen this satellite image of the western Pacific.


According to the CNN, there'd be rain every day in Penang until next week.


However, the BBC has a completely different analysis on the weather. It's forecast until this Sunday showed bright sunny days ahead. Which broadcaster will be right? Take your pick...


UPDATE: The BBC was right, everyday! Thursday until today (Sunday), there hasn't been a spot of rain.

Second day of Christmas

On the second day of Christmas ...

... what Christmas? It's over! Traders are already hawking their Chinese New Year wares at the morning markets!