Super

It was a super hot and bright weekend. Made a new friend on Saturday at KLCC - watched a movie, had a meal, a gelato each and a good chat together. We both shopped a bit too at my favourite store.

Lots of goals scored on Saturday and thanks to the missed penalty by Cristina (yes, even superstars make mistakes y’all) and the four super goals all scored in the second half by Arsenal (as usual, they had to fight from behind), Arsenal is the New Year no. 1 after having lost the lead briefly after being the Christmas no. 1. Lots of yellow and a few red cards overall also shown on Saturday. Fàbregas really needs to rein his temper as do I. Maybe we can have a mutual New Year resolution, eh?

It’s the last day of 2007 and I wonder what I’ve done (or haven’t done) during the year. Otherwise, it feels like just another day but with more traffic towards the end of the day (trust me).

Anyway, a happy super New Year to all from Fàbregas and I!

China Fast Forward: Canton

21 December 2007

Lost In Translation

We left KL after morning prayers for Canton, or Guangzhou as it is known today. I have always wanted to let my parents experience travelling in the Golden Club class and this time, alhamdulillah, they finally did. There were a few VVIPs in there too besides us the hoi polloi. I ignored them all and concentrated on the National Geographic magazine instead and then watched Stardust.

A brief info on Guangzhou: it is located at the Pearl River Delta and Zhujiang (Pearl River) runs through the city. It is the capital of the Guangdong province and has a population of about 10 million. Legend has it that once upon a time, five celestial beings in colourful robes, each riding a coloured goat holding an ear of grain in its mouth, came down to Guangzhou. They gave the grain to the residents as present, wishing the land free from famine forever. The celestial beings then went with the wind while the five goats left behind were turned into stone. Hence, Guangzhou is also known as Sui City (the rice-ear city), the Goat City (Yangcheng) and Wuyangcheng (City of Five Goats). Guangzhou was also part of the ‘Maritime Silk Road’ that linked Southern China with India, South-East Asia, Africa and the Middle East (Huaisheng Mosque was built following these links with the Middle East).

We arrived at Baiyun International Airport, which next to Hong Kong, is a major hub in Southern China, at 1.40 pm. It was a foggy, hazy day when we landed. We had problems communicating to the cabbie but we finally managed to convey our destination to him. He did manage to take us to the said hotel but it turned out that there were two Landmark hotels in the city and we went to the wrong one! The receptionist wrote out the address in Chinese and we hopped into another cab to the right hotel located in Tianhe Central Business District.

After resting, performing and freshening up, we met up with my friend, David, and he took us to a seafood restaurant about 10 minutes’ walk away for dinner. His wife, Linda, joined us at the restaurant. After dinner, we walked my parents back to the hotel then sat in the lobby. David and Linda then showed me the directions to the metro stations and some halal eateries very near the hotel at Linhe Donglu.

22 December 2007

The Tomb

After breakfast, we walked to the nearest metro station, Tiyu Zhingxin (Tianhe Sports Centre) and took the train to Changshou Lu. We then walked past alleys and narrow roads selling jade accessories until we reached Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street. Then we walked on and on and on until we finally reached Huaisheng Mosque at 56 Guangta Road. Built in 627, this is the oldest mosque in China. Yes, there are still millions of Muslims in China. We had lunch at a Uyghur Muslim restaurant across the street from the mosque where we were served by exotic-looking people and an especially handsome, dashing, tall and exotic-looking waiter.

After a hearty lunch, we walked to Gongyuanqian metro station and took the subway to Yuexiu Gongyuan (Yuexiu Park). After walking up and down the subway (we had to use the underpass connected to the subway station to cross the busy intersection), we found a Chinese Muslim chap who very kindly showed us the way to Abu Waqqas mosque. The tomb of Abu Waqqas was located at the mosque. According to Abah, he was actually Saad ibni Abu Waqqas and he was the one responsible for spreading Islam in China. He is also of the ten whom the Prophet mentioned would go to paradise. We stopped to offer prayers and pay respect to him before heading back to the hotel.
23 December 2007

