Miss Chopsticks by Xinran
I’ve been falling behind in my book reviewing lately. I’ve read quite a few books, but not been inspired to blog about them. So, it’s time to get back on track! Miss Chopsticks by Xinran is a book I bought recently from a warehouse sale. It was thin enough, so it qualified as my “carry around in case T goes shopping” book. And I put it to good use last week. We went to Klang for the FJ Benjamin warehouse sale. I was in for about…15 minutes? Then I got bored and went out to walk in the “shopping complex”, and I use that term very loosely. It’s tiny, and has almost nothing in it! I was hoping and praying for somewhere to sit and read quietly, and after walking around, I managed to find a Starbucks. I can tell you that I haven’t been so glad to see a Starbucks before!
This book is about three sisters, known as Three, Five and Six. Their mother was only able to give birth to girls (although we all know that’s the man’s fault, isn’t it!). In his disappointment, the father didn’t want to bother thinking of names for the girls, so he named them according to the order that they were born in. It’s called Miss Chopsticks because that’s what girls are known as, “Chopsticks” because chopsticks are only to be used and discarded, and easily broken. Men, however, are the strong rafters who hold up the roof of the household.
The three sisters leave their small village, and set out to find work in the city of Nanjing. Their eyes are opened by how different the city is compared to their village. They sit in cars for the first time, experience new culinary delights, and learn so many new things from their respective employers. Three has a talent for arranging flowers and vegetables, so she quickly finds a job at a restaurant, where her work pulls many people into the restaurant. Five, who is not as smart as the other two, is drafted to work at a health spa. And Six, who has the most education of them all, works in a tea-shop cum library.
Being a Chinese myself, it’s so easy for me to picture myself in their shoes. Who knows, if my great-grandparents hadn’t come over from China, I might even be one of these girls! I read several reviews of this book, and one reader commented that he found it hard to believe that the girls were really that naive. Personally, I don’t find it that unbelievable at all! I’ve visited China before, and gone to some of the remote villages which are quite cut off from the cities. And I’ve heard stories of Indonesian maids that come over to Malaysia and are really clueless. For example, there was one maid that thought the toilet was a washing machine, and threw a towel inside and pulled the flush! This could equate to Three (I think it was her), who visited her employer’s loo, and she had no idea how to use it. In desperation, she hiked up her clothes, jumped onto the toilet bowl and did a No 2. When the employers went into the toilet, there was a nasty smell, and a “surprise” still inside the toilet bowl!
All in all, a very charming book with humorous stories thrown in here and there. By reading it, you’ll have an idea of rural China, and the difficulties people face when migrating to the city, as well as Chinese culture.
I bought Sky Burial from the same author, and I’m waiting for it to arrive from the US. Can’t wait!
Book: Miss Chopsticks by Xinran
Read in: May 2009
Rating: 8/10
To Infinity and Beyond!
I watched Star Trek last Saturday at 1Utama, with T, my bro & SIL. None of us are Trekkies, so before the movie started, we were discussing what the tagline for the movie was. Somehow, the phrase ‘To Infinity and Beyond!’ was in my head, and when I told them, they all agreed that it must be the tagline. Hahah, how wrong we were. After awhile, T remarked that that was the tagline for Toy Story! And SIL came up with the correct phrase, which was ‘To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before’. So, obviously you can see that we’re definitely not Trekkies!
I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed the movie! No worries whether you’re a Star Trek fan or not, it was really good. The only Star Trek that I watched previously was a few episodes of The Next Generation, where Patrick Stewart was the captain. It was interesting to link up my memories of the series together with the movie. Parts like “Beam me up, Scottie!” and the character Sulu were floating around in my head as I watched the movie. It got a tiny bit confusing towards the end, when the young Spock and old Spock met. To me, it’s just not possible, because any action that young Spock would take, might affect old Spock. But apparently there’s this whole thing about an alternate reality and the two Spocks are not linked anymore….Anyway, yes, one of the better movies that I’ve watched this year.
