From Bar SaVanh To The Laundry Room

Dealing with customer relations officers can be laborious, or something akin to a test of nerves, maybe a measurement of your vow of patience is indeed a virtue, or all of the above.

It's been a busy couple of weeks with plenty of milestones. I have just achieved one a few moments ago by moving successfully through the guerilla jungles of answering (and coaching the Q&A session in between waiting periods fuelled by xylophonic rendition of mind-numbing music) a series of enquiries to land myself onto a post-paid mobile plan. Besides feeling the exhilaration of being locked up for the next 12 months to a contract and the sweetening desirous rewards of a bonus option (only to be rudely had my bubble burst by my IT / Mobile savvy hubby's feedback) on per second vs. 30-second block call charges, and a $5 rebate, I had navigated myself through the explosive terrain of contractual mobile negotiations and the embarassing realisation that I couldn't run too far (in a case of I can't really hide) from making a deal with the telecommunication devil.

We also celebrated my dad's big 60 in a week filled with plenty of gastronomical debates, tucka, and well, more tucka. At the very least, a fattened duck was lovingly roasted and sliced into wafer-thin pancakes deserving portions while we laddened our creations with some good yellow-bean paste, washed down by a magical mix of salivating wonderment and a can of Yeo Hap Sing Chrysanthemum tea. There was also a drive up to the countryside in which we took the senior folks and our dogs for a delectable breakfast amongst lavender bushes cutting through the greasy waft of lean bacon, scrambled organic eggs (no doubt those happy chooks running free are popping them out as easy as ABC) and warm puffy heaps of scones sliced in the most un-Victorian approved etiquette. More cream and jam please.

The dogs got their G.I. Joe haircut because all the matted material must go and my Westie looked very much like a joey on four legs. Tommy had been challenging the Alpha rank (again), hence getting himself into plenty of sessions that resulted in me sounding like a caffeine-addicted schoolmaster lecturing that rebellious teenager on the horrors of peeing along the fence. Well, at least he hasn't taken on graffiti.

There were also heaps of family get-together with my brother and his wife, more cakes and apple green tea and cosy Japanese cuisine purveyor discovery. Also we are being greeted with more fresh produce from the season and I am happily devouring the colours of nourishment from as varied as my selection can go in line with feeding our growing little one. Really experiencing some fancy movements now and I reckon at times, my womb did feel like a garage practice session for a future rockstar on the drum set. Other days, it's a giant hall albeit rounded, for an aspiring martial arts exponent.

But overall, motherhood to be for this mum2B is one beautiful journey. I love, despite the nagging aches of your body adjusting to the expansion and contraction of muscles to accommodate your growing needs and provision for your baby's comfort, the feeling - that rush - you get when you see your hubby's hand touching so gently on the blossoming parcel of miracle while Skype-ing with relatives across the Seas, or when he bends over to greet a morning kiss, and when he talks to the little one at bedtime. Life's moments are made of unexpected wonders such as your child throwing back a knowing hand or foot at your adult hand's touch, almost telling you that you'll be all right, we'll figure it out along the way and have heaps of fun doing it.

In between plenty of bottles being opened to celebrate these milestones, I discovered too that being pregnant came with the honour of being the nominated skipper every time we go out. Your dogs don't really care if you waddle like a duck as long as you take them out for their walks, although I seriously have an issue bending over to leash them up now. Here's a quick thank you to the squatting Buddha pose while I'm at it. Don't give up, improvise!

We got our 4D scans too and the results from our last check-up got the professor's good nod. Can you believe that the baby's nose changes since? We are spotting a cute button-nose now and my hubby can't be happier. I should take that as a compliment to how much he loves mine huh? *smile* Our baby is already a yoga baby - both in session with me as well as showing off (this little performer!) during the ultrasound. We think too that the sleeping pose is very much taking after us too. And of course, being the parents, we think this is absolutely the most gorgeous baby we have ever seen and feel so privileged to welcome into our world.

As I roll over to do the side get-up this morning, I hear my hubby loading the wash in the machine. The sun is shining brightly on a day when England is taking on India in the World Cup Cricket 2011. We are making fish porridge tonight in hope to detox from our week's of indulgence. Our tummies are still side-twitching from the laughs we had from recollecting all the funny stories of days gone-by where we had one too many Vodka and to see red plums substituting the code to the temple of our souls.

Pausing at it, I must agree, it has been one long journey and I'm feeling that the best is yet to come.

Can't wait!

L.O.V.E.

Remember a time when love encapsulated all that was the precious noun that was to be possessed, to have and to hold beyond all circumstances?

The angst, the competition, the guessing work. When a pimple-faced junior high-schooler (read: Yours Truly?!) looked longingly out into the courtyard, daydreaming a magical transformation that only a fairy godmother could bestow. We knew so little about love except that your parents should stay together forever and ever, you never stayed angry at each other for long, you got nervous when they argued for they really (whether they realised it or not) represented as unwilling or unknowing mascots for all that was true, steadfast and ever-lasting.