Rainy Day

It rained sometime during the night as the ground was wet when we woke up for morning prayers. We took the hotel shuttle around Tianhe and got down at the Tee Mall. Then we walked over to the Grandview Mall. There were too many stores and too few salespeople who knew English. The rain must have dampened my shopping spirits too because I didn’t spend much at all. We headed back after 1 pm and had lunch at a Uyghur Muslim restaurant near our hotel, which turned out to be a branch of the one we went to on Saturday. It started raining as we neared the restaurant and the rain continued well into late that night. Dinner was had at a Chinese Muslim restaurant two doors away from the Uyghur restaurant. They couldn’t understand a word we said and we couldn’t understand a word they said and had to rely on pictures on the wall. But boy, do the Muslims there love lamb and mutton. I had to draw a picture of a chicken (and since it had been a long while since I last drew one, I had trouble drawing it then!) to inform them that we wanted chicken instead of mutton.

24 December 2007

Bright Lights, Big City

This morning, we took the train to Hong Kong from Guangzhou Dongzhan (Guangzhou East Station). The journey took less than two hours but we had to endure immigration check before boarding the train. Funny, if you travel in Europe, you don’t need to go through all this: the border police and/or immigration will come aboard the train to inspect your passport.

We arrived into hazy Hong Kong after 11 am and found our way to the waterfront and took a ferry to Central. We actually wanted to go to the Masjid Ammar at Oi Kwan Road but after a while, we despaired of finding a tram that wasn’t cramped so we aborted the plan and instead took the MTR to Tsim Sha Tsui, yes, back to mainland. Went in search for a vegetarian restaurant at Carnarvon Road only to find it had relocated. We walked back to Nathan Road (and found the Kowloon Mosque and Islamic Centre) to find our way to another vegetarian restaurant at Hankow Road but were persuaded to have lunch at a halal Pakistani eatery instead. So instead of having dim sum as I originally planned, we had chicken biryani instead... oh well.

After lunch, we walked to the Esprit outlet at 4-6 Hankow Road. Most stores were selling winter apparel, Esprit included, so we didn’t shop much. There were loads of people doing their last-minute Christmas shopping but somehow I wasn’t in the mood. I was similarly disappointed on my first Hong Kong trip: apart from the Esprit outlet and the trip to Stanley, I didn’t find shopping in Hong Kong particularly exciting. And as I disliked the street markets, the inferior things they sold and the snobbish, arrogant stall-keepers, this time we didn’t visit any street market at all. Well, even if we had wanted to, we didn’t have much time.

We then took the underpass to Sogo Hong Kong and I left Mummy and Abah there while I walked to the waterfront. Alas, if anything, the day was becoming even hazier, so there was not much opportunity for those Kodak moments. We then took the East Rail Line train back to Hung Hom for our train journey back to Guangzhou. Dinner was had at the Chinese Muslim restaurant.

25 December 2007

Coming Home
I woke up late this morning and yet still managed a stroll around the neighbourhood with Mummy. We went to the nearby Sky Galleria and then came back to the hotel to check out. Oh, Christmas is not a public holiday in China (just like in Thailand). We reached the airport after 40 minutes (mad cabbie) and went in to the departure area immediately after checking in. We relaxed at the airport lounge before making our way to the gate. The flight took off on time and I managed to finish the National Geographic magazine and watch Stardust (yes, again! I love that movie), we landed at KLIA at 7.15 pm.

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Managed to catch glimpses of the Arsenal-Spurs derby clash. Kudos to Almunia for saving Robbie Keane’s penalty and helping make Arsenal Christmas No. 1!

Of Footwear And Footie

I didn’t pay much attention when I first heard of Blackburn at uni. I wasn’t yet supporting any footie club but even then I knew it’d be ABU*.

I did sit up and pay attention one day, however, when my friend told me that he’d bought a pair of Clarks shoes for five quids at Blackburn. See, there is this shoes outlet there. While I was happy to hear about this piece of info, I was not happy that he went without telling me. He explained that he and a few other chaps went to Blackburn to watch a footie match. OK, he was forgiven then. Still, it was all I could do to stop myself from hopping on the next train to Blackburn.

