What are words?

Are they combinations of 26 different alphabets? The unique kind of sound when you identify their pronunciation?

A silent h in 'hour'. An uncanny combination in 'rendezvous'.

But like music notes, words weave something more than what they are.

They are excitement in an inspiration. They are admiration in beauty. They are faith in an idea.

They are a conversation between two people.

When you write, do you know who you are writing to? Do you know what feelings or information you want to share to them? Do you know why they would listen?

Do you know why you write?

Writing words is a communication in itself. If you don’t know why you are talking, no one else does. If you don’t believe what you are saying, no one else will.

Words are powerful. Only if you can master them. They’re like a nasty horse that won’t let you ride it if you’re not good enough.

Some people turn away from that particular horse, or even give up on horse-riding forever. And I’m the silly little bullheaded lass who still want to keep trying. In any case, I’m the silly little bullheaded copywriter in an advertising agency for two weeks now.

Finally I’m back on here, thanks to the brain-picking process at work. You know, you get overloaded with words and you have to spit them out once in a while. Haha.

Good day everyone!

Please do not fuck here, thank you.

I don't know if you've ever encountered such listening-mistake, but certainly my friends and I laughed a great deal out of this.

As we drove into a car park on Monday, one my friends turned and asked the driving friend : "So you always fuck here lah?"

And for a minute the driving friend was stunned, I was stunned, before anyone started reacting - and came to conscious and logics that he was talking about "park", not "fuck". Lol.

But of course after the friend who was asking the question knew that his words were "mis-interpreted", he felt fucked instead. :P



However, it wasn't the first time to encounter such silly mis-interpretation.

Once upon a time the parking ticket machine used a voice who used to say :

"Please insert your fucking ticket"

to every car-parkers.

But after some time, my friends were surprised to find that the ticket machine has changed to use another lower, more precise voice who says in a very clear pronunciation :

"Please insert your PARKING ticket."

And seriously the new voice certainly did emphasize on the word PARKING when he tells it.

It seems that the word "parking" does sound like "fucking". The next time you heard anyone asking you in the car park: "So you want to fuck here?"

Don't lah think senget or get excited too soon, lol. Maybe it's just about the parking, and not fucking.



Oh btw, I accidentally came across this info - there really is a town in Austria, near the city of Salzburg, named Fucking. And that picture at the beginning of this post was the signboard of the Fucking town.

The town attracted more tourists than the nearby towns for its Fucking signboard. However locals are fed up with the Fucking name, even though it brings them a lot of tourism income.

Anyway, enough fucking today! I'll stop the foul word now. :P

The unknowns in everyday-life.

I'm sure most of you have seen this. You've seen it, touched it, tasted it, but have you heard of it?

What do you call this cute little thing?

Ji Dan Gao (Egg Kuih) ? o.O

But it's a Malay traditional snack. Should have a Malay name, isn't it?

Caught you speechless?

Well, well, this cute little kuih is called Bahulu.

Bahulu is a Malay traditional snack, and is a favourite among Malaysians of all ages. It comes in different shapes, but the popular ones are the goldfish and the button (the picture above). [on how to make Bahulu]

I'd been to a Malay wedding lunch this afternoon with my family - it's our neighbour's daughter getting married. And the lady sitting with us at the same table told me about the Bahulu.

This lady came all the way from Johor Bharu to Kuala Lumpur here, and she indeed seems friendly, and very traditional.

For chinese it would have been a chaos already among the parents and old folks, if we uses colour black and white as the theme for wedding. But obviously it's not the case for Malays.

The whole theme of the Malay wedding I went was in black and white - the tents were decorated with black and white fabrics, the tables were covered with white cloths, the flowers in the glasses placed on the tables were white, the close family members were wearing black and white baju kebaya and others (forgive me, I really did not study thoroughly in high school when it's the chapter of Traditional Costumes).

Certainly the Malays do not have an issue with grayscales, and maybe it's even a good colour for them.

So I had the lunch there, some rice, some veggies, some sambal, some daging, and that's it. We went back after eating with delicate fans as souvenirs - one would really wonder, why a Malay wedding would gives out Chinese-styled fans as souvenirs? Btw, it's China made and cheap LAH.

Maybe that's the reason.

The whole thing isn't such a bizarre event, but it kinda struck me, when I sudenly realized that I really don't know how to bersalam appropriately. I was feeling awkward the whole time I was there - not in place kind of feel.

We were the only Chinese family there when we arrived. So as I ate and watched these Malay people walking, talking, smiling around, I'm having a strange feeling - so I've been living among crowds of Malays for 20 years (we're one whole Malaysian family wat), but still they seem so near, yet so far.

I know them all along, but I never really get to know them deeper. How they talk, how they bersalam, how they eat, how they joke. Is it me being biased so I'm avoiding myself getting close? Or is it simply because they're so many, so near, and so normal in the background that I fail to notice their specialty?

Oh well, crapped too much again today. Thanks a lot for reading, please comment! :P

Lost in Translation

Write about your favourite past time.

How would you have understood the above statement? Is it

A. A sweet memory; OR
B. A lousy hobby ?

It was quite surprised to know that actually most chinese-educated people would mis-interpret the sentence as to write about a memorable moment in the past, instead of the real meaning to write about a hobby or interest.

It is not their (or rather our, oh yea i'm chinese-educated too) fault to be blamed on, in fact. I guess....it's just Lost In Translation. XD.

Oh by the way that was one past year question of Feature Writing subject I'm taking this semetser - the lecturer told us about this doubled-meaning "statement" had caused some students to get zero mark. (Ouch, fcuk right, for those students. >.<) Just before I end this post, let's try another example : "What keeps you awake at nights?"

What would you have to say? Is it

A. something that causes you to wake up in the middle of night from your dreams;
B. something that causes you to fail to have some sleep even though you wanted to; OR
C. something that causes you to be awake actively doing things the whole night ??

Oh no, another romantic confusion for us. Prepared to be lost in translation in this English-dominating world. :P