8/24

While watching Kobe jerseys retirement, the feelings are rushing through, insuppressible. To the point that I have to sit down quietly and write them all down here. I had watched him for my entire younger years. His retirement, his absence on the court, is a reminder to me that I am no longer that angsty teenager. And that just evokes so much emotions.

I once wrote about the Kobe and MJ comparison and I said that once Kobe announced his retirement, part of me would die. Part of me did die during his last game against the Jazz if you want to know the truth. When "Mamba out!", I stood up by instinct, and saluted him, as one of the all time greats, a remarkable human, a hero.

His absence on the court is felt. One year plus after his retirement, I am still not adapted to the fact that he is no longer a NBA player. Everyday I open up the NBA highlight reel, I still expect to see Kobe on the top 10 plays of the day. His distinct movement through the court, his skill set, and his iconic jump shot. I miss them all, a lot.

He is the embodiment of hard work to me. Just like his jersey numbers, he always take a step further than everyone, instead of working 24/7, he works 24/8. Talent means very little. Only perseverance matters. Everyone can be the GOAT if you work hard enough, want hard enough. Mamba spirit will forever stay with me as part of my inner power. With mamba spirit, I am no longer afraid of hardship. With mamba spirit, every hardship is an opportunity.

Ctrl + Z incident

It was a typical afternoon. I was on the verge of completing my backlog, just needed a few more compilation checks before pushing my work up to the server and ready to be merged into the main branch. But just before the final check, the server hung. Then one of my colleagues came to me. "What the heck you did?! Kill some of your processes now, the server hangs because of you!" he said. Only then I realized all the processes I thought I'd killed were not killed but suspended instead. I "ctrl+z" instead of "ctrl+c" them, accidentally blocked all the resources on the servers, causing an embarrassing mistake.

My AZERTY keyboard

That was a few months ago. I have to admit that at that time, I had not used bash on daily basis for quite awhile, some shortcut keys were needed to be refreshed. I kinda forgot about the "ctrl+c". To kill a process, I only remembered the finger motion : ring finger on the ctrl key and index finger on one of the keys at the bottom row of the keyboard. That "ctrl+z" mistake, it was really my fault. But it was so embarrassing and like any human would, I want to blame other things and deny it entirely. Rather than admit the mistake, I blame it on the keyboard's layout. After years in France, I was so used to AZERTY keyboard. Only if it was an AZERTY keyboard, I would not have made that mistake because the 'z' key would have been on the top row instead of the bottom row as the 'c' key. The finger motion of "ctrl+z" would have been drastically different than "ctrl+c".

This could be a good idea for an episode of What The Fuck France because AZERTY layout is a very French thing. In a world where English is dominating so as the QWERTY layout, AZERTY still persists just like the French culture. Although QWERTY is very well documented, normally credited to Christopher Latham Sholes, the exact origin of AZERTY is obscure. Delphine Gardey even did an in-depth investigation on the history of keyboard layout in France but the origin of AZERTY remains unknown.

The thing about AZERTY is it doesn't even make sense. It doesn't make typing in French any easier and there exists a considerable number of French who express their distaste for it. French could have used a QWERTY layout with extra accent keys like the Swiss francophones and the Quebecois do. The only reason of its existence is the power of habit. But who the hell came up with this idea first. With my understanding of the French, I come up with a theory and it is simple: because the French doesn't like the English. There is no lacking of history and articles to prove that English and French are rivalries since like ever. So when QWERTY keyboard came into the typewriter market in France, I would imagine a bunch of trolls slightly modified the QWERTY into AZERTY and claimed it was French made and therefore it was better. Then the general public of France just assumed it was true because it sounded true and used it ever since. In conclusion, AZERTY is different for the sake of being different.

When I was first introduced to AZERTY, it was a pain in the ass since I was from an anglophone country. But after years of AZERTY, I am back and I have to re-adapt to QWERTY again. Nowadays, I still need some thought process whenever I need an 'A', or a 'M', or a full stop. One thing I have to acknowledge is that typing number is certainly a bliss when switching back to QWERTY because the extra "shift" key is not needed. 

