The World of Tai Tai

The grape vine planted by my Principal has finally yielded fruit. The three grapes on the trellis are hardly discernible by naked eye.  They look like three little balls of jade amidst a patchwork of veiny green leaves and broken bits of the sky and the red roof of an opposite building within the gaps. How precious they are in this type of rarity - since grapes are not native to our country. Every teacher and student are fascinated by the miraculous sight, and every day you can see them counting the smattering of the fruit, their eyes narrowed into slits against the piercing rays of sunlight.

Wearing a tie is a sort of masochistic joy, similar to having a noose constricted around your neck, and the self-torture will become more pronounced with the doing up of the top button of your shirt, plus the grip of the cuffs around your wrists. You want to roll them up, but fear being censured for sloppiness. The presence of a coat over your body makes you feel like walking under a yoke, smart-looking but a nuisance! The discomfort doubles with the stuffy trousers that make sweat flow like a river down your legs, exacerbated by the wearing of socks within the confines of a pair of leather shoes, which completes your powerlessness in harness.

For nearly twenty years he has been branded as a teacher who is the least proficient in English. It does not kill his spirits but motivates him to work harder to improve his grasp of the language. He reads avidly and at one stage of his life joined creative writing workshops, which had benefited him a lot. He even did well in Cambridge Placement Test, an English proficiency test for all Malaysian English teachers and received a handsome sum of incentive. Despite his progress, people still pinpoint him as the worst English teacher around by heaping unfounded accusations of incompetent teaching on him. He does not care a hoot about them. He knows how far his English has progressed, and how good the proficiency of all his naysayers is.

Began the day only in mid morning with a simple meal of Pan Mee and a cup of milk tea. Continued my perusal of Janet Frame's 'An Angel At My Table' but found it getting more and more boring. Perhaps I hadn't come to the climax yet. Called one man after the other to cut the tall grass around my house but none of them could make it. Fell into a deep sleep and was called awake by Dad, who poked his head around the door. Had dinner at his house - a delicious meal of steamed chicken and veg soup. Returned home at around six, was itching to cook and whipped up Pork in Tamarind sauce, the same dish that I had cooked two weeks ago. Would bring it to Papa's house the next day. The aroma filled everywhere and I had to air the house by opening all the windows and spraying fabric freshener to all the curtains. Within minutes, the air was bestirred with mosquitoes and my insecticide spray solved the problem. The outcome? I launched into a sneezing fit. Would r...

Several weeks ago at school, I was bombarded for teaching wrong English. Many students reacted negatively towards a sentence I wrote on the blackboard. It was 'Taylor was more disposed to risk taking'. A student said, 'Mr. Lo, doesn't 'disposed' mean 'thrown?' Calmly, I explained that it meant 'an inclination to do something' in that context. The student seemed unhappy and sat down sulkily. But during recess, I was called into my Head of Department's cubicle and she censured me for teaching wrongly in that class.  Obviously, the student had complained to her about my use of that word.  I kept my cool and explained the meaning, but the Head of Department said, 'I've taught English for twenty eight years but I've never heard t hat the word 'dispose' can be used that way.'               'If you don't believe,' I said. 'You can look up its meaning in the dictionary'. The Head of Department smirked and...

Cousin Wong Ping Ping's debut novel 'The Life Of A Banana' was longlisted for the prestigious Baileys Women's Prize. Many rounds of congratulations to her. A friend once told me that her novel would not go far, but her words have no effect on my cousin's writing. It is no easy feat for Asian writers to receive such an honour.

I cooked the Peranakan dish this afternoon. The following is the recipe: 1 kg Pork Belly -cut into large chunks, and marinated with fish sauce 6 shallots - pounded Candlenuts - pounded 2 Lemon grass - bruised Shrimp paste - pounded Tamarind pulp - mixed with 300ml water Red chilies - halved and deseeded 2 tbsp Tauchu - mashed Method 1. Saute pounded ingredients until aromatic, followed by lemon grass.  2. Add Tauchu, and continue to cook for a minute or two. 3. Toss pork into pan and brown it for six to ten minutes. 4. Add chilies. 5. Fill pan with tamarind juice, salt and sugar to taste, and simmer for one and a half hours. 6. Serve hot with white rice.

River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter Hessler My rating: 4 of 5 stars The book tells of Hessler's experience as a peace corps English Language teacher at a college in Fuling, a remote Sichuan town in China. It was a fascinating read as Hessler was ruthlessly honest in sharing his first-hand encounter with a culture totally beyond his comprehension. All of Hessler's joy and frustrations were shown in his vivid portrayal of how he was blown away by the inunda tion of newness as well as how unremitting he was in the struggle to strengthen his tenuous ties with the locals. The book also touches on the hard-earned living of the locals with an unbiased view, exposing their hardships in coping with rapid changes and how the writer associated himself with them. The stark reality of different lives in this book evokes an overwhelming sense of poignancy and empathy in me as a reader. As a Chinese, I found some of the locals' quirkiness described in this bo...