Hard to Swallow

ONE of the gastronomic delights or daunting challenges that foreigners face in the Philippines, I guess, is eating the balut, a half-hatched duck egg with the embryo which, according to the Filipinos, contains all the goodness of the universe.

You can’t run away from it; the pedlars carry the eggs in baskets covered with a piece of cloth to retain the heat, hawking them on the streets and in public parks. You can hear them everywhere shouting: “balut! balut!”.

I do not know how they prepare the eggs. All I know is that they contain half-formed duckling and are supposed to be a local delicacy.

My Filipino friends swear that the balut contains all the nutrients needed for a zing in life, perhaps better than our home-grown tongkat ali.

To enjoy the balut, you simply knock a hole in the shell and suck out the contents. But they warned that if you are a first-timer, it is best taken with the lights off so that you won’t be able to see what you are eating.

Many foreigners, including yours truly, just do not have the stomach for it. The mere thought of it makes me want to go fasting for at least half a day!

But somehow I managed to persuade my wife to try it. Being more adventurous when it comes to food, she took up the challenge sportingly.

And her verdict? “It’s heavenly!” she said. It did not taste like duck although it had small bones here and there. It tasted much better than egg, she said.

Looking at the smile of satisfaction on her face, I had to believe her.

In Pattaya, southern Thailand, I saw fried grasshoppers neatly arranged in rows at hawker stalls waiting for connoisseurs. I suppose they are crunchy and best to go with beer.

Again I have no stomach for them but, well, I salute the Thais for having found such a practical way of getting rid of grasshoppers.

The Thais are also good in dishing out delicacies such as fried ants and fried bamboo worms. Good for those who can stomach them for they will never go hungry!

A friend just returned from China boasted of having eaten exotic food such as fried scorpions and steamed silkworms in Beijing.

The scorpions are served deep fried until they are crunchy like keropok (prawn crackers) and I think they taste the same too. They are never chopped up and on the plate, they look alive and ready to attack.

I suppose it would take a lot of courage taking the first bite but my friend said they tasted good.

The silkworms are steamed to perfection while they are still in their cocoons. The crust is a little hard but the centre is said to be soft and creamy.

We Asians are famous for exotic foods and I must confess that some are yucky, some borders on cruelty and masochism.

The Westerners can never understand for example why we have to spice up our curry or our tomyam soup until it burns our lips, tongue and all the way down to the stomach.

Curry laksa is still tame until you also have a spoonful of sambal to go with it. Tomyam is served with raw chilli padi strewn in it to punish the unwary. And I have even seen people chewing raw chilli just to whip up their appetite.

There are rumours that the Chinese used to eat monkey brains while the poor animal is still alive and kicking. I say rumours because I have not seen it being done, nor have I met anyone who has tried it.

But such stories do crop up in the media in the West, especially during summer when everything comes to a halt and the newspapers are dying for stories to fill up the empty pages, no matter how absurd they are.

I have seen TV documentaries showing guests in China enjoying fish deep fried except for the head. The fish looks alive and seems to be gasping for air while being eaten on the dining table.

It is touted as a gastronomic miracle but it is also cruel and I hope the authorities will ban it if they have not done so.

I have tasted duck’s tongues, fish’s lips, crocodile meat, dog meat and even snake soup. I am quite tempted to try bear’s paw, a Chinese delicacy supposed to be fit for the king.

But then again in view of the strong influence of the World Widelife Fund (WWF), it would be a gross indecency to even think about it now. So I am settling for something tame and politically correct.

Fish-head curry anyone?

Remember Port View Restaurant?

I HAVE a soft spot for seafood. Despite all the warnings about high cholesterol and all that. I would throw caution to the wind the moment I see delicacies like baked crabs or steamed lobsters on the table.

Many of us would recall with certain nostalgia the Port View Restaurant at the old jetty in Port Klang. The restaurant was my favourite before it was demolished for some unknown reasons.

It could not boast of five-star ambience. It was just an old colonial building with a wide veranda built on the jetty but the food was good.

