Joy in many packages

This has been a regular weekend. At last! Exactly what we needed. Time to relax, catch up with friends and catch our breaths.

Saturday night we watched Gandhi (passed onto us by Daren) on our new telly and DVD player. That warranted a full TV dinner of crisps, pizza, cider and ice-cream. The film was compelling, daunting, tragic, stirring and inspiring all at once. There was anger, there were tears ... and heartened smiles. There was also plenty of action on screen.

Ste said I get too emotionally engrossed in epics. I was too emotionally engrossed to reply and jabbed him in the ribs - SHHH! Stop talking during the movie lah!

I contemplated having a bit of a lie-in on Sunday Morgen till I saw that the sun was out - it was an utterly beautiful day! We took a short walk to the Mobility car (a Swiss car sharing scheme) further up on Minervastrasse, then cruised slowly along the Gold Coast of the Lake of Zurich to Rapperswil. Lunch at Van and Wilfried's was a tasty Thai-Swiss affair: tangy veggie salads with rice and kartoffel gratin mit poulet.

Van and I met at Integrationkurs and have somehow managed to bridge the language barrier (our own Southeast Asian Roestigraben ... a Stickyreisgraben?) and foster enough friendly feelings to haul our spouses together for a group activity.

In the late afternoon, we made our way to Schindellegi, to visit the new little man of the Dhall-Mahan house, Siddarth. Or as Ste fondly refers to him, 'Sid the Kid'. Siddharth was on his best behavior most of the time, wanting to be where the action (and guests) were to show off his pacifier-sucking skills - very impressive for a 38 day old baby!

When he isn't exercising his lungs or refining internal bodily motions, the little Rocky Balboa subscribes to a vigorous regimen of push-ups, arching his head and body backwards when he's on his tummy, punching the air with sweeping uppercuts and hooks. We were extremely impressed ... though I couldn't get over just how tiny his training togs were.

Uncle Ste, with his nurturing side bubbling to the fore, couldn't resist carrying the adorable Baby Sid, impressing all present with his confident baby-handling technique. Not to be outdone, a markedly less self-assured Aunty Alicia posed next to Uncle Ste, artfully supporting his hand as it supported Baby's head.

Coming to terms at the start of term

German class started on Monday. It runs daily from 9.00am-12.50pm till end-August. And yes, that's the sound of my brain frying in the background. Ooh the heartwarming sizzle of gray matter. Leave off the salt, please.

My main motives for learning Deutsch (a.k.a why I show up every morning with homework done) are:

(i) to have a proper, un-aided conversation with Ste's Uncle Hansueli this Christmas. I think he's rather sick of hearing my jokes via proxy (or rather, Ste is sick of being the proxy) and I'm even putting some advance prep into it so none of the brilliant nuances get mired in translation.

(ii) to pressure Ste into bringing me for a karaoke session in Zuerich (my favourite hits at the moment are Herbert Groenemeyer's Ein Stueck vom Himmel and Du bist Die, plus Silbermond's Das Beste, all of which I've been struggling to croon to on YouTube (with lyrics palmed off the Net of course).

And now that we're at the end of the first week of Deutschkurs, I can add a third:

(iii) to figure out how it's statistically possible that nearly half the class is so unbelievably and embarrassingly good-looking (and I mean Calvin Klein photo ad model quality) while the rest of us mooch about like faceless extras on the set. As I look across the classroom at the beautiful and ebullient young 'uns, I'm floored by how much older I am ... than I actually feel.

Egad, an elephant in the post!

Forgetfulness is an excellent excuse for One's mindless trespasses. When administered with a helping of sheepish grin and two measures of edible peace offering (I don't mean arsenic ... or my home cookin'), the old 'forgive and forget' is an efficacious salve and is almost certain to mollify the offended party.