Then you moved on to the wriggly feeling you got when a secret admirer left a rose in your drawer while you were out in the field practising throwing a ball during physical exercise class. There was the cheesy, huge love-shaped card with cursive writing proclaiming undying "love" and that he would and could follow you to the end of the Earth's boundaries, that he would never marry another should you deny him your lifelong gift of devotion and admiration. (We all knew what happened to that - that we grew up and realised better!)

Today, sifting through a Red Sea of roses, chocolate packets, boxes of high-dollared spending, sparkles and one-knee proposition, love truly represents its most honest face - that love is after all, a verb, more than anything. Love is work, it's the career of your life that you never really get to cash in on your retirement, one that constantly reinvents itself in varying forms, that you never really figure it out but learn to put in the time, effort, and belief, especially during times when all that call for is doubt and fear. Love is growing together and learning to unfold a petal at a time.

Love has many facets but most importantly, love is creating something special together - to some it could be a home, others a child, some a life's commitment to a charity shared, while you can just hold each other's hand and discover what your love's description is and build from there.

Here's to the Valentine's Day for the every day...

for the rest of your life.

Too Many Questions This Week

Multiculturalism brings up a vast connotation of cross-cultural doctrines that most societies need to face in the new Century. Unless of course, if you are comfortable resting on the same couch eating the predictable ham and cheese toastie for the rest of your life (not bad for some folks but I'll opt out) then I would caution that ignorance is at one's peril should we turn a cold shoulder to this topic.

If anything, it was one of the more critical titles that I, amongst other students in my pre-University Foundation Studies, had to tackle. Needless to say, I sat stunned and lazy, staring at the blank page flat on my desk, pondering on the quickest way to produce a critically-acclaimed piece regarding the definition of multiculturalism in Australia. Take yourself back to age seventeen on a hot, stuffy Friday afternoon - do you think that would be at the forefront of your imagination?

Absolutely not for me, nonetheless I did sit back and daydreamed a while to buy more time. So I began by asking myself how much did I understand about multiculturalism back in my own native country. Much to my horror, I suspected I may had taken it for a long granted period.

Shame on you Viv.

Before I nail myself up on the crucifix of nationalistic conscience, fastforward to the current day, I catch myself once again, tripping over the tried and tested path of adult conversation in which I am given the opportunity to revisit an old friend once more.

To most, if not all Chinese around the world, irrespective of your dialect clan, I wish firstly, Gong Xi Fa Chai as the bunny year hops sprightly into 2011 for real (finally). And following from my previous entry, yes, the reunion dinner at the cheesily-named Chinese restaurant here went superbly fun and delicious. We feasted on ten dishes between two families and I walked down memory lane indulging in a lion dance performance done by a much enthusiastic crew consisting of both local Australian-born Chinese and Anglo-Saxon kids. Lion dances always brought back heaps of wonderful memories where a time was based on a backdrop of a sleepy town by the port of Elopura, propped up by the waves of money coming from the timber industry when flashy bright lights of dancing girls, illegal casinos, top North Asian chefs flown in to delight the businessmen's insatiable taste for the exotic, sandy white beaches and my own moments of looking down from the hill where my parents took me for my weekly fix of steamboat and watching the lonely ships bellowing their horns across the ebony horizon, their lights onboard twinkling sadly betraying only a hint of homesickness that my heart could relate yet not put a word to describe at that age.

This year, we celebrated it here in Australia. It continued a series of observations that I had been doing eversince we moved away from the bossoms of Elopura. Our initial big move was to the sister town, an "up the ladder" version of the comforting town we grew up in, then known as Jesselton. You still could enjoy the vices of home-cooked delicacies, grandmother recipes that held a single purpose in life to spoil us kids with all the sugar and spice, lion dances (oh, yes) and more red packet ang pow that were collected from house visits. We still kept the traditions of properly wishing our elders and right etiquette of receiving the ang pow, and as we got older, we joined the group of cousins that kept up late to midnight on the eve to signify the ushering of longevity for our parents. For a twelve year-old going thirteen, it felt like I had been inducted into a hall of secretive practices and codes.

A single phonecall came one day a few years later and our family found ourselves packing again to move down to the national capital, Kuala Lumpur. That was a true cultural shock. No home visits. Restaurant-type reunion dinners where three generations hardly talked (those who did were akin to boasting about their latest conquest, be it of a human species, a gambling windfall, some real estate in some invested postcodes, some poor kid's report card) and flashy show of rich cheongsam fabric, gold bangles, an assortment of ang pow design and television programmes. It was, in truth, much more shallow in substance but we hung on to our little comfort circle defined by phonecalls back to Sabah and home-made meals. On this note, mum, thanks for slaving over the stove making those yummy soups back those years!