The restaurant was sort of a landmark in the nondescript small town and I believe it was run by a Hainanese family.

It had a certain charm, especially at sunset, when the tide rose to cover the muddy seabed and a gentle breeze rocked those small sampans tied to wooden poles.

Port View was popular and it used to cater to seafood gourmets for generations before those open-air seafood stalls started mushrooming in the villages on the outskirts of Port Klang.

Friends recalled that their parents used to take them to the restaurant when they were still kids and later, it was their turn to take their children there for an evening of good food and a leisurely stroll on the jetty. It is such a pity that the younger generation is missing all these as what remains now are just fond memories locked away in the hazy past.

Since its demolition, I have been to other seafood restaurants elsewhere in Port Klang, Sepang, Kuala Selangor and beyond but they are never the same.

Their food is good, there is no quarrel about it. But in most cases, these are restaurants converted from village houses or makeshift buildings, some fronting busy roads while others swampy seafront.

Mostly, it is a case of don’t look up, don’t look down and don’t look into their kitchen; just eat, pay up and go. 

The ceiling could be covered with lizards hanging upside down having their dinner too. The floor could be strewn with food remnants, tissue paper and discarded drink packs. The toilet and kitchen? Well, I shall reserve my comments.

We Kuala Lumpur people still have this caveman instinct to hunt for food which outsiders find difficult to understand. It is the most popular pastime besides going to the shopping malls.

Call it escapism if you like but I must admit that food is also therapeutic.

We don’t mind driving to all the nooks and corners, with the family or friends in tow, looking for the best food, be it jibao gai (baked chicken wrapped in paper), hakyi gai (baked chicken wrapped in clay), lailiu har (a kind of crustacean that looks like a flattened scorpion) or fish-head curry.

I was once taken to a very popular open-air restaurant that simply called itself Under-the-Coconut-Tree. To reach that exotic eating place, one must drive through a kampung along winding dirt roads on the outskirt of a seaside town.

When we arrived there, it was lunch time and I was duly impressed by the number of luxury cars and MPVs parked there – an eloquent testimony of its popularity.

The food was good and the place offered lots of novelty dishes. But what struck me was the environment.

In between swatting mosquitoes and flies, I noticed there was also a big population of dogs and cats picking up food remnants from the floor.

It was facing a swampy seafront and I had a strong suspicion that some of the buildings were formerly part of a pig farm!

My friend, who was a regular there, in addition to the main dishes, also ordered four bottles of barley water and I thought this guy must have been told by his doctor to drink more barley water to cleanse his body system.

When the drinks came, they were in four two-litre plastic bottles and were off-white in colour. My friend chuckled and poured out a big glass for each of us. “It cools your system,” he said.

I took a gulp and was in for a big surprise as the “barley water” turned out to be toddy, a local brew made from coconut water!

Don’t ask me where the restaurant was as I was in quite a stupor after the meal.

Fatt Fook-loh!

AT ONE time when poverty was the only lifestyle for most people and food was scarce, carrying a potbelly was an obvious sign of great wealth.

The Chinese, in particular, would heap praises on you especially if they had not seen you for a while. “Waah, fatt fook-loh!” They would exclaim while noting your potbelly.

In not so many words, it means congratulations, you must be enjoying great prosperity – never mind the high blood pressure that’s exacting a toll on your heart or bad cholesterol clogging up your blood vessels.

The perception is changing now. Thanks to Hollywood and a greater awareness of good health, carrying a potbelly would invite some critical stares and unsolicited but well-intended lectures on heart diseases and diabetes.

And if you are living in a Cantonese-speaking area, you may be called Fei Lo or Dai Fei Lo which means fatso and big fatso in Cantonese. The rather unpleasant nickname may stick and follow you for the rest of your life unless your body shape changes.

In a nutshell, being portly is no more in vogue and not something to boast about like a Rolex, a Rolls-Royce or a diamond ring.

