இ SàiWēng shī mǎ 塞翁失馬

Just one last single lonely sheet of calendar left hanging on the wall for Year 2011 with only a teeny weeny little block to be crossed out before we blast off Year 2012 when the clock strikes at midnight. Reflecting over the months, life on the overall is like a roller coaster ride with ups and downs constantly in a state of flux. Congratz to those who lived life to their fullest meeting your desired achievements and for some not faring too well please do not despair. Every cloud has a silver lining @ 天無絕人之路 tiān wú jué rén zhīlù. Ending 2011 with an idiom hopefully it may strike a chord.

 塞翁失馬;焉知非福 pinyin:*SàiWēng shī mǎ;  yān zhī fēi fú* Sài Wēng lost his horse, is it [mis]fortune? (Idiom)

There is this old man called SàiWēng 塞翁, staying at the border of the northern frontier of China, who raised horses for a living. Out of the unexpected his prized horse ran away into the nearby mountains. On hearing this bad news, the neighbours came to offer moral support to comfort him. He surprised them by not getting upset at all and said "Perhaps this may turn out to be a good thing". Sure enough a few days later his prized horse return with a wild stallion. Again news spread to the whole village with the neighbours congratulating him. This time SàiWēng replied "Perhaps this may not be such good luck after all" which puzzled the neighbours even more. The very next day his only son was eager to ride on the wild stallion. Unfortunately he was thrown off the horse, hurled a few feet into mid air. That bad landing cost him dearly who suffered a broken leg and restricted his mobility probably for months to recover. The friendly neighbours came again to console SàiWēng, who wisely responded "Perhaps this may turn out to be a good thing". Sure enough few weeks later a warlord came to town enlisting young able men for battle. A blessing in disguise for SàiWēng's son who was of no use to the army with an injured leg. Almost all the young soldiers who fought in the battle field walked the road of no return as chances of survival are slim.



Moral of the story: Life is full of changes and challenges. One has to learn to face and accept losses and not to over react to misfortunes and the same not to be overjoyed by gains or successes. Things happen for a reason.  It is not often we are as fit as a fiddle or facing shortfalls meeting our target. 人無千日好, 花無百日紅 *Pinyin: rén wú qiān rì hǎo, huā wú bǎi rì hóng* literally. people no 1000 days good (healthy), flowers no hundred days red. Which means humans do fall sick once in a while within 1000 days and flowers shall not bloom forever over hundred days. Good and bad times do not last long forever. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst ~:~ 明天會更好 @ ~:~ míngtiān huì gènghǎo:: tomorrow will be a better day.

Happy is the man who can endure the highest and lowest fortune. He who has endured such vicissitudes with equanimity has deprived misfortune of its power. ~ Seneca



Seizing this very moment to say THANK YOU to all my readers and for your invaluable and interesting comments. Wishing All A Blessed H:A:P:P:Y N:E:W Y:E:A:R 2012!!!
Orkut Graphics Scraps

Read more »

இ FELIZ NAVIDAD & HAPPY TWO JILO ONE TWO

Today is Christmas Day, it coincides with the first day of the Chinese 12th Lunar Month. In 7 days from now we shall be ushering in the New Year 2012 and in a month's time to welcome the 1st day of the 1st Lunar Month in the Year of the Dragon 龍 on 23 Jan 2012. It is the ideal time for giving and receiving with rejoice. Weeweechu a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Two Jilo One Two!

O Holy Night ~ by Rhema Marvanne, an amazing 7 year old girl singer..whoa her sweet voice just blows me away.


O holy night!
The stars are brightly shining
It is the night
Of the dear Savior's birth!
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till He appeared and the soul felt His worth
A thrill of hope
The weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks
A new and glorious morn!
Fall on your knees
Oh hear the angel voices
Oh night divine
Oh night when Christ was born
Oh night divine, oh night, oh night divine

Chains shall He break
For the slave is our brother
And in His name all oppression shall cease
Sweet hymns of joy
In grateful chorus raise we
Let all within us praise His holy name
Christ is the Lord, let ever ever praise Thee
Noël, Noël
Oh night, Oh night divine
Noël, Noël
Oh night, Oh night divine
Noël, Noël
Oh, O holy night


Click on the 'snowflake' icon at the bottom right after you start to play the video for the snow flakes to gently fall accompanying this awesome song and cover your screen background of flurry snowflakes.

