My Alfa and I

Picture from Wikimedia Commons

[Updated, more grammatically conventional version.]

My first set of wheels was an Alfa Romeo 33. I had always been enamoured with Italian cars for their racing history, gorgeous styling and the wonderful sound of their engines. Well, not all Italian cars, actually. I thought Ferraris to be fatally wounded by their price – they may be wonderful machines, but too often they become symbols (or accessories) of wealth and power, or wee willy compensators.

Alfas, on the other hand, were a working man’s Ferrari. Sure, you can get some boy racers from the marque, but Alfa Romeo also produced saloon cars that were often the refuge for a regular guy on a budget and with family to support, but with a stirring in their soul for some romance on the road. Owning the early Alfas was certainly a labour of love and required infinite patience, for it started to rust the moment it left the factory, and you were liable to set off the windshield wipers when you flipped the signal stalk, so clueless were the Italians when it came to electrical stuff.

But when you stepped on the accelerator, the sweet sound of the boxer engine transported one away from the bills waiting to be paid, grocery shopping that needed to be done, or kids that needed to be picked up from day-care. The throaty roar was a product of necessity – Alfas, like other Italian makes, were constructed to tackle the hilly terrain with aplomb, and for that you needed incredible grip and lots of low down torque to whizz up those steep, bendy climbs.

My midnight blue, 1.7-litre 33 was already seven years’ old when I laid eyes on it. It belonged to a colleague, who was way over his head juggling a mortgage, car repayments, wife, kids and girlfriend on a salary that could realistically handle only three of the above. I tried to temper my glee when he handed me the keys, aware of the pain he must have been going through in having to give up this automotive mistress of his… but, looking back, I guess I didn’t try very hard, to be honest.

The 33 always brought a smile to my face when I got behind the wheel.


It was quick, nimble, and a whole lot of fun to motor around town and across the country. It was also the car in which J and I went for many long drives, talking and sharing our lives, or just listening to music in silence as the cool night slipped by.

The good times were not to last, though. On its 10th year, just months before I would have had to give it up as I was leaving for the US, the 33 vowed not to accept the ignominy of a wrecker’s ball, and decided to go out on her own terms - in a blaze of glory.

One morning, on my way to work, a driver behind me started flashing his headlights furiously. What (TF), I wondered, was the idiot doing? I was just toodling along, minding my own business, and this guy wants to Schumacher me in heavy traffic? It took a couple of seconds before I realised what was happening. Smoke was coming out of the engine compartment, and it had been escaping under the car to the back for all to see, except me.

I pulled quickly to the side, by which time the first flames were beginning to lick out of the front. I managed to save my bag and laptop, and sat on the grass verge in a daze watching part of my life go up in smoke.

Everything else that came after – repairs, insurance and all the nitty-gritty death arrangements – went by in a blur. I never did say a proper goodbye and was not not even collected enough to take pictures or pull out a badge for keepsakes.

Thankfully, John (who owned a Lancia at one time, so he was entirely sympathetic) was at the funeral and had a camera handy. And when he sent me these pictures recently, it gave me a chance for closure, seven years on.


So, goodbye, my 33. RIP.

Reality TV at the US embassy

[Warning: long post, no pictures, no food.]

You learn a lot, just by sitting and listening.

I had brought a book with me when I went to the US embassy for my visa interview last week. It was clearly stated on the website that it was going to be a long-drawn out process, and I didn’t want to be caught with nothing to do and staring aimlessly (and suspiciously) all over the place.

First, there is the hassle of queuing up and getting through security checkpoints. Yes, there are two checkpoints, less than 20 metres apart, demonstrating either (1) the embassy’s total lack of confidence in the first checkpoint; or (2) its faith in the ability of Malaysians to magically sprout dangerous materials in the 20 second walk from one checkpoint to the other; or (3) the dogged and bureaucratic adherence to recommendations by an overpaid security consultant firm helmed by the husband of the second cousin of a Senior Government Official in charge of worldwide embassy security (Malaysians can totally identify with the third scenario).

Once I jumped though the hoops, parted the curtains and entered the holy of holies – the Waiting Room – out came the book, which was a welcome distraction. After two chapters, I was commanded into the Interview Room, where my fingerprints were taken and I was asked to hold a black board up to my chin with my name scrawled on it in white chalk (okay, that last bit was from CSI).

I was then told to wait with 30 others to be called to any one of the four counters to be interviewed. So I settled into a chair and broke out the book, but before I could finish the first sentence of the new chapter, an American voice boomed out (with the aid of amplification) through one of the counters:

“How much do you earn?”

I stopped reading.

“Fourteen-five,” a short man in a dark blue suit favoured by senior government servant-types said confidently.

Hmm, doing well for yourself, Tuan Pengarah*, I thought. He had to speak up too, since a thick glass wall separated him from his interviewer, and Tuan Pengarah did not have the help of a microphone to make himself heard across the partition. I realised that in the small cramped room, we were all going to be privy to some of the more interesting conversations in Malaysia (well, technically, on an island of US soil in Malaysia). No secrets here!