People want to keep trim and fit nowadays. All men aspire to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, with bulging muscles in all the right places.

And the women? They want to look like Julia Roberts if they are younger, Jane Fonda or Raquel Welch if they are of that vintage.

To achieve that stunning physique is quite simple. You can sweat it out and burn off all the unwanted fats at the gym as done by Arnold, Jane and Raquel, but thanks to modern science, there are also short cuts – going under the knife or take a slimming course.

Slimming products are now flooding the market, each promising a miracle that will make you slim and take decades off your looks.

No prescriptions, no surgical knife, no bandage and no scars and no hiding from the public, just take the pills or drink certain concoctions on a regular basis, it’s as easy as popping a pain-killer or drinking a glass of teh tarik.

So, can I be blamed if I fell prey to such hype?

In short, I took a 21-day programme, partly because I was curious and partly because I was getting tired of those remarks about my spreading “middle kingdom.”

It was a simple dieting course in which I only had to skip one meal a day and in its place, take a pack of “diet drink” which was supposed to contain all the nutrients needed.

It sounded like a good bargain. Skipping a meal a day was a small sacrifice if at the end of the 21 days I could look like Arnold, minus the height, of course!

Come to think of it, even looking like Mr Bean minus all the idiocracy would not have been too bad. Mind you, he is slim enough to squeeze into his yellow Mini with ease.

So I went about it with all the eagerness and enthusiasm of a new convert during the first few days. I took a normal lunch and, despite all the temptations, no dinner. Just the diet drink and plenty of water.

It was clean living and I felt good, except for the frequent visits to the toilet.

The best part of it was that it worked. I lost two kilos within the first few days! My trousers were not that tight anymore and I felt lighter.

My morale was high and I told myself I could grit my teeth and go through it.

But alas, the next few days was a struggle against temptations. Somehow, my eyes were easily drawn to the hawker centres along the journey home and my nose became more sensitive to the aroma of food and my stomach growled angrily.

Never had I missed so much the prawn mee, laksa, yong toufu, beef steak, mutton curry, ice kacang, fried koey teow and even bak kut teh which I had not touched of late. And they had never tempted me that much until I was on this slimming course.

“Hi, you have already lost two kilos, how much more do you want? After all, you are not that fat. And those diet drinks are simply yucky. You don’t need to suffer like that!”

I could hear a small voice telling me all this but I resisted. I told myself I had the resolve and discipline to stick to the whole programme, period. Checking my weight had become a ritual. Every morning I would weigh myself and members of the family would crowd round, either giving encouragement or poking fun at me.

Secretly, I just wished that I could shed another two more kilos.

Unfortunately the needle on the weighing scale refused to budge after the first week or so. And I’m still far from looking anywhere near Mr Bean. But I did lose two kilos, so isn’t it great?

Then came an overseas holiday and a family celebration and I was promptly back to my old self, dining heartily and snacking in between.

I have not weighed myself recently but have a sneaky feeling that I have regained the two kilos I paid to lose.

Currently, my wife is taking a slimming product in order to look like Jane or Raquel.

With so many on the market, I hope she has chosen the right one, lest I end up having to share with her a piece of my liver

The Little Irwin in Us

WHEN that boyish Aussie Steve Irwin was on his fours, singing praises and running his hand over the object of his adoration, I believe half of the TV audience watching that episode of Animal Planet series squirmed and recoiled.

For the “gorgeous”creature that won his admiration was not a Miss Universe, or something like that, but a slithering and cold-blooded desert snake baring its fangs.

To the late Steve, every creepy crawly was either beautiful or gorgeous, whether it was a tame grass snake, a slimy frog with large, protruding red eyes or a Komodo dragon with its mouth dripping with rotting meat.

Many suspect that he used a different dictionary. Or maybe ours was already outdated and had to be replaced with a more eco-friendly one?

On the other hand, Steve had his fans and there were thousands who agreed with him whole-heartedly.

