Category: Thoughts

Only Bloggers Would Understand The Pain

Do you know many of my Facebook posts are found or replicated on my blog or website? Not all, but when I can.

There, you can see bigger pics and find related links as cross references. For example, looking at the Leaning Tower post, you will find convenient links (under Related Posts sidebar) to Mastan Ghani Mee Rebus, Liew Kee Chee Cheong Fun and other Teluk Anson stories.

It is not easy maintaining both. Imagine the drudgery of the repetitive chore when replicating content from social media. It was why many blogs fell out with the arrival of Facebook. One is easy and will lull you into disinclination of your blog, while the other requires work and maintenance of the CMS. Bloggers will understand the enigma.

Still nothing can beat a blog’s tagging, statistical analysis, internal search, revenue generating potential, search engine exposure and related links feature. The downside is it costs money to host and is nightmarish doing all the CMS and plug in updates.

I am happy that some of my posts from multiple blogs from as early as year 2000 were indexed and archived by search engines. With so much content from my past, I usually depend on search engines to find some of my own posts that I now only have faint memoirs. Ironic, isn’t it?

Picture or screen capture from a post announcing my migration to the new (and current) blog or url in 2015. Blogging is hard work!

Here is the link, if you are interested

http://www.tvsmith.my/

If you are rading it here, you are a;ready on the blog. My Facebook is at https://www.facebook.com/mytvsmith

A Trip Down Memory Lane

I was in Sungai Wang Plaza the other day. PuiSee Chu took me to Hokkaido Baked Cheese Tarts. I was excited at first. I have not tried them before, knowing it is a mega hipster rage even without duck egg yolk in it. I first saw them in a Ramadan bazaar in Singapore last year. Pui See knows her way around Sungai Wang Plaza. She knows the outlets, the corridors, the pink ladies parking and the lift location. Which was a good thing as we found our way around rapidly. I never understood the layout of this old and giant mall. All I know is one wrong turn, I will end up in a row of hair dressing saloons that emanate the most horrific rotten egg odour because Chinese people were perming their straight hair.

That’s Sungai Wang for you. I asked Pui See about her familiarity and she confessed she was a bohsia (or a female teen mall rat) during her Form 4 or Form 5 days. She’ll take a bus here after school. It was the only mall with a cineplex and an ice skating rink during its time. Also the only mall with a filthy food court in the rooftop car park. Tony Warren won’t like this but I met the other Tom Jones of Malaysia working at the garbage incinerator next to the food court. I think it was Mark Sylvester. Would you believe Sungai Wang Plaza is now buying a Harley and getting a man bun? It is now 40 years old, as it opened in 1977. I first met DJ Kenneth MC Zap here too. I think he was spinning at the concourse.

Pui See bought a box of tarts and left me to myself at the table because she needed to get her power bank from her car. Maybe I don’t have enough hipster DNA in my blood. My excitement turned to dismay when I accidentally crushed the tart with my fingers. An ugly mess of disgusting molten cheese spilled into my fingers. How can anyone eat this and not feel jelak? Jelak is a local word to describe over satiation or disgust with certain food that makes you want to puke or burp. Happens when Asians binge eat creamy stuff. This single piece made me want avoid Hokkaido for good!

Not Pui See’s fault though as I wanted to try it. One woman’s cheese is another man’s shit. YMMV. Now Sex Bomb is playing in my mind. All because I checked Mark’s FB and saw a video of him singing the Tom Jones hit. I first saw the Tom Jones of Malaysia Tony Warren when I was a kid when he was singing at Weld Supermarket. It was in a standalone building with a spacious open air car park opposite Weld Swimming Pool. Remember that area? There was Eden too. For hotels around Sungai Wang and the Golden Triangle, see Hotels In Kuala Lumpur. #cheesetarts #tarts #sungaiwangplaza #hokkaido #tomjones #nolstagia #review

Cholon Is Saigon’s Oldest Surviving Chinatown

It was the Thean Hou Temple in Cholon Chinatown, Saigon I photographed and its history dates back to 1778. Loved the spiral incense coils inside the temple.

It was a bittersweet experience when I met an elderly and kindly local Chinese man outside the temple. We conversed in Cantonese. Finding out that I am from Malaysia, he asked me whether the Chinese are treated fairly. Surprised by the question, I didn’t really know how to reply to it and I told him: “We will survive, just like how your community did in Vietnam” He smiled and nodded his head in agreement. Coincidentally, an old Chinese man in Jakarta asked me the same thing. So did a Chinese man in Manila Chinatown.

For a lone traveler, it was a comforting yet an awkward experience meeting a concerned member of the far flung diaspora.

#temple #saigon #hcmc #vietnam #chinesetemple #chinese #diaspora