*Honourable Director

There were all sorts of folks in the room – tourists, businesswomen/men, and students mainly. Most of the interviews were short (10 minutes) but the questions were pointed and designed to sniff out fake stories.

One lady was a middle manager on the way to the US to support some clients. Perky, confident, voluble and very well versed in business-jargon gobbledegook, she was asked what she would be doing, exactly, in the US.

“Well, [deep breath] oursupportsysteminvolvesmeetingoutclient’sneedsbyand
thefirsthtingwe’redoingistohavestrategicmeetingtoidentifythedirectionofthe
companyandhowwecanbettersupplytheupstreamservicesintheirsecondphase
productionplanandthemarketingchallengesthatare…”

“Okay, okay,” interrupted the frazzled Mr. Young Interviewer, after three minutes of this soliloquy that seemed to be gaining speed instead of coming to a resolution. “You haven’t said what you’ll be doing, exactly.”

“Well, [deep breath] weprovidetheplanningsourcingandorganisationalcapabilitiesforthisspecific
industryandmostofourclientsfinditmuchmorecosteffectivetooutsource
thesepartsoftheiroperationeveniftheyareintheUSandweareinMalaysia
becausewehavealonghistoryandtrackrecordof…”

“How much do you earn?” Mr. Young Interviewer apparently has given up.

Perky Manager’s voice drops, oh, four decibels, as she tries, vainly, to hide personal details (she’s married, has three kids, has no relatives in the US, her parents are retired, she went to school in Malaysia) from the rest of us. “Four thousand five,” she almost whispers.

Another middle manager-type, this time from a technical background, let on that he earned eight-plus. Moral of the story? If you don’t qualify under affirmative action policies that open doors to cushy civil service jobs, getting an engineering degree is better than a business degree in the long run!

One elderly Malay Malaysian couple was applying for a visa to attend their son’s graduation. “My wife doesn’t speak much English,” Malay Gentleman told Mr. Older Interviewer, who chatted with them in a jocular fashion. He even cracked a joke at the end, to which Malay Lady tittered a little.

“So, you do understand English, huh?” smiled Mr. Older Interviewer. “You’re pulling my leg here. Well, I’m sure you’ll understand this phrase – ‘Your visa’s been approved.’ Have a good day.” That was nice of him.

Students get different treatments depending on which schools they got into. When I applied for an earlier visa many years back, one meek Chinese Malaysian girl who was going to Ohio State got such a long grilling that she almost crumbled before our very eyes. This time round, another young Chinese Malaysian lass underwent the same sort of interrogation. Her crime? Having a university in Iowa accept her.

Why Iowa? What’s the advantage of studying there? Are you going to return when you graduate? How are your working-class parents going to pay for it? Are you sure you won’t spend more time working than studying? Are you going to return home? Where else did you apply? Any other acceptances? Why not study locally? Are you going to return home?

It was sad thing to witness. This is reality TV, but with real consequences, not hammed up acting for TV cameras. Many such parents who don’t earn a lot of money bust their guts to send their kids overseas because local university education is not an option due to the quota system. Some of these kids are from rural areas and being interrogated by a stern American bent on sniffing out potential overstayers must have been a harrowing experience. Not all of them get their visas approved. It’s so different if your parents are well to do, give you a good education, and you get accepted into one of the Ivies.

There was one preppy Chinese Malaysian lady who spoke with a distinct English accent, who had an English husband, and who obviously has lived abroad for some time. She wanted to visit a friend in Texas.

“How do you know the friend?” asked Another Young Interviewer.

“Through the internet,” she replied.

Oh no, I thought. Totally wrong answer. Internet friendships are so no-no. It just smells of mail-order brides. Didn’t matter that you spoke with a posh accent and have a foreign husband – you’re going to get the fifth degree. And so she did, getting the grilling that all could see was coming (When did she marry? How did she meet her husband? Any kids? Job? Salary? Who is this friend? Any pictures? And on and on and on.)

Exasperated, she snapped: “Well, I could have told you we went to school together and you would have been none the wiser.” Oooh, spunky!!! And I think she got the visa.

You couldn’t help but be self-conscious, overhearing all these conversations. But surprisingly, once it got to my turn, I ended up totally focused on the interview and forgot that everyone could hear my answers. Perhaps it is because you face the interviewer and your back is to the rest of the room, so you don’t see them. Maybe it’s because of the way the panels on your left and right cushion your voice around you, so that it sounds intimate, instead of an echo that wafts across the room. Anyway, by the time my interview was over and I turned around, I realised the room had thinned considerably, so I didn’t have a full house for Episode #274 of My Life.

The interview itself went smoothly. Madam Interviewer was extremely courteous, and even worked with me when we realised I didn’t bring one document – she asked me a series of questions to satisfy that those conditions were met.

As I left the air-conditioned embassy and walked into the spiky, muggy mid-afternoon KL air, I clutched my visa approval thankfully and realised that even though I didn’t make much progress beyond the first line of Chapter 3 of my book, I was much the wiser about the secret lives (and salaries) of a small group of my compatriots.