Our perception of and relationship with animals are very much defined by our culture. What is a pet to you is food to others and what is yucky to you is gorgeous to some. Many people can’t stand dogs licking their ankles, yet there are million of dog lovers. Some abhor cats touching them, yet others have a dozen running around their homes.

If you see it as a pet, it is cute and cuddly. But if you it and can’t stand the sight of it, it becomes a pest. In the West, people often keep pets especially dogs. Every dog has a name that gives it some sort of a personality.

It becomes a member of the family; eating, sleeping and travelling together.

Others keep pets like cats, birds, gerbils and gold fish. The more adventurous will go for a crocodile, tiger or snake, and once a while, they will take their “pets” for a walk, putting the whole neighbourhood on red alert.

Children are encouraged to keep pets as psychologists believe that besides giving them good company, the rearing of pets fosters a loving and caring spirit, especially in small families with just one or two kids.

Keeping pets is also good for old people who stay alone as they will have someone to relate to. In other words, if they want to nag, they have a pet which would listen and agree with whatever they are complaining about whole-heartedly.

Some people value their pets so much that they will take them to veterinarians when the pets are sick, send them to animal hotel when the family goes on long holiday and even give them a funeral service and a proper burial when the pets die.

In most part of Asia, however, animals are kept usually for functional purposes and very seldom for sentimental reasons. A dog, regardless of its breed, must be able to guard, a horse must be able to run and, well, an arowana must be able to bring good fortune.Otherwise, they must be tasty on the dining table.

We do give names to our dogs. In the past, Ah Choy (Good Fortune) was a common name for dogs before all those trendy names were introduced.

I for one like the name Ah Choy even though I did not get to give any of my dogs that name. I like to visualize myself standing at the gate and shouting at the top of my voice: “Ah Choy, come home!”

Wow! Just imagine all the good fortune that comes rolling into my house following that yapping dog. Fantastic, isn’t it?

Malaysians seem to have a much smaller selection of pets. Most of their pets are good to look at, good to touch and good to cuddle.

Of course, there are many, especially among the Chinese, who spend thousands and thousands of ringgit on feng shui fish such as koi and arowana. But that is a different story altogether.

The closest any of my family member ever got to becoming a Steve Irwin was my second son who is the only guy in the family who can handle frogs, lizards and snakes.

He once caught a small snake that unfortunately, or fortunately, died on the way home.

For practical reasons he stuffed it in his pocket. Arriving home, he fished it out and showed it excitedly to the maid. She almost fainted. He couldn’t understand why.

He proceeded to show it to his mother. She screamed and ran out of the house. Some of our neighbours came out ready to help, thinking that there was a fire.

A Dog's Life?

WHENEVER I am abandoned by my wife in a shopping mall, I have the tendency of straying into a pet shop and learning a thing or two about the animal kingdom.

There are many things that I can learn about keeping pets, all kind of pets, ranging from cute and cuddly designer dogs to fierce and ugly flying lizards.

One thing I have realized after visiting several pet shops is that it is not bad to lead a dog’s life – not at all unless it is a stray dog.

It is quite a fashion to keep pet dogs as society becomes affluent and the way they are being pampered can easily make some of us turn green with envy.

Of course, these are designer dogs, dogs with great parentage proven by birth certificates properly endorsed by licensing authorities.

But, oh, how they enjoy life just being a pet!

They sleep in special baskets, lined with soft bedding. They are regularly groomed and have their fur shampooed, trimmed, coloured and blown dry. They have their nails manicured and their health checked by professionals. There are dog medicine for the sick and vitamins for the old and weak.

I wonder if there is counselling service for dogs which have gone into depression and emotionally unstable. But I do know dog owners talk to their pets as if they are human beings, constantly giving them hugs and kisses to assure them that they are loved.

Some dog owners like to dress up their pet dogs, maybe with a ribbon and a little floral skirt to make it more lady-like if the dog happens to be a female. Some dogs have jackets to protect them from the biting cold in winter.

Just visit some dog shows and you would know how much these little pets are being showered with love and care.