However, any salubrious kickbacks are entirely vaporised should One, ever-so-absentmindedly, be in the possession of a torrid past AND childhood friends with elephantine (=massive+long+thick-skinned) memory banks. Deadlier still if those school buddies have in their possession, collections of incriminating ephemera churned out during One's murky teenage years. The Past, when it comes back, generally means to haunt. And only after It has indulged in an attention-seeking ditty with over-exuberant jiggling and under-dressed jigglies.

I might have gone ahead and denied everything ... except that with kith AND kin checking in on this blog now (and no thanks to those of you goading my Mom on for more gory morsels ... bad, bad Rosh!), the past has come trick o' treating.

So here I am with the evidence - grinning ... and baring it.


P. S. Thanks Janelle, that was one heck of a slide down memory lane! ; )

Is it all about location, location, location?

DESTIN gals by the Zurichsee, May 2007

Claudia en route from NYC-Crete-Santiago (Chile), me en route from Dar es Salaam-Zurich-London, and Abhilasha en route from London-Zurich-Schindellegi ... into motherhood.

Bon voyage, all!

Doctor, doctor!

You know how in kindergarten when there's always that one kid who has to throw up during the national anthem, opting to cry helplessly rather than make a desperate dash to the toilet, that would have saved everyone a whiff of putrid kiddy breakfast ...

Or that weirdo perched silently on the floor next to his/her classmates, ne'er uttering a word till King Pong hits and Teacher makes everyone stand up, only to discover -lo and behold- a perfect little turd smeared on the music room carpet ...

There is, indeed, drama in real life even at that tender age.

Well, tonight I regress and join (note: NOT re-join) the less-than-illustrious ranks of juvenile classroom wimps. Taken hostage by an affliction that is dramatic as it is inconvenient. Whining and moaning as I bury my face in heaps of already speckled tissues, suffering inconsolably from what Ste has curtly declared a garden variety nosebleed. Right before he trotted off to bed.

Is there no compassion in this world?!!

The Duchamp raider

I actively try to simplify and minimise my collection of worldly possessions.

Ste, to the contrary, is an instinctive hoarder and -as if that weren't debilitating enough- takes perverse glee in promoting that distressing trait as a mark of sophistication. Imagine a squirrel in overdrive, building up its massive acorn arsenal for the coming winter. Yup.

Friends consistently ooh and aah -rather unhelpfully, in my opinion- at his sizeable personal collections of (i) loose leaf tea; (ii) books; and (iii) neckties. Keeping in mind the Lilliputian dimensions of our humble abode (ie. a tiny 2-bedroom flat), every bit of living space matters. Like the aforementioned bushy-tailed rodent, Ste too is awash with feelings of comfort and security whenever he surveys his vast accumulation. A wistful smile breaks as he contemplates further (i) blends; (ii) titles; and (iii) colours to be acquired.

There remains an important difference, though. Unlike the squirrel's carb-, protein- and fat-packed stores which will see it comfortably through till Spring, should Zurich ever be ravaged by a most brutal winter, Ste and I -the literate, tea-drinking homo sapiens sporting trendy psychadelic neck accessories- would starve.

Outlived, ironically enough, by the scampering, beady-eyed creature with an acorn-sized brain.

SUPPORT ONEWORLD GUIDES AND GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION

Singapore National Day Reception, Geneva

I've never wavered on my impression of home and what it holds for me.
But what does that same home mean to everyone else, those who are also away?

Got no answers, it's a process.
Me, I'm slowly getting re-acquainted with Singapore through overseas Singaporeans.

Photos from TCS website

Ba da bing ba da breakfast

So, you know what They say ...

Old Chinese cooks never die, they just wok away.

Old bankers never die, they just lose interest.

Old accountants never die, they just lose their balance.

Old lawyers never die, they just lose their appeal.

Old upholsterers never die, they just never recover.

I don't have an oily knack with puns and such. But my 2 Rappen contribution is ...

Old friends never die, they just meet for continental breakfast in a foreign city at bloody 8.30 in the morning because they have flights to catch.*

*Or shopping to do, as in Michelle's case. Scandalous, I tell you!