After dinner, we were walking around in the new wing, and we noticed some treadmills set up in the middle. Being the Malaysians that we are, we wandered over to see what was happening. There was a treadmill challenge being held, to get into the Malaysian Book of Records. Something about running on the treadmills for 24 hours, or something like that. Hahah, I wasn’t really paying attention. Anyway, the emcee managed to convince T to take part, you get a free 100 plus drink and a nice cert, all for working out for 5 minutes! So, after the required 5 minutes, he walked away with this.
I might have considered taking part if it wasn’t right after our yummy Pasta Zanmai dinner, but then again, maybe not… 
How did you find my blog?
I have Google Analytics installed on my blog, I don’t care how many people visit it, but I love to see the keywords section, that shows what keywords people Googled in order to land up on my blog. Judging by the most popular keywords, you’d think I was a Konnyaku jelly eater, who also eats Krispy Kreme doughnuts who reads quite a lot.
Here’s a recap of some of the most interesting keywords:
- i m here, arent i….
Well, if by ‘here’, you meant my blog, then yes, you are. Why were you Googling that phrase anyway?? Shouldn’t you know where you are? - after skytrex. go where?
We were all pretty hungry by the time we were done with Skytrex, so we went for lunch at Asia Cafe in Subang. How about you? - example of shu box for maths
Hmm, honestly, I have to say I have no clue what a shu box is. I Googled it, but it brings up Chinese people in the results. I have a friend named Shuraifa (Shu for short) and I love maths! - how to set up restaurant
I haven’t the faintest idea, sorry! - malaysian mentality nose discharge
I probably blogged something about how some Malaysians don’t have very clean habits…but I don’t remember using those exact terms. - things to do with a nerds rope
Sounds kinky! What’s a nerds rope? - who does hosseini blame for the plight of women in afganistane in the book thousand splendid suns
Wow, that’s a truly hard question. I couldn’t begin to imagine what Khaled Hosseini thinks about Afghanistan, I barely knew much about the conditions there until I read the book. It’s a great book, though, if you’re even remotely interested in Afghanistan and the Taliban, read it!
So, there are some of the terms that have brought people to my blog in the past. I always find it a blast to read through Google Analytics if I’m free!
Birthday Celebrations @ Vincenzo, One Bangsar
Last Saturday, T’s auntie was thrown a surprise birthday party by her daughter and T’s family for her 70th birthday. It was held at Vincenzo, One Bangsar, which seems to be a really popular place for office parties and events. The upstairs has a bar area, and several other rooms including one with a balcony, so all in all, it’s a pretty nice place.
T’s mum was in charge of the decor, and she did a really good job! The theme of the night was yellow, for prosperous-ness, or something like that? So, every table had a little flower arrangement of yellow and white, which looked wonderful!
It was buffet style, amongst the food offered on that night were chicken and mushroom soup, some starters, roast beef, olio pasta, roast lamb, italian fried rice, and of course the desserts. Me being a dessert person, started with the desserts. There was mixed fruit (which I didn’t have until the end, why waste my stomach space with fruits!), chocolate cake, brownies, cheese cake, creme brulee and bread and butter pudding.
And a close up of the desserts that I started off the night with:
My recommendations (if they serve the same desserts on their normal menu) would be the cheesecake and the Creme Brulee, much yummier than the others! As for the mains, there wasn’t anything truly yummy (hence the lack of photos), but I’d say the roast lamb was better than the rest.
T’s sister also brought her contribution for the night. She’s been learning baking, and brought these gorgeously decorated mini-cupcakes. PS: she’s also taking orders, so if anyone in interested, let me know!
I sure walked away stuffed from the dinner that night…
What can you eat for 59 cents?
I’ve always enjoyed walking around in grocery supermarkets, seeing what sort of cool new food types there are. A few weeks ago T & I visited the Giant in Kota Damansara for the first time after having had lunch in the area. It made a very good impression on me, there’s lots of parking, not crowded, and the shops there are quite nice, unlike the ones at Tesco. Also, they have quite a few salespeople offering freebies for people to try. I love sampling all the different items they offer, it allows me to try brands that I normally wouldn’t buy.