Perhaps I had, in between spending some reunion dinner years away in a foreign land due to studies and later, work, become slightly more nonchalant about the traditions, tricking my heart into repeating the mantra that time was the worst enemy when you allowed it to be one.

Somehow, Life as predictable as always, threw a curveball to freshen things up and I caught myself, blissfully married to a non-Chinese, set to revive the traditions that had defined my childhood and brought me so many special, irreplacable memories.

Which is the reason that I found myself almost yearning for a loss, not for myself but for the other Chinese that had relocated to Australia. Many carelessly wiped away the event with a firm resolution that cemented their conviction of consistency in not having "observed that for many years". Could it be isolation that does this to you? Could it be a lack of communal mass? Could it be one's just trying to forget (in some extreme cases) all that is tied to their past lives, their background, their childhood?

Some couples sighed a heavy resignation of confession that their kids "refused to speak their dialect". I must say I did pause to weigh the statement because somehow I have seen kids from Asia that came from cross-parentage maintained both their (if not more) dialects consistently, hence it's a doable thing. Could it be an environmental influence then? Could it be in the much loved Malaysian tongue-in-cheek "ini sure tak cukup rotan ni!"
 
I'm not talking about people with three eyes or hold a Babi Hutan-slaying knive in their purse. These are respectable people in their chosen professions, serving the people of Australia.

My immediate in-laws from my brother's side are tight and solid as a family. Kids are immensely well brought up and dutiful towards their parents. Very admirable. However when both our sides sit together, there are much to talk and share, exclamations of surprise that the Wong kids know how to speak Chinese (particularly me, which made me shot a moment of ponder on how far my brother had gone in the language preservation ladder, and just forget about his command in Melayu even! Must be funny hearing him belting out a sentence in the former national language of choice...), our filling in the gaps on cultural elements that had previously appeared to be so common a knowledge to us.

I'm putting all of these down more of a reminder to question myself. How difficult it must be for the earlier migrants? How or what do you use to define as your stand or your contribution on the temple of multiculturalism? What is important, and what can be replaced? Admittedly, it is tricky to have an "open house" concept in the middle of a working week but in my case, Chinese New Year runs for fifteen days, I think I can fix in a fusion get-together for the weekend, Aussie Barbie and VBs with Yee Sang and that silky 1960s' crooner belting out some CNY songs?

Fast forward again: Day two into the new Lunar year. The arvo was blowing away peacefully with a cooler respite settling into the week. So unlike the usual clash of mahjong "washing" that was a staple as you walked through every kampung village housing lanes in Elopura, or the Char Siew sweetly roasted pork-infused streets of Cheras that lined the beginning of the terrace houses in a domain of the Kuala Lumpur district. A dull hum at first, but building up to an evaporative expulsion of hopes and luck, duelling and trickery, all in the good fun of festive gambling. Heck, we decided to round up my folks and cash in our rabbit year brought on "luck" and tried out a few rounds of Poker and reminisce about the good old days of my maternal grandmother's infamous appearance in the CNY gambling circuit back on that affectionately named "Pineapple Hill Village" by the beach with the powder white sand, hence its name.

But later on the six o'clock news, Cyclone Yasi's coverage dominated most of the headlines, shared only minutely with the riot in Cairo. It struck me - there was hardly any 60 second blip on why and what millions if not billions of Chinese on this particular week were doing. No touch on the meaning of reunion. No touch on the infusion of various dialect clans and their influence on the elements and definitions of CNY celebration.

Chinese New Year could and may had potentially passed on as just another day here. Completely insignificant. I'm not asking for national coverage 24/7 but unless you are of Chinese descent or related to one, chances are you will probably think this weekend is just another shrimp on the Barbie.

I asked myself again - how well do I know Eid being celebrated here? How well do I understand Ponggal and if they even celebrate it here? How much do we share the significance of Thaipusam? How about Qurban? Onam anyone? Kaamatan then, how or what about it you say? And what about the similarities or differences that migrants adopt or define to mark something more "common" like Good Friday, Easter and Christmas? How about the Scandinavian holidays? The more indigenous holidays?

As much as I support a Bill of Rights to define the civil code of order for every Australian, and those that want to be part of this country; I think I catch myself thinking, or more correctly asking a heck lot more questions regarding the fabric of Australia. 

It is my belief that how you grew up, what you uphold today, play a little bit even in the way you conduct yourself in the future.

Up until today, beyond the grading of my college paper submission, beyond my awakening from the years of ignorance regarding my own multicultural possession from my native country, beyond my new, hopeful carving of an inter-cultural family unit for myself, my partner and child - what and how should I represent multicultural Australia?

What is really important? How far are we prepared to sacrifice and uphold, to forego and forget?