Six word memoir

Tom couldn’t have chosen a worse time to tag me to write a six-word memoir. He hit me on what could possibly be the worse Monday of MY LIFE (okay, maybe the 21st century, or maybe just this year) – my laptop died on me, leaving me hanging for a couple of days wondering if the hard drive survived the meltdown; and I came down with the mother of all flus.

So my six-word memoir could have been “Damn you, motherboard and nasty bugs.”

Anyway, the memoir rules are…

1) Write your own six-word memoir
2) Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you want
3) Link to the person that tagged you in your post, and to the original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere
4) Tag at least five more blogs with links
5) Leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

Had a hard time with this, not with coming up with six words but with something that seemed representative of a life lived (or being lived). I thought of generic pearls that I try to go by – “Aim for perfection; prepare for failure” but they seem too generic in a bumper-sticker, Hallmark-ish way.

Many combinations reflect concerns of specific life periods. “Renew marriage licences every seven years” comes from a less optimistic period of me and my friends’ lives, and reflects a belief that marriages would have a better survival rate if the piece of paper that binds two people together automatically lapsed after a certain period, forcing the couple to recommit their lives again if they wish to remain legally together (the Fraternity of Divorce Lawyers threatened to take out a contract on my life if I promoted this idea).

Love is often defined in grand gestures – dying on the cross for Everyone; jumping in the path of a bullet for family; giving up an organ; getting down on your knees with a 12-K diamond ring; throwing down your Armani coat on a puddle for the lady; buying 12 dozen roses on Valentine’s Day. But my parents taught me a different lesson about love, and they did it not by sitting me down and giving me A Big Lecture, but through their un-showy, humble actions. Love is “Serving in small ways, every day.”

Every mention of Dungeness crabs, Point Reyes, Alice Waters, the Giants, Frog Hollow Farm peaches sends me into the depths of homesickness. Is “I miss Half Moon Bay sunsets” a six word memoir?


But being back home with family has been a truly wonderful experience, especially gastronomically, as this blog stands witness to. So, my half a dozen-word summation of all that my life on earth has stood for, till this very day, and for many more to come, is:

“I’m only marking time between meals.”

Tagging: nomadicsonglines, JJ, kashgaria and John.

Blanket coverage

Earlier this week, Mum spent a whole day mending this blanket…


… a handmade quilt, that I had been using since I don’t know how long ago. As you can tell, it is made up of scraps of cloth cut into triangles. Two triangles each from two pieces of cloth make up a square. Mum would use the leftovers after making clothes for her four children, or would get odds and ends from cloth shops. She also had to find large enough pieces to make the borders (see pix below) as well as the base. All of us used these blankets, and I seem to have inherited most of them – there are four in my room.


Mum had to repair this blanket because quite a number of the triangles were torn or had disappeared, from some 30 years or more of usage. If you look at the first picture, you can spot a few obviously new-ish looking pieces – in terms of design and age – that seem a bit out of place, post-restoration.

These blankets bring me back to an earlier time when our family got by on Dad’s meagre salary. We ate simply at home; we had nothing beyond the bare necessities; there was no pocket money for me in my first years of schooling, and all of my clothes were made by Mum. She was and is an intelligent woman, who if born today, would have excelled in school and made a name for herself in whatever profession she chose. But she lived during a time when women were given little or no education, and were expected to master the role of wife and mother – the highest achievement they could attain. Thus, Mum spent her day running the household – sewing clothes, cooking, cleaning, managing the finances and so on.

Sis recently revealed that she was very sad when termites ate her stash of Mum’s quilted blankets. These quilts are our own little family heirloom and very treasured because we have few objects left from those days. My practical and unsentimental parents have discarded many of the old stuff because we no longer use them and they have become teen ter, Hokkien for “in the way”.


So, I have packed away that old blanket of mine, and am using another of Mum’s creations – smaller and of newer vintage (above).

Thanks, Mum, for everything.

Silence, and then it begins again…

In this dog eat dog world of a zillion voices and opinions struggling to be heard and to be different online, one quickly becomes irrelevant unless one adheres to the three cardinal rules of blogging – update, update and update. Every day, at the very least, or, if you fancy yourself as citizen journalist, every hour or with every new development in a big story.

So, my 20 days of silence has been an eternity. But, you know, I haven’t been lying on the beach, sun tan lotion on my side, Corona in hand, admiring the sunset.

Life trotted along and things (though rarely, thankfully, shit) happened – some of them personally significant, others of social, political and national interest that touched me in unexpected ways.

Two developments have been gobbling up the hours and minutes of the day – getting into the groove work-wise, and making a concerted effort to get some exercise into my life by joining a gym and embarking on a programme. The second new thing required an initial boost to get over procrastination (one needs to just do it and stop making %&*&%$^ excuses), but the payback has been almost immediate – better energy levels, better sleeping patterns.

Getting into a work groove was as much a relief as it was necessary, since in the months before, I have alternated between being distracted (family, travelling, friends, this and that stuff) and depressed (not getting significant work done).

But now, it’s all good, it’s all chillin’.

First up (or down, since you have to read below), is the Bearded Warrior of Kelantan, and below that, getting crabby and Lucky.