A Misunderstood Malaysia National Dish - Chicken Chop

Malaysia just celebrated its 60th birthday yesterday. 60 might not be significant to many but it is to Chinese. By tradition, Chinese only celebrates birthday from 60 years old onwards. 60 is an important point in life because if you live until 60, you have lived through a full cycle of Chinese calendar. Through these 60 years, I thought : what connects Malaysians better than anything else? Food. Therefore in honour of our 60th Hari Merdeka (Independence Day), I would like to inaugurate one very-well known dish but we often don't relate it to Malaysia, as part of the diverse Malaysian cuisine -- chicken chop.

We Malaysians disagree on many things but when it comes to food, nobody argues. We love our food, we are proud of our food. When asked what a Malaysian misses the most about Malaysia while traveling abroad, food is almost always the answer. Talking about Malaysian food, nasi lemak, roti canai, bak kut teh, laksa, rojak, etc. are the typical examples that pops up in people's mind. But who would have thought that chicken chop is actually Malaysian.

The obvious reason why we never think of chicken chop as Malaysian is because it is labeled as Western food. This labeling is so deeply rooted that here in Malaysia, chicken chop is the synonym of Western food. Together with fish and chips and burgers, they became the representation of the entire Western cuisine. During my years in France, my grandma always worried about what I ate. She always asked me if I ate chicken chop and burgers everyday with a look of concern. This just shows that chicken chop has became a stereotype of ang mo. 

"I grew up automatically linking Western cuisine with chicken chop, then fish and chips, then steak, then lamb, then pasta. It wasn't till I was much older when I realized that hey, no one outside of Malaysia or Singapore knows what the heck a chicken chop is! It is not even to be found on Wikipedia!!!"   -- suanie --

Chicken chop has its root from Hainanese immigrants and our British colonial past. Under British ruling, Hainanese owned many kopitiams and British preferred meat and potatoes, so there born chicken chop served in kopitiams. That is why I always correct people when they call chicken chop as Western food. It should have been classified as Malaysian Hainanese food.

"Despite the British inspiration, it's difficult to track down the chicken chop in Western countries - or indeed in China. ... It was purely created to cater to the target audience, in this case, the Mat Sallehs."   -- Poskod --

To me, one prominent feature of chicken chop that separates itself from other chicken steak from the West is the sauce, or should I say over-abundance of sauce. The stress is on the over-abundance and not the sauce because the authentic chicken chop, the real deal, is flooded with some kind of sauce, whether it is mushroom sauce, onion gravy, or black pepper sauce.

I notice this important feature of chicken chop through my dad. I introduced to him many European dishes while we were traveling in Europe a few years back. One complain about the food kept coming back : the dishes were too dry. Not until I find out what so special about the local chicken chop do I understand the complain. Like my grandma, my dad's mental image of Western food is still stuck at chicken chop. So he instinctively assumes every Western dish should be the same, drenched with sauce.

Don't call chicken chop as Western food anymore. Its root is here, here in Malaysia. It represents our British colonial past, an evolving artifact of our history. It should be mentioned together with nasi lemak and peers as Malaysian cuisine.

I have made fire!

I always want to involve in the fire making in every BBQ party, even though I know for sure I will sweat like a pig through the process of it. I am not sure why people say it is an essential skill of every manly man but I want to build fire because I am having fun out of it.

I learnt fire making during my time as a Pertahanan Awam cadet, a government body similar as 911 service in the US or 112 in Europe. During that time, my friends and I used to frequently compete with each other, to see who could build a fire the fastest, with only 3 matches, a knife and wood supply. Ahh... good old times! I don't remember when I made my first fire. But since then for every fire I build, I always have the same feeling swelling inside me, the same feeling when you had created something great, when you are empowered. In control. Since we were young, adults always told us that fire was dangerous. Yes it is. But when once you'd learnt how to make fire and control it, you will feel your existence as real as never before.

I have made fire!

This feeling is never exhibited more perfectly on the big screen than the movie Cast Away. I always laugh during the scene in which Tom Hanks' character struggles so much but persists, and successfully make a fire in the end. I laugh because it is so true. Ever since, I quote his line every time I make a fire : Yeah! Look what I have created! I have made fire! I ... have made fire!