But I must admit that these pets are cute and adorable. Best of all, they are intelligent and affectionate. They provide very good companionship for the owners.

Some are entertaining as they able to do tricky stunts. They are obedient and are able to follow simple commands.

I have seen dogs which can fetch newspapers in the morning or slippers whenever their owners want them. And some are able to dance, standing on their hind legs while offering a hand-shake is quite common.

Just visit a circus and you would often see them working as a team, doing all kind of tricks at the command of their master.

Even in the ancient city of Beijing, you would see pet owners, mostly women, taking their pet dogs for a walk in the morning. Most of these little pets are not on leash and they often wander into nooks and corners, sniff here and give a little yap there.

But they would make sure that their owners are within sight and would follow at a safe distance.

During summer, some of them would curl up in the bosom of their owners or sit comfortably in a basket on a bicycle cruising in the wind. During winter, they would be wearing little jackets to keep warm. I was once given a skinny little dog with spiky ears, bulging eyes and with little fur. He could not wag his tail because it was too short and he could only do some yapping instead of barking.

But this little fellow liked to be cuddled. Given a little opportunity, he would jump onto your lap and make himself comfortable there, whether you like it or not.

It was not my idea of a furry pet dog. It does take a bit of effort to love a skinny little doggie with spiky ears and bulging eyes, right? And so, it was given away eventually.

When I saw those little furry pets walking around the manicured gardens in Beijing, I was very tempted to own one. I even had an assurance from my house help that she would look after it if I went on home leave or eventually when I had to leave China.

Of course, there are many pet shops in the city. But if you don’t want the hassle of going to the pet shops, look out for girls selling puppies near underground stations.

The puppies are put in little baskets, like little balls of fur and whenever you stop to observe them, they look at you with curiosity. I was greatly tempted but my wife remained unconvinced.

Firstly, she rationalized, we stayed in an apartment and we might have problem with the management and secondly, we might not have time to take it for a walk and exercise on a daily basis.

The result was predictable. I didn’t get the dog.

But suffice to say that dogs in China don’t always end up on the dining table as an exotic dish. They are pets, some of them definitely lead a better life than many people.

Be Thankful, Be Happy

REMEMBER the story of the guy who groans and moans that he has no shoes until he sees another guy hopping around happily with only one leg? The story says he stops whining immediately and becomes a happy man ever after, realizing the fact that he is still blessed with two strong legs.

Life may not be as simple as how the story goes, knowing the nature of man, his greed, his jealousy and his endless desires.

But after crawling on this lonely planet for decades and having done my fair share of sulking, I think I’ve gained a little wisdom that I can share.

I have come to the simple conclusion that the key to happiness is gratitude, not how big your house is, how powerful your car or how fat your bank account.

These material blessings are important in life and they give us a certain amount of satisfaction but not lasting happiness. Well, both are good feelings but are quite different.

I do observe that a happy person is not only contented, but more importantly, also grateful.

Have you noticed that those who give thanks are happy people because to say those two magic words sincerely, you must first recognize that you are blessed with something before you can express your gratitude. You can’t say “Thank You” when you are grouchy or full of bitterness – unless you are being sarcastic.

Have you looked around and noticed that no matter how miserable you are, there is always someone worse off than you?

So, by being grateful for what you are, you stop wallowing in self pity. You simply pick up the pieces and move on in life.

One of my colleagues is fond of telling this story about two mothers who went up a mountain to seek advice from a wise old man on what they should do about their sons.

The first woman asked the old man: “My son is not smart in his studies. What shall I do?”

The old man replied: “Kwai tou ho loh!”

The second woman complained: “My son is not only lazy; he is also naughty. What shall I do?”

The old man replied: “Wu tou ho loh!”

Those short pieces of advice, which I quote in Hokkien to retain their flavour, simply mean that if your darling son does not score straight A’s in his SPM, be grateful that he is well behaved, and if he is naughty, be grateful that you do have a son!