I journeyed solo to Blackburn at the first opportunity I had. One thing that I could still remember to this day as I stepped out of the train station on that cold winter day was hearing the call for prayers. Eh? It was when I strolled through the city later that I discovered that there were a lot of Asians in the city.

For someone with a fetish for shoes, I was in shoe heaven that day despite it being a dreary, bleak winter day. I remember thinking the weather that day befitted the city’s name.

And I must confess, for a while after that visit to Blackburn, I did kind of support Blackburn Rovers. And I still watch them play once in a while (I do watch other clubs’ matches besides Arsenal. Well, anything that involves ManUre that is). ABU!

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Arsenal kids (with an average age of less than 21 years old) visited Ewood Park last night for the quarter-finals of the Carling Cup. They led until the dishy Santa Cruz equalised with his goals. And it looked as if Arsenal’s fate was sealed when Denilson was sent off. But still, they persevered and Eduardo became the hero for the Gunners. Kudos to the Arsenal kids!

* ABU = Anything But (Manchester) United

What’s In A Name

I have a fairly common, boring name among the locals. It’s a combination of two Arabic words (my name has a lovely meaning in Arabic if I may say so myself). I dislike the common short version of my name and loathe it when people call me by that name. I have a different nickname and whenever people ask me why my nickname is that instead of the usual one they assume should be my nickname, I’d sigh inwardly and explain. Really, just because my name is Xxx doesn’t mean I like to be called Xx! Despite being fairly common, my given name has been misspelt a number of times. I’m amazed with how creative some people can be: they either add an extra vowel in front or at the end of my name; in fact my one-word name has also been broken down into two a few times much to my dismay.

A friend who is currently working in Egypt has his surname re-spelt to adhere to the local spelling. I asked him if this annoyed him and he said no, it didn’t matter or make any difference to him, and besides he’s in their country anyway. Not for me: I dislike it if people misspelt any part of my name, either my given name or surname. I insisted on having my two-word surname stay as my surname throughout my university years (good thing the university accepted a lot of international students and did not find a two-word surname unusual). However, I had to hyphenate my surname at graduate school; even the bank I opened my accounts with also hyphenated my surname due to their system requirement (so it was either using the second name as my surname or hyphenating it). Fine, I could still live with that.

When I came back from graduate school, I discovered that the Admin Unit had misspelt my surname so my emails all bear a misspelling of my surname... so I made sure my name cards were all printed correctly. This may be a trivial matter to some and even Shakespeare in Romeo & Juliet quoted ‘What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ Well, Shakespeare, thou may have a point but as my name forms part of my identity, I insist that it be spelt correctly.

Wishing everyone a blessed Eid-al Adha. Oh, on that note, I have a cousin who was born during Eid-al Fitri. No prize for guessing what his name is.

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Arsenal beat Chelshit in the Sunday derby to regain top spot from ManUre who beat Liverpool just hours earlier. Thankfully, Wenger’s gamble by fielding Hleb, Flamini and Fàbregas paid off. And, get this: Almunia was man of the match!

The Impatient Maiden

You know and I know that I am impatient. And I do try to control my impatience. Funny, when I was in the Holy Land, I managed to control myself. I managed to remain calm and patient and controlled. But it wasn’t long after my return when I got impatient again. At the traffic. At slow, ambling people. At bawling kids. At myself for being impatient (is that an oxymoron?). Well, you get the idea. So let me tell you about my current impatience.

I am impatient and increasingly annoyed with some colleagues for being too noisy at work. They do like to talk at the top of their voices. At times, I feel like it’s no different from a market here. I really don’t know why they feel the need to talk loudly: is it to assert their importance, or their point, or do they just love hearing themselves speak? I can be loud too and have my own share of outbursts but in an office, surely you need to behave appropriately. And I can’t remember when I last heard so much Malay and particularly a certain dialect being spoken before. Heck, I don’t recall hearing so much Malay even at primary school because we spoke English to our non-Malay friends. I’m not a snob and I do speak Malay though I speak a lot more English (and even speak English with a mixture of Malay) but this is a totally new experience to me.