Today, I suggested that we pay a visit to Cold Storage at Jaya One, which just opened on the 18th of April. It’s quite unique, it’s a standalone building next to Jaya One. When we arrived, it so happened there was a nice parking lot right in front, and we were told that parking was free for the first hour as long as we purchased something (otherwise it would be RM2 for the first hour).
As we walked in, the first thing that caught my eye was a Jelly Belly dispenser! I’ve never seen Jelly Bellies sold like that before. There were only about four flavours in the dispenser, I think it was Bubble Gum, Tutti Frutti…and I can’t remember what else. The others that were sold were normal packaged Jelly Bellies.
Another thing unusual about this Cold Storage was that there were lots of salespeople offering samples of their products. Normally Cold Storage never offers samples! Well, we sure took advantage of that…here’s a list of the different things we tried.
1. Kellogg’s muesli bar
2. Some kind of Korean instant noodles
3. Bud’s ice cream - Almond & Mocha flavour (this was really yummy!) and Cookies & Cream
4. Gelatomio - Strawberry yoghurt flavour (good as well, kind of sourish) and Black Sesame
5. Non-halal section: Smoked ham, normal ham, siew yuk and home made pao!
6. TuckerBox’s Aussie pie
I think that’s all, but there were a lot more things being offered! I saw salads, some sort of raw fish, more ice cream…and the list keeps on getting longer. I wonder if it’s because it’s the opening week, or if it’s going to be like this all the time. If so, you might see me there a lot more from now on. As for the 59 cents, well, we had to buy something to qualify for the free parking, so we walked out with a 59 cents Polo sweet. Hahah…
It wasn’t all freeloading, though, I think I’m tempted to buy the Bud’s strawberry yoghurt flavour the next time I get some ice cream! It was under RM10 for a tub which was 250g. Have I tempted you to make a visit to the Cold Storage @ Jaya one now? 
The Twitter battle
Do you know what Twitter is? No? Well, according to the website:
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
If you’re familiar with Facebook, it’s kind of like how you update your status there. So, in 140 characters or less, you continually “tweet” what you’re up to. According to NY times “It’s one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet.” Personally, I just can’t be bothered! I don’t really want everyone to know what I’m up to, anyway.
However, it is fast gaining popularity. Companies like Starbucks are using it as a means to communicate with their customers. They constantly update their feed with tidbits, answer coffee-related questions, and much more. News portals, even our own New Straits Times is on Twitter! During the Mumbai attacks, journalists were using Twitter to get news out real time, and information was spread really rapidly.
Another phenomenon that I’ve been following for awhile is the emergence of book bloggers. Previously, whenever I wanted to get book recommendations, I’d go to a bookshop and start browsing. That became much more difficult when the bookshops started wrapping up their books in plastic, making it impossible to browse, unless you take the book to the customer service and ask them to unwrap it, which is so troublesome. So then I started checking the bestsellers lists, and reading customer reviews on Amazon. And now, I go to my favourite book blogs! There are lots of book bloggers out there, and they constantly review books. The more popular ones even get advanced copies of books from the authors, and they hold competitions where the winners will get the books. Some methods I’ve seen include:
1. Comment on that post and you get one entry
2. Blog about it on your blog, and link back to the post, and you’ll get five entries
3. “Tweet” it, and you’ll get ten entries
So as you can see, Twitter is really taking off! But not quite so fast in Malaysia as compared to the US, of course…
Anyway, let’s get to the reason that I decided to do a post on Twitter. I was reading the news, and I saw that there was a Twitter competition going on between Ashton Kutcher and CNN’s breaking news team. They’re both racing to get to 1 million followers! I think they both have over 990,000 followers at the moment, so it’s going to be a tight race. The point of this competition? Hmm, I don’t really know, popularity, I suppose?
But it is going to do some good to the world. Ashton Kutcher has pledged that if he wins, he will donate 10,000 mosquito bed nets to charity in honor of World Malaria Day. CNN has also said that they will match the offer. Come on, CNN, you’re a huge corporation, and Ashton Kutcher is but one person…you should be doing more! 
Edited to add: And the winner is Ashton Kutcher!