The old man is not suggesting that henceforth, you should give up good parenting.What he means is that the mothers should stop complaining but should go on to raise the kids to the best of their ability.

There are people, especially Westerners, who thank you almost automatically for anything you do for them and now I suspect they know something which we don’t or which we know but fail to practise.

They say “thank you” to the bus driver, cashier, waitress, hawker, barber or anyone else whom they deal with at the end of every transaction even though they pay for their services.

They also thank the stranger in front who keeps the swing door open for them, the guy who holds the lift to wait for them or the passer-by who points out the direction to the Petronas Twin Towers.

At the risk of being preachy, I suggest we make liberal use of the two little words. Say “thank you” with a smile and it’ll make at least two persons happy. And one of them is you!

Hooked at First Byte

As I sit in front of the desktop, using the PC to work on this article, words appear on the computer screen as fast as I can keep my fingers dancing on the keyboard.

When thoughts are put into words and keyed in, they are automatically strung into sentences in a neat and proper format, paragraph by paragraph. If I don’t like what I’ve written, or have chosen a wrong word, it can be changed or erased, without leaving any trace of my mistake.

All I need is to press the delete button and replace the unwanted word with a new one. I don’t need an eraser or correction fluid. In fact, I can cut, copy and past any word, sentence, paragraph and even the whole story if I wanted to do so.

I can play the same trick with an article or a whole page or make the words either big and bold, or small and cute in any style I desire.

And I’m just using my index fingers to jab at different keys with big letters marked on them. There are, of course, scores of other keys whose existence does not really bother me.

Now I am on the sixth paragraph of this article. Frankly, if I had used a typewriter, I would have yanked out and thrown away at least 20 sheets of paper just to get the right intro or, in journalistic jargon, a good lead.

Welcome to the computer age. For those who have crossed the digital divide, the ICT is simply amazing. We are living in an era blessed with so many wonderful inventions and innovations that life has become so much easier.

Many of my generation began our trade before the birth of the computer. Our tool then was a typewriter, either Olivetti, Underwood, Olympia or Hermes. They were heavy and messy. The portable versions only appeared later. The ribbons came either in black, and red and black. Oh yes, I miss the smell of the ink!

When reporters were working furiously on their machines, with editors cursing in the background, the smoke-filled newsroom came alive. We knew the deadline was near and the big stories had to be hammered out for the following day’s front page, with screaming headlines!

Of course, besides those messy ashtrays and empty beer bottles on the desk, one could also see balls of crushed paper strewn all over the floor by desperate reporters struggling to write a good copy.

Those were the days when cars didn’t have air-conditioners, television was in black and white, and aerogrammes were used to send mails to distant friends. The cell-phone was still light years away, as was the Internet.

Coming back to my PC, it is such a fantastic gadget that, with the proper software, not only enables me to write, correct, check spelling and grammatical errors but also save and store whatever I’ve written in a file, a CD or a pendrive and I can retrieve the data or information anytime I want.

The article can be passed on via email to anyone connected with the system anywhere in the world in seconds, making ordinary mail or even fax quite redundant. And all this can be done in a jiffy, while sitting comfortably in front of a desktop in an air-conditioned environment with a cup of coffee on my desk.

Not only that. In between writing, I can also surf, listen to music, watch a movie and chat with friends via the net and I believe I’m just using a fraction of what a PC can do.

I just cleaned up my mail-box which was filled to the brim with letters from relatives, friends, business contacts and total strangers. They included mails from a long queue of very generous people who insisted on sharing their hidden wealth or heritage with me because they said I could be trusted.

Others were trying to sell some miracle treatments that can either enhance my brain-power or enlarge a certain part of my anatomy. Wow, aren’t we living in interesting times?

Of course, one can also keep abreast of the latest news developments by going online. The Chinese used to say that a xiu cai (a Chinese scholar who has passed a certain grade in Mandarin exam) is knowledgeable about the world without even having to step out the door. With the Internet, we can do much better than those ancient scholars. The flip side is trying to differentiate between the truth, half truth and untruth.