I am impatient and frustrated with the progress of the project I’m working on. It’s bad enough that I have to hit the ground running but there are outstanding issues that need to be tackled and I’m perplexed why things didn’t move before. It doesn’t help any that our boss can’t seem to make any decision and likes to change her mind. She also doesn’t want to deal with certain people leaving the others, us, to do it instead. She also has her priorities focussed on other less pressing matters. And to make things worse, the other person who is supposed to work with me has decided to pull out at the eleventh hour.

I am impatient and annoyed with some participants of The Amazing Race Asia like Terri and Sophie, who I feel are impatient and unsupportive of their partners. I’m also dismayed that siblings Azaria and Hendekea were eliminated from The Amazing Race. I like them. Oh, watching The Amazing Race has helped shattered my perception of goths among other things. They are actually very nice, pleasant people, despite their appearances. As usual, there is the bickering couple and this edition of The Amazing Race doesn’t disappoint: Jennifer and Nathan is that couple and I get annoyed watching Jennifer hurls her anger and frustration at Nate (and wonder if I’d do any better if I were in her shoes).

I am impatient and frustrated with the progress of Arsenal in the absence of Fàbregas just as he is impatient to return to play with Arsenal. I’m not looking forward to Arsenal’s meet with Chelshit this Sunday either. Not with Fàbregas being absent.

I am impatiently looking forward to this weekend and next to recover from work. There are only two weeks left to the New Year and yet work is at full swing and showing no sign of slowing down. On the shopping front, I haven’t been buying clothes for a while and am surprised myself with this fact. Maybe the financial diet I had to embark on for three months in July through to September has changed me. Or maybe the Year-End Sale hasn’t been too exciting. Oh well, that should be good news for my bank account balance, eh.

Have a good weekend peeps!

The Amazing Race

Of all the reality shows, I like The Amazing Race (and The Amazing Race Asia and Explorace) best. Love them in fact. Maybe because I love going for treasure hunts and travelling. OK, OK, treasure hunt is nothing compared to The Amazing Race: the latter covers numerous days, thousands of miles, various countries and cities, involves challenging tasks, with the participants working in pairs. Hence it is a lot more tiring, taxing and exhausting, and really tests the relationship between the couples. The few treasure hunts that I’ve been on so far required teams of four people, driving around based on tulip readings, solving puzzles and riddles along the route and finding the required treasures. And they all ended after a predetermined number of hours after flag-off. Mind you, frictions and arguments can still occur in groups of four: in our car, the driver would always have disagreements with the assigned/appointed navigator (who is no other than yours truly), or sometimes both the driver and navigator would have disagreements with the passengers. So yes, frictions can occur regardless of the duration and the number of people in a team.

Back to The Amazing Race: I usually have one or two couples that I favour and root for and also a pair that I get annoyed at. As for the Asian edition, although I enjoy it, I am not rooting for any particular team. Not yet anyway. I do like the Filipino guys; one of them is particularly dishy. And the girls, wow, some of them are really pretty (don’t worry, I’m still straight).

Every time I watch the Race, whichever edition, I find myself thinking and wondering how I’d fare had it been me in their shoes. For starters, I’m not sure if I could run around carrying backpacks while searching for clues and the right direction. I went backpacking before and the first time I tried on my backpack, I immediately sat down again. It was only a month later when I returned minus some body weight that I discovered I had walked around Europe lugging 15 kg on myself. So no, I don’t think I can do that again.

Then of course, what would I pack for such a race? No, don’t laugh. This is important. What clothes should I bring? They must be tough and durable and yet light enough; easy to wash and dry and care for (so I won’t look like I’ve just stumbled out of bed with a crumpled top); and comfortable to wear and can absorb perspiration, just to name a few criteria the clothes must fulfil. That was a problem we faced when we went inter-railing in the height of summer: we had to change clothes often but because we were constantly on the move, it was a challenge to launder and have them dry in time before moving on to our next destination. The clothes must also be able to cover me decently; after all I am a Muslim wherever I am. And that’s just clothes: you also need to pack multi-vitamins, pills, food supplement, toiletries, footwear, etc, etc.