Read more »

இ Scared Die People 嚇死人

This early beautiful morning heard a 'thud' sound echoing through my window followed with a loud cry by Mango from the kitchen ~ ' 嚇死人' *xià sǐ rén* lit.'scared die people'. In English we do use this phrase "scared to death" its a matter of placing the words. Bear with me for a moment while Bananaz digress with why we are quite sure to say 'die' before an exclamation mark when faced with surprises? Most common, 'Die lah I forgot to turn off the air-con at home' or 'this time sure die one my husband is gonna fly off the handle for damaging his precious car'. Sounds familiar? WhyAskWhy? Sorry no answers this round! Maybe its good to figure it out why, open up our mind to reflect why we subconsciously utter this word 'die' in almost all negativities?

Thanks for your patience let's continue with that loud thud sound. Some fellas have fallen out of bed while jumping sky high guess that's bad parenting with no proper control. If its a human being, no language barrier for Bananaz but the problem is, its a bird. What kind of language to speak to the parents to get a king size bed or build a bigger nest and to tell them off, no jumping on the bed next time? How about 'Chirpy chirpy cheep cheep'?

Yes it was our 'uninvited' guest, this wild bird might have fallen from the nest built some years ago at our laundry area, crashed onto our washing machine, bounced over a couple of feet before landing on the floor. Dashed to the kitchen when Mango asked to kindly rescue that poor bird who was lying with wings all flat out, lucky its still moving. Oh Mamma Mia, on second glance its not only one but two birds locked in each other's wings telling live story of the birds and the bees. Told Mango we better not be cruel to interrupt a loving couple who fell from cloud 9 and now in heavenly kingdom but to grab the camera on the double.

Beak to beak cheek to cheek, they just ignore us like we are transparent..

One of them said "Don't leave any love marks on my neck" [the bird do pecks on the neck haha].

Two loving birds together as one



Both remain still for couple of minutes then got up and up up and away..

Read more »

இ Hair

Hairdressing business comes in all shapes and sizes. Just recently Merryn posted her son's first hair cut at 4 years old, sitting comfortably without any tussle while his locks of hair snipped by a hairdresser. They sure have their ways to appease kids to sit still with nice toy cars and pretty smiling faces as opposed to those boring bulky barber's chair those days. SeniorsAloud captured a pixz of a street barber in India operating with merely a chair and one giant size mirror under a tree and he is in business. Autumn Belle posted a recent entry of a barber in action who can handle an A-Z hair style. We have all kinds of barbers, One-man show barber, unisex hair salon with London trained hair stylists etc. Lately there is this franchise hair salon business offering quick haircut, mushrooming all over the country charging around RM13.00 - RM15.00 (ave U$4.60). Are you as fussy as Bananaz who just don't feel good over a bad haircut or you are OK with just any hair dresser will do as long as its to your convenience?

Many may not get to see or hear of this kind of activities and skills in a hair salon anymore in our modern era. Below is Peggy, my client and also my trusted hairdresser for the past decade. Timing was not on my side as there is no traditional 'ear picking' on that day sorry no pixz for that. What the heck is 'ear-picking'? Bananaz has never tried personally before but quite curious and tempted to have a go, but Peggy forewarned me that it could be addictive. MercuryNews.com, quoted a Vietnamese resident "It brings a lot of happiness". He also likened a good ear picking to good sex and fans of ear picking have gleefully talked about 'ear-gasms'. Whoa! Any takers?

source: chineseetymology.org

Peggy then showed me her set of ear pick instrument, traditionally made from bamboo as shown in the bottom pixz. Noticed the upper pixz of a lamp with the shade? That's for shining the light into the ear to scoop the earwax out of the ear canal. The cost for ear picking is RM14.00 (U$4.50) and the haircut is RM12.00 (US3.90) an extra RM1.00 more than my last previous Indian barber.

This hair salon is situated near China Town, Petaling Street, KL and the fate of their business is in the hands of the expansion of the LRT station, right now at a limbo as they are in one of those row of shop houses subject to be demolished. (tQ HappySurfer who added there is no demolishing but to be relocated temporary). An old salon open for men only, mostly senior citizens who are their loyal regulars of more than 2 decades with not much of walk-ins or new customers. Sad to say the occupation of these 6 hairdressers can be considered pretty dim. Firstly it takes time to transfer their skills to their next generation, moreover their young ones are not interested, not lucrative to them. Secondly as the diminishing of their loyal regulars who are either dying off one after another or too old with restrictive mobility going for a haircut dampens their revenue. Eventually this skills of ear picking would be lost and over time would completely die out and no longer in practice. According to Peggy, she is committed to carry on until she drops dead or not nimble with the scissors or her eyes are failing her, then to call it quits. 