After 22 years (and counting) of friendship, there's no fresher way to say it.

What big teeth you have ... so macho!

My placid, peace-loving parents recently welcomed a new addition to the household. Meet The New Dog - part bull terrier, part shark. Check out those jaws ("er, what big teeth you have ...") ... the sturdy frame ... the thick, muscular neck. Mindlessly named 'Boy' by its previous owners before they abandoned it at the SPCA, my well-meaning mother cheerfully took it upon herself to revive its sense of canine self-esteem with a more appropriate monicker.

Daren and I lobbied for 'Brutus' -indeed, from 'brute'- and in my brother's words, "That dog's body is rock hard". I also campaigned briefly and unfruitfully for 'T-bag', an allusion to its darjeeling/assam-stained coat (as an aside, the dog had coughing fits when my folks first brought it home, so I modified my bid to from 'T-bag' to 'TB' ... another non-starter).

In the end, Mom prevailed and 'Macho' it is.

Burger that, Burgher!

I say I'm vegetarian because I think it just simplifies things. What I really am though is pescatarian, though I've learned the hard way that what people tend to hear (right after they give me the evil eye for springing an unnecessarily foreign-sounding -and possibly new agey- word into my dietary preference) is episcopalian. Which, as everyone knows, is an entirely different basket of fish and loaves altogether. Go figure.

Being pescatarian implies that I don't get a lot of all-beef-patty -with or without the special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on the sesame seed bun- kind of action. Which is why the last fortnight has been somewhat unusual, for its recurring burger imagery.

i. Filet-o-Fish BURGER in Basel on a Friday night with newfound friends Danielle, Julie, Barbara and Nthatisi, the mellow conference crowd. I would not otherwise have entered the Golden Arches.

ii. Sprungli's LuxemBURGERli in Zurich with Janelle and Derek, who were visiting from Los Angeles. I believe they gave the exquisite melt-in-your-mouth macaroons four thumbs up (in all).

And finally, to no less acclaim, Stefan Altorfer-Ong in full graduation regalia, as if he'd just walked off the set of Auguste Rodin's real-life mock-up for ...

iii. the BURGHERS of Calais live -one night only, sold out!- performance in the Peacock Theater. He even got a standing ovation from his long-suffering, draft-editing, fellow student spouse.

While in Brussels ... early July

Saturday afternoon with the DESTIN girls in Brussels was a real treat - my little hubby-sponsored holiday before the onset of conference season. Rosh and I had both visited the city before, so there was no mad scramble to photodocument major tourist sites.

Rosh, being the extreme foodie on a mission, suggested hitting the major chocolatiers. We needed no convincing. With Lizza and Charlotte's combined navigational acumen, the four of us darted through the crowded streets like bloodhounds sniffing a fox's trail. I purchased a few bars, only to taste of course, and stood my ground, bravely defending my newly procured white chocolate in the face of scorn and disdain. Oh the damnable colour bar!

On the way to dinner, we paid homage to the oft-bypassed and currently non-micturating Jannekin Pis (situated obscurely at the end of a rather forgettable alley), the demure sibling of the more-adored and gushing Mannekin Pis. I nodded somberly, noting that even national landmarks face gender discrimination.

The weekend went by all too quickly and Sunday afternoon came a-knocking before we had downed the last nectarine. David and Lizza delivered us safely to our respective points of departure (Bruxelles-Midi for me, Charleroi for Rosh), we said our farewells and 'see you agains', with the next meeting tentatively set in summer. These frequent catch-ups surely promote sustainability and social capital.

I boarded the train and 8 hours (2 wailing babies + 1 ill-behaved boy scout troupe) later, was back at Zurich HB. Hop, bunny, hop.

Scribbles made while captive on a stranded train, Thionville station

Cows are excellent for some things: dairy products and beef are prime (rib) examples. Entire national economies and gastronomic cultures have been built around them.

