Coffeemania?

I don't know how café has became such a trend in Malaysia. Everyday I open up Facebook, there always be people posting pictures of them with their coffee and often enough a dessert too. I don't know about the real statistics, but in Penang alone, it feels like the number of café is approaching the number of mamak stalls.

A normal café would just be lame. Not only the quality of the café, people in Penang also need the dessert, the ambiance, and most importantly, something worth taking picture. Latte art and extravagant desserts are almost a must. To open a café in Penang, to beat the king of café Starbucks itself, you have to be creative and you need a theme. Bicycle themed café, cat themed café, Parisienne, cardboard themed, etc.. In fact, you can find all these themed café in Penang island alone. I just wonder, there must be people trying very hard to think of a theme nobody did before, because I am wondering about it too. But seriously this is market so saturated that I don't think it is worth thinking about. One of my close friends owns a café too. From his café I can sense the result of highly competitive market.

This café market kinda reminds me of the product life cycle and it is in the mature state right now. This trend also reminds me of the pub/lounge trend. A few years ago in Penang, pubs and lounges were raising like the bamboo shoots after the rain except there was no rain and it all happened all of a sudden. And then the trend hit the peak and died out.

I don't know whether this café craze is just a phase. Part of me, I want it to die out sooner if it is the trend I thought it to be. I am just upset with the herd mentality. Another part of me, I think it is not so bad after all. At least it is way better than the pub/lounge trend with the alcohol it involves. Just like Friends in which they were always hanging out in a café, is better than its successor, How I Met Your Mother, in which a pub is featured heavily. And guess what, coffee also gave birth to the Enlightenment in Europe, says CGP Grey. In the scientific world, coffee has an important role. As I am in that world too, I know it very well. People are joking about how engineers and programmers turn coffee into scientific papers and thousands lines of code. Jokes are good only when there is some truth behind them.

      

Surprisingly Developed Cloververse

About Batman vs Superman, I have heard many bad reviews. But the point is, I know my expectation is too high for this movie and no way the movie is gonna exceed that. I always love Justice League and I love the storyline where Lex Luther becomes the president and controls the government and people of Earth against Justice League. I would love to have that story play out on the big screen. Of course that is not going to happen anytime soon. And in the trailer, they showed the lame version of Doomsday! That is already reason enough for me to not see the movie. 

So instead of watching a certain disappointment, I chose to watch 10 Cloverfield Lane during the lazy Easter Sunday morning. Yet again, I had watched some reviews before going into it. I knew it was going to good, so my expectation was also high. The difference from Batman vs Superman is the trailer of 10 Cloverfield Lane doesn't show much, and that is excellent. This movie is all on the unknown factor. If the storyline is shown even just a little bit in the trailer, it would have entirely deflated the intriguing tension of the movie. I am just glad it is not the case. I am not doing a review of this movie here. First I think it is difficult to do it without spoilers; second, there are many spoiler-free reviews out there and they already say most of the things that could have been said. In short, I love it, a lot.  

Like the Cloverfield, it leaves many question unanswered. I watched a bunch of interviews and fan theories after the movie. I am surprised by how developed the Cloverfield universe is, or one might call it as Cloververse. I just discover what is ARG (alternate reality game) and in fact there is an ARG for Cloverfield. There is actually so much happening behind the screen, so much that is not shown in both the movies. After reading all the backstory, it is seriously interesting. However be warned, it doesn't show the plotline of 10 Cloverfield Lane, but it would spoil the nature of a certain character in the movie. So the watching order should be : Cloverfield, 10 Cloverfield Lane, and then the ARG timeline.     

Things about the director, Dan Trachtenberg, too are interesting, like this movie is actually his directorial debut. And he also directed a well-made short film that happened in the Portal universe. 

Ho Yan Hor fanatic

What to do in Ipoh? Visit some caves and temples, jungle trekking, walk around Ipoh oldtown, eat beansprouts chicken (芽菜雞), enjoy dim sum (點心) in the dim sum street, etc..  Who would have thought of visiting a tea museum. It is the newly opened Ho Yan Hor (何人可) herbal tea museum, a made-in-Malaysia tea that even Malaysians nowadays rarely know. It is the tea I deeply attached to, so attached that at one point it became almost an addiction and I couldn't live through a day without a taste of it.