'Down Puff ' source:Wikipedia

Read more »

இ Crazy Times..

While brisk walking around our apartment one beautiful morning with Mango these round circular objects above caught my attention to see them neatly arranged in regimented order.  Is there a medical term for a person who has a phobia over direction. A friend's friend will always constantly ask for NESW direction 'where am I now'? So what can we gather from these parabola dish? Thinking..shall give you 1 minute..oh need more time OK how about 60 seconds then.   

That's right all of them faced WEST. If you need to know the compass direction when buying a house or apartment the dish would be a good guide as they need to face west for clear video streaming reception until unless Astro upgrade the MEASAT-1 satellite to face South.

Besides having great business acumen is not good enough. One must have creativity and dare to be different to stay ahead. Look at how creative the owner of this shop coming up with this eye-catching banner. Written in Malay "TAUKEH SUDAH GILA! CINCAI CINCAI JUAL!" the direct translation "Bozz Gone CRAZY!, Simply Simply Sell!" The Chinese version '平平賣/卖 píngpíng mài' meaning "Cheap Cheap Sell!" and the bozz claimed to be the Malaysia's No.1 CRAZY! Probably the bozz can see home light at the end of the tunnel.

Two colleagues were having a good belly laugh about receiving a SUV on his 63th birthday from lovely wife. Could not help myself laughing at their hilarious expressions. Incidentally a transcript from BBC Learning English "The combination of a good guffaw and exercise is said to stretch muscles and trigger endorphins - the chemical in the brain known for its feel-good effect." What is so overwhelming to receive that *sport utility vehicle* SUV? 

S - socks

U - underwear

V - viagra

[confession: the SUV is a joke but the two blokes are my colleagues, most importantly we share the laughter and be part of the laughter yoga like the saying goes, laughter is the best medicine..~;).]

Read more »

இ Back To School..

A Caucasian friend was scratching his head wondering how we Malaysian Chinese speaks English? He may be very surprised to meet someone who speaks impeccable Queen's English with no flaw. Politely he asked Bananaz do we encode our thoughts in Chinese arranged them in proper sequence, decode then speak out in English? Wow never thought it was so complex, maybe Bananaz is exaggerating here by adding salt and vinegar. No longer the case now, but as a kid we do faced that challenge of transferring Chinese data word for word to English. Bananaz neither read English newspapers *none at home only in Chinese but can only browsed at the pictures coz Bananaz can't read Chinese* nor have the habit of reading books during his childhood days therefore you can roughly guess the end result of his grade in English. Dear readers please execute excuse me and bear with my English, it would be even better if you care to point out my mistakes especially my rotten grammer would appreciate it very much.

Unlike my daughter Nikki who scored straight A's in her English through out her primary and secondary school. When during our shopping, she was less than 4 years then, would sit on the floor to read while her old folks take their own sweet time in picking the right choice of dresses. Knowing pretty well she's not allowed to read while Papa Bananaz is driving, she would hang on to that page and flipped it open when we stopped at red traffic light. To save cost would rent books from Noble Book Rental in Carnavon St, Penang where she gets her weekly supply of books. As years go by she just loved reading, even buying books with her own pocket money. Wonder what reading speed she would clocked at to finish J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter within four hours. Phew I take my hat off to her. So bottom line is kindly encourage and support your children to READ! READ! READ! more.

Take a trip down memory lane with Bananaz and back to school with half-past six Enggrish:

இAbout school fees: 
Bananaz : Sir no bring come (Hokkien ~ 'boh gia lai')沒帶來 *pinyin* méi dài lái

இTo the lavatory:
Bananaz: Teacher can go pass water? (Hokkien ~ kee pung jio)
Nikki: Can I take a leak?

இBicycle with flat tyre:
Bananaz: My bicycle no wind. (Hokkien ~ kar chia boh hong) 

இMine:Yours:Whose:
Bananaz: That red book is mine one, yours one is the black one. This green pen is whose one?

இOthers:Misc:
Bananaz: Why like that one? (Hokkien ~ aun chua aun neh kuan)

Care to add in more Chinglish? The more the merrier.

Note: Hokkien is the dominating dialect in the Northern Region though Bananaz's mother tongue is Hakka.   

We often hear this phrase or seen Bing Crosby's show about "Kids say the darndest things", kids could also DO crazy damnedest things.

Read more »