Transitory moments in life

I was contemplating of posting a recap on stuffs that happened that I actually bothered to blog about throughout 2007. Well, I’m not exactly the best blogger around, which I why I actually bother to blog about very little things. Duncan was contemplating the same, while David of Narrowband has done it.

At any rate, I’ve decided to probably just do a brief summary based on my memory, and not run through my archive, due to the fact that it’ll bring up a lot of painful memories that I’d rather not go through again.

Let’s start…

I started off Year 2007 doing my internship. Well, at least I was in the middle of it though. The experience wasn’t very pleasant, considering my colleagues speaks Mandarin and Cantonese most of the time, leaving me feeling outcast, and I didn’t have much to do at ‘work’. I was practically counting down the days to the end of it.

Upon completing the pre-requisite 12 weeks, I returned back to my last trimester in Uni to complete my Final Year Project. That was an experience by itself, the feeling of frustration and futility. But credit goes to my brilliant partner, Joanne Fong for being a great partner, and for solving some of the last software mysteries at the very last minute that enable us to produce a functioning prototype.

Job hunting followed after that, with me attending just so many interviews, that I was labeled the professional interviewee by my friends. The joke was how I would actually go to the interviews, and point out to the interviewers that their questions weren’t effective enough, or not right, instead of them interviewing me.

The period after the final, final exam was also a great period, where I managed to bond with my coursemates. Having ‘known’ them for 2 years plus, that was probably the real time where I actually knew them. Which was good, since I now know I’ll be welcomed anytime to Penang with open arms.

Job offers came in later, and I had to make yet another big decision in my life. Which field to go into? Which state would I want to work in? Independence vs being around the family(which I probably wouldn’t be anymore, once I move out)? Up till today, I think I’ve made the right choice, although we’ll always wonder about the road not taken.

The responsibility of working followed after that, while I learnt to adapt to my new unfamiliar environment. Living back with the family, and in an unfamiliar area isn’t easy, but I managed. The 2nd half of the year wasn’t much to shout about. Mostly it was about work, and partly about the freedom to hang out every weekend with pals, and to spend my hard earned money. Nonetheless, DiGi proved again and again to be quite a fun place to work, with mostly nice people in it. I think I’ll stick around for some time.

December marks the month I got my first passport, and out of country vacation. I’ve just posted about it a few posts before, so feel free to ‘experience’ the south of China yourself through my writings.

That wraps up my 2007. There are sad parts about it, but I shall not dwell on those. Here’s to a better 2008 in everything in my life, be it career, relationship and friendship!

So says that cook dude from Discovery Travel and Living.

I guess it’s possible, but unfortunately it’s not to be for my first official overseas trip. Yes people, I’ve just gotten my passport, at the age of 23. Shocking eh?

Nonetheless, yours truly actually had a splendid time sorta visiting his roots (well, sorta. My ancestors are from China, ya know?). In the duration of 5 days, he went from LCCT – Macau – Zhu Hai – Zhong Shan – Fo Shan – Pan Yu – Guang Zhou – Shen Zhen – Macau – LCCT. Sounds a lot eh, but I assure you one place from the other is around 1 to 2 hours drive away. But the cities are distinct in their own ways, which makes the whole trip interesting.

Anyways, don’t expect a day to day commentary of what I did every second I was awake and where I slept, since that’s just not me. Instead, I’ll just write about interesting observations I’ve made during the trip (which is not little, since it’s my first time overseas) and perhaps post some pictures later.

The trip was uncool in the sense that it was under a tour, so you can imagine me walking around, following a tour guide in a big group, while listening to them explaining about the places and stuffs in Mandarin and Cantonese. With my limited command of the language, I had to resort to guessing what they were trying to say half of the time. But it’s all good. The group compromised of my family and another huge family, with father in law, mother in law, 4 siblings and their family and all thrown in. Anyways, the point that I’m getting to is that the families had little kids, all in the range of perhaps 4-9 years old, and they’re such cute little chatterbox. They had perfect command in Mandarin and Cantonese, and I’ve actually bonded with one of the lil ones. I doubt I looked extremely friendly, especially with the lack of sleep, but this lil dude seems to like coming up to me, talking, smiling to me, and actually told my mum to bring me along to visit them next time at the end of the trip. So sweet and cute kay? I’m missing the kid already.

Back to the trip. I think I hated the part where they made us wake up at 6.30 A.M daily, brought us around visiting some irrelevant places sometimes,to me at least (Jade and Silk store? Bee farm? Chinese Medicine place?), but I guess that’s the sort of stuffs that pleases the older people. I was however, extremely happy when we were brought to this 3 famous shopping street, apparently. No, the stuff wasn’t all that great,imported brands are extremely expensive, clothes are supposed to be for the winter(Which means I can’t buy any) but being able to walk around and get a feel of the environment and the people there is totally awesome. Which was why (even before this trip), I want to make it a point to visit cities around Asia first, then maybe some part of the world just to get a feel of their culture. The night walks around the hotel area was also an eye opener, being able to be among the people there, experiencing their way of life.

The cities are pretty gloomy in a way, and either hazy or misty, since the visibility is quite poor and the 4th day was the only day there was sunlight. Perhaps it’s probably supposedly winter, where the locals dressed up in blazers and coats and long sleeves for the guys, while the tourist (us) are just garbed in a T-shirt. I’m not sure why that happened, because the weather isn’t exactly too cold. The food is just so-so, and is mostly aimed at filling your tummy up. Each meal will be accompanied with steam chicken, 3 to 4 types of vegetables, soup, and other stuffs. Breakfast are staple porridge, with (again!) more vegetables, and other stuff. I suppose the food are considered a luxury, but they’re just mostly plain tasting. Spicy food are virtually non-existent at the places I visited, which made me miss Malaysian food.

Some cities are cleaner than the rest, while others have a tendency to be a lil more filthy. Life seemed to be simpler and slower. Every major roads in some cities have dedicated motorcycle and bicycle lanes. China people are basically daredevil while crossing the roads. Why bother waiting until green? Just take your time and walk across. A girl practically stood in the middle of a busy street, looking at something at the sidewalk while I was practically watching out for my life, trying to cross the road ASAP before I become a roadkill statistic.

Food can get pretty exotic there, although the most ‘exotic’ food served to us was pigeons and eels. Which isn’t much, especially if you’ve eaten burung puyuh and, well, unagi. However, during one of those walks at night at the city of Shen Zhen, we came across a row of seafood restaurants, with fresh and live food ranging from your everyday lobsters, fishes, prawns, to some weird looking huge snails (at the length of your elbow to your fingers) snakes, and the weirdest of them all, a 4 to 5 foot crocodile, locked up in a cage. Now eat that!

Now this is another interesting observation I’ve made. It could be my taste, but I generally find China girls not too enticing. Some are pretty, but none could be considered exactly breathtaking. Of course, you can always argue that this is subjective, and some close friends can attest to my sometimes awry taste in girls, but on the flight back with other Malaysians, I’ve automatically noticed some cute Malaysian girls, which I would rate them higher than most of the girls I’ve seen in China. And trust me, while I was at those 3 shopping streets, I’ve seen many.

All in all, if you speak Mandarin and Cantonese well, and does not like spicy food, you’ll like China. As you can see, I don’t quite fit in that criteria. However, I would most certainly like to visit other cities in that huge country.

Oh, did I tell you that the first time my family and I did when we reached home was to go for banana leave rice? Talk about being Malaysian.

So, anyone wants to join me to Jakarta, or Bangkok, or Hanoi next?