Of course in Tom Hanks' position, a survival life-and-death situation, fire is really important for obvious reasons : warmth, lighting, protection against wild animals, to cook food, etc.. One more but mostly neglected reason is morale boosting, as showcased in Cast Away. I first heard of it in Bear Grylls' TV show, Man VS Wild. Sit in front of a bond fire and gaze at the flame is capable to help one through the most dire situation as I have experienced it multiple times during my ultrarunning adventures. After spending hours and hours at night through kilometers of trail in the cold windy mountains, tired, down. But after a few minutes of therapy by the bond fire at pit stop, I was always able to keep going again.

From the classical elements of the Ancient Greece to the Chinese Wu Xing, there is no coincidence that people in the past assume fire is one of the basic elements forming the world around us, although we now know that fire is not element at all but a chemical process. Nevertheless, there is just something about fire, something pure and captivating. Aang in The Last Airbender, pretty much sums up what fire is about and I quote : 

All this time, I thought firebending was destruction. ... But now I know what it really is. It's energy and life. 

That is why there used to be people worshiping fire. That is why eternal flames are still used to commemorate of historic events. Fire is awesome. Making fire is awesome. Undoubtedly dangerous but awesome because it's energy and life. 

Or may be deep down I am a pyromaniac.

Raja Uda Tom Yum Mee Trend

If you ask me recommend what to eat in Raja Uda, I would probably say tom yum mee. There are a few things in abundance in Raja Uda. One is Chinese temple, from the oldest Leng Eng Seah Temple, the famous Tow Boo Kong, to the under-construction, more grandiose, new Simpah Kuan Im Teng Temple. Many more smaller lesser known temples are spread out the whole stretch of Raja Uda.

The second thing in abundance must be tom yum mee stall. It wasn't the case a decade ago though. I think there used to be only the Ju Heng Tom Yum, and then the Kwong Hwa Tom Yum. Rumour says the owner of Kwong Hwa Tom Yum used to work together with Ju Heng. For reason unknown (I think most probably because of profit splitting problem), the partnership was broken. Nowadays, we can call it a rivalry between them. Customers are divided into two camps, arguing which tastes the best. 

Trend is a funny thing. It comes out of nowhere and then takes the world around you by storm. Like fidget spinner, it is impossible to pin point the time or the event that triggered the craze. All I notice is started a few years ago, more and more tom yum mee stalls popping out around Raja Uda, to the point of having its own franchise (Liang Khee Tomyum). Even though each stall has its own taste, they all in fact are just ever slightly different from each other. Most importantly they are not even authentic. However inauthentic doesn't mean bad taste or whatever. I always consider myself to be not choosy on the food I eat, so they all taste good to me. It's just that I always wonder why it is a trend. Having a bowl of tom yum mee as supper has become a "à la mode" thing to do now. Food blogs write about it, young people and outstation hipsters come here to have a taste of it and hastag it for bragging rights.

Only one reason I can muster to explain the popularity of tom yum mee is the offer of choice and customization. These tom yum mee stalls are often buffet-styled, which means you pick your favorites from an array of ingredients, pick your noodle type or porridge if you fancy, then they cook all of them in the tom yum soup base for you. In a time when we all desire to put our initials on everything we own and has everything customized to our taste, this style of tom yum mee stall offer just that : customization. You can have your special bowl of tom yum mee with exactly 3 fish nuggets, 3 fish balls, maggi noodles, and an egg, and claim it as the best combination ever. It is not objectively the best but the best because it is your choice. If you are newbie in this extravaganza, then you have the chance to slowly fine tune your combination to craft your personal taste, because order a simple regular bowl of noodle soup is just the "lame" thing to do.

Whenever I tell people I live in Raja Uda, they always ask me if I know about them or which one I prefer : Ju Heng or  Kwong Hwa. The thing is I live in Raja Uda for more than a decade now but I had never tried either before. So every time I was asked the same question, the reaction I got was : are you serious?! Just recently I finally succumbed to the peer pressure and tried both tom yum mee. Finally, I can call myself a true "Raja Uda Lang" (people of Raja Uda).