On a less laudatory note, cows are blooming useless beyond those specified boundaries. On railway tracks, for instance. They are infuriatingly massive, immovable obstructions. Right now, they are standing between me and my weekend in Brussels.

Received wisdom teaches that music moves even the savage beast ... but -alas- what will dislodge the stubbornly vacuous (undoubtedly derived from the root 'vaca') one? Temperatures are rising and pretty soon tempers will flare.

Forget the frites, gimme some ground beef ... hot off the rails.

There was also that beautiful weekend in Sonthofen

Alfred, Ste's colleague, was in a pretty serious cycling accident 2 months ago. But he managed to get back on his feet (plus two crutches) for his wedding last weekend and was spectacular on the dance floor! Congratulations again to Alfred and Simone Lederhuber ;0)

So you wanna know whassup ...

Roshini nagged me on Facebook this morning. Her precise words were, "Eh, can you please update your blog! I know you're bored of revising your thesis ..."

To quote the wise words of the phenomenally successful Budweiser Whassup?! ad campaign - true, true. So here is my feeble attempt at an update.

Having been rather uninspired of late, I decided to let this little midday SMS exchange between the Altorfer-Ongs do all the talking. A closer reading and a dash of literary prac crit (a la Ms. Nathan's class) will reveal all the subtle elements of daily life in merry Minervastrasse 27.

Ste: wie war deutsch test?

Me: booje booje boo boom shakalaka boom

Ste: meaning? just boochie boochie boo or also shakkalakka?

Me: it was ok - i convinced them quite effortlessly that i'm an ideal candidate for the beginners' course

Ste: am sure you'll make quick progress. really appreciate you are doing this

Me: i also bought bread and toilet paper - life's essentials. and also butter, one of life's little luxuries

Ste: am proud of you indeed. thanks for buying all the stuff. am looking forward to my next dump, then :-)

Me: i'm sure the UBS loo will appreciate that generously-sized deposit

Ste: ... makes me wonder who's the smart ass here :-)

Enough said? To be read and relished!

It was such a happy day, full of love, laughter and sunshine! 2 June, the J&J connection

"Let us pray for God's blessings for everyone here - family and friends who have travelled from near and far to celebrate Justin and Julia's love. May He give us the strength and conviction to continue nurturing our friendships and relationships; that they should never suffer because of distance or time, but grow ever stronger from the richness and appreciation of our experiences."

Integration and differentiation

Being married to a Swiss man has its perks. He has a sense of general hygiene and will wash, wash up after Himself, and sort out His own ironing. He is handy in the kitchen and well applied around the house, having attended technical course ... and knitting class ... at school. All this, while being ecologically sound as well, phwoar!

Now, living in Zurich and being married to a Swiss man definitely has its perks (note: the photo is of Solothurn, though). New arrivals, like me, can register for the 'Integration Course for Women' which is run by the City in TEN languages this term, reflecting the demand and diversity amongst foreigners here - Albanian, Arabic, English, French, German, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Thai and Turkish.

This morning we had a 'soft' session, Lesson 2: Swiss folklore and traditions. Here is a taster from the hand-out - it's pretty interesting from an anthropological point of view:

The Silvesterklause tradition is confined to the area surrounding the village of Urnasch. Groups of men in elaborate costume go from farmhouse to farmouse, where they sing and greet the inhabitants for the New Year. The so-called 'forest' or 'nature' Klause wear pine-cone masks and dress in foliage. Like the other kinds of Klause - the 'beautiful' and the 'ugly' ones, they also wear bells, which they clank as loudly as possible when they finish their performance. The Klause who lead and end the procession wear round bells, while the others wear flat cow bells. This custom takes place on January 13th, the date of the New Year according to the Julian calendar.

I guess foliage is always a safe bet when it comes to festive fashion. Honestly though, I'm not entirely convinced about the bells, which to a Sylvesterklause amateur like myself, would probably only herald in a ringing headache. And so the pamphlet continues ...