And more importantly, there is the task of reading, interpreting and understanding the instructions and directions. As you know, I’m a confused and confusing lass and I’d probably misread or misunderstand some instruction. As for directions, I like to think that I have a good sense of direction and I can read maps pretty well. But oh, what about the roadblocks? Can I perform them? I can’t do anything too physical as I’m not physically strong and I tire easily. I also don’t drive, can’t swim or dive (yeah, I’m pretty hopeless and helpless) and I refuse to eat or handle anything gross (one episode of The Amazing Race: All-Stars had the participants making sausages and eating them. Euwww...).

I also wonder how I’d behave under stress, duress and pressure. I know that there are the crew and their cameras about but I can’t guarantee I can control my behaviour. I’m short-fused, short-tempered, quick-tempered, hotheaded, impatient and stubborn so chances are I’d be arguing and bickering with and shouting at my poor partner. So my partner must be a very patient person and must really understand and be able to bear with me. I also panic easily, I curse and swear readily and I bet the crew would have a field day trying to silence my expletives. And how did they (especially the girls in The Amazing Race Asia) do it going through the race and yet still looking calm and presentable at the end of each leg? If I were in their shoes, I’d probably be looking so harassed and stressed when I step on the mat ready to collapse.

So can I run around with a (carefully packed) backpack on me, looking for clues and understanding directions and instructions and staying calm throughout? Probably not. That’s why I’ll just stick to watching. Anyway, I probably won’t even make it through the selection stage, but then, I can’t help wondering how and why some of the participants got selected.

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Boro gunned down Arsenal’s amazing race in the EPL yesterday and the Gunners registered their first defeat of the season (Liverpool also scored their first defeat on Saturday). Silly Gunners! And to lose to Boro too, of all teams. They managed to draw with ManUre and Liverpool and yet lost to a team amongst the bottom in the table. Hmph!

Playing God

I was thinking recently of people playing God. Of doctors thinking they know the best treatment for their patients – because they claim to have their patients’ interest at heart – even if the patient doesn’t desire such treatment. Of family members thinking they know what is best for their ailing loved ones who are incapable of making decisions on their own either because they’re in a coma, in persistent vegetative state (think Terri Schiavo) or because they are underage.

Of bosses thinking they know best how their subordinates should be rewarded and what they deserve. I can’t help thinking how they can be fair if they already have a pre-conceived idea or formed opinion of how an employee is, or a biased preference for particular subordinates. These decisions may well have long-lasting effects on the affected subordinates.

Of patients themselves deciding on euthanasia for themselves, or of pregnant women proceeding to abort their foetus after they decide they don’t want the child.

What do you think? Do we consciously or subconsciously play God in our everyday lives? What makes us, mere mortals, think we can make such a decision?

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On an unrelated note but a sort of a follow-up to my earlier entry, I met some new people last week. One girl particularly caught my attention as she looked sullen and grim. In fact, she looked like she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. Then I found out that she had been subject to what she termed ‘capital punishment’ from her parents as she was growing up (she is still staying with the parents). She confessed finding it difficult to forgive her parents for what they had done to her.

Then I found out that another girl was also subjected to similar abuse from her father. He even spat on her once (can you imagine how she must have felt then). But fortunately for her, her mother is a very strong woman and supportive of her. And one day, she sat down with her father and confronted him for all his wrongdoings, abuse and punishment to her. He was already an old man and wasn’t fast enough to escape so he just sat there. He did, however, immediately turn on the TV after she finished.

I felt a mixture of emotions hearing to their stories. Anger at the parents for having subjected their children to what they think is the right way of disciplining. Horrified at what they had to go through. And thankful too for being blessed with my lovely parents who I take for granted for despite all their scolding, I was never pinched, let alone caned me.

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And another totally unrelated note: why, oh why, did Arsenal have to draw with Newcastle last night?!