My family and I were heading down to KL. We thought it would be a good idea to stop by in Ipoh to catch the last plates of dim sum eventhough it was almost noon already. Just as predicted, we were too late and our main target, liu sha bao (流沙包), was already sold out. Choices left weren't many, yet the quality was still way better than what we could get in Penang. After that, we had a walk at the famous, or should I say the infamous Concubine Street. And then fairly abruptly, at the end of the street, here appeared the three magical words : Ho Yan Hor.

Owh my god! It is Ho Yan Hor!

Magical was an understatement. It seriously felt like the reality was becoming more real than ever. A sudden jump from 8mm to IMAX, I was going to explode if I withheld my joy any further. It was a tea whose taste I knew so well but never bothered to search for its origin. And now it just presented itself to me, in a serendipitous fashion. It was as if I was an ancient Egyptian relying on the Nile for my whole life and finally I was standing in front of Lake Victoria, the life source of the entire civilization.

My history with Ho Yan Hor may be way earlier than I know but the addiction had started when I was in the NS (National Service) camp. Due to constant sun exposure and Malay spicy food, my body was always Yang or "heatiness" overload. Ho Yan Hor helped me to balance out this effect. Soon enough, I got so used to the taste to a point that some sort of placebo phenomenon kicking in, making me feel uncomfortable if I didn't drink Ho Yan Hor for a long time. That is why I call it an addiction. Only recently that I stop that habit because I feel I need to stop it. I believe any addiction is bad eventhough the tea means no harm if consumed frequently.

So back to the museum. Of course we took a tour inside. It was the place where Ho Kai Cheong (何繼昌) first came out with the recipe of Ho Yan Hor. The museum was relatively small and still new, not exactly a touristic place yet. The staff was super nice and spoke fluent English as well. I loved everything in the museum because everything was nostalgic. I was like a child in the Charlie's chocolate factory, asking my mom to take photo of me with this and that and everything.

Every time I go back to Malaysia, the only thing I always bring back to France with me is Ho Yan Hor. I can live without laksa or char kuey teow or nasi lemak but I can't live without Ho Yan Hor, or at least a taste of it from time to time. Huo Yuan Jia (霍元甲) said : appreaciating tea depends on your state of mind. Ho Yan Hor is my favorite because of the memories it brings along. It is the irreplaceable taste that binds me to my root and brings my mind back to home.

Ho Yan Hor packaging designs through the years  

Ho Kai Cheong's statue

sitting at where he used to sit

the painting at the entrance of the museum 

an old Ho Yan Hor poster

an antique cupboard

an antique kitchen

a tourist

      

New Age is the default setting

I think no one should listen to just one genre of music. Especially those who have internet access, we have no excuse to not explore something outside of pop music. Recently, I was so into Slipknot after watching one of the Finebros' reaction video. Heavy metal is often related to violence, noise and devil. Me personally, I find it quite cathartic. I always want to go to crazy heavy metal concert and experience what a mosh pit is like while I am still young. Anyway after a week of heavy listening, I can kinda feel some irreversible damage to my eardrum though. 

I do listen to a lot of different genres. But certainly not all of them because there are just too many different genres. I listen to for example, a bit of classical, a bit of electronic, a bit of indie, a bit of emo love songs and many more that I don't really know how to categorize. No matter how much I love to explore and try to understand the appeal of a certain genre, I always find myself back to one genre -- New Age. You can call it my default genre. It had heavily influenced my teenage years. During those years, I listened to a lot of songs of this genre. Kitaro, Yanni, Deep Forest, Enya, especially Enya. Don't watch her music videos though. I find most of them are trying too hard to be poetic.

I once wrote how music can conserve memories. Enya's songs for me, they always brings me back to the days in my secondary school years when I used to wake up super early to contemplate Gunung Jerai at the balcony. While Kitaro, more specifically Koi, always reminds me of the first time listen to Kitaro's performance live. That was during the weekend in the middle of SPM (Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia) and my mom and I went to Genting Highland for his concert anyway. Listening to Koi live was one of those rare moments when good music gives me goosebumps. I still remember vividly that late night after the concert, we were hungry and running low on money. We had to chew on hard cold cup noodles because I misjudged the temperature of the hot water. It sounds terrible but it is one sweet memory.

Provenance

The result of some feelings, some ideas, a sunny weekend and a handphone camera.