Bern's onion market, held on the fourth Monday in November, is one of the biggest annual markets in Switzerland and draws thousands of visitors. On sale are onions braided into strings and made into items of all kinds. Visitors throw confetti at each other and drape strings of luridly coloured sweets round their necks. Children -and not only children- hit passers-by with squeaking plastic hammers.

One cannot help but be impressed by the ingenuity of the Bernese - after all, not just anyone can come up with a variety of ingenious renditions of the humble onion! Notwithstanding, I reserve (mature, adult) comment on the squeaky plastic hammers. Perhaps that's more Ste's scene, though I can't say for sure - the topic has never come up in day-to-day conversation.

Unique to Zurich is Sechseluuten, which Ste attended but I unfortunately missed, in April ...

the culmination of the day's festivities is the burning of the winter effigy, the Boogg. The Boogg, looking like a snowman and stuffed with firecrackers, stands on a huge woodpile which is lit when the cathedral bells ring out 6 o'clock. The moment when the Boogg's head explodes marks the official end of winter. And the faster this happens, the longer and hotter the summer is meant to be.

I hope, for my sake, that the poor sod's head detonated at the stroke of 6. The weather's been beautiful the past week; as far as I'm concerned, summer has begun!

Jennie and Tobias' wedding in Dorset, 12 May 2007

Scrapbook

A tiny, almost-tossed-out memento from one of my daladala rides: I boarded at Hugo House on Kinondoni Road and alighted at the Orthodox Church just before Maktaba Street. Cost: 200 Shillings


And this, a somewhat less rosy -but more permanently emblazened- memory of my Dar days, thanks to the territorial sun.


Evidently the zebras weren't the only ones sporting stripes.

Chapter 1: Amortising a debt of kindness

Ali insisted on walking me to Posta, the central daladala stop. It wasn't far from his flat, just 15 minutes at an easy trot, but I felt bad because he had already extended me a great courtesy.

I had rung him on his mobile the day before, completely out of the blue, brandishing all the shiny telemarketing hooks (1. Researcher from the LSE; 2. Singaporean living in Switzerland; 3. Articulate yet harmless female with well-meaning questions and no previous record of badgering her subjects) to win myself a piece of his time.

It was a case that I had pleaded with other interviewees before, an argument which doesn't get any easier with practice - "Please meet me for a chat ... it will be of no discernible benefit to you but might potentially revolutionise my doctoral research and save my sorry little behind ..."

There was a long pause (1001 ... 1002 ... 1003 ... 1004 ...) and then a meandering umm. At that point, I cast away any remaining scruples and foisted myself shamelessly on the poor soul, offering to postpone my impending departure date if he would see me. He quaked ... and I heaved a sigh of relief. Then I promptly did what I always do before an important meeting - gnaw away anxiously at my right thumb. For luck.

Ali appeared where he said he would, when he said he would, and suggested that we talk in his family home. It was a modest and tidy third-floor flat and he passed someone some Shillings to get me a Coke. We sat in the armchairs by the window. Two young children climbed onto his lap, arching their backs ever so often to keep the visitor in sight. He cleared his throat and began,

"你如果要研究 中国和坦赞尼亚的外交， 那你应该先研究中国的历史， 而你必须了解那个社会里的矛盾 ..." (something to that effect anyway, but with better grammar and more flourish)

Ali grew up in China - he had attended a local school and graduated with two degrees from Chinese colleges. And so the conversation flowed: halting questions in English (yours truly) and expansive replies in fluent Mandarin (from him). Whatever the case, we had created a two-way street.

When the time came for me to leave, he offered to send me off. I thanked him profusely, for his time, his family's time and ... well, for having agreed to see me in the first place. Ali smiled good-naturedly and brushed my embarrassment aside, "I have often been the recipient of much kindness from strangers ... so don't thank me. This is something small I can give back."