Bukit Hipster

Bukit Broga is as challenging as climbing a woman’s breast in comparison to other hills. It was made barren by hipsters making obligatory weekend pilgrimages.

Malay hipsters climb up to do yoga poses for selfies (and to add a cliched poem or quote as captions for Instagram) and Chinese hipsters go to the peak to do a “Christ the Redeemer” pose ala the famous statue in Rio, Brazil. WTF?!, I know.

So can someone explain how that poor guy get lost in gentle Broga Hill recently and was found only 7 days later? Baffling, right?
No automatic alt text available.

#hill #hike #broga #hipsters

Drive By Shooting

I don’t know what was going on. A senior citizen was arranging some old newspapers outside her house in a village in Sekinchan paddy land. I was a passenger in a car and I shot with the window rolled down.

You can take preemptive actions such as upping the shutter speed and deciding how you want to frame it before the car approaches. I kept one finger on the exposure compensation dial as I was thinking her silver hair might be problematic. It wasn’t in the end as the camera’s dynamic range contained it.

While anticipation is good, I didn’t expect her to lift up the broadsheet to conceal herself at the critical moment. I cued driver and friend Daniel Tang to look at my LCD screen so he can adjust or pace the car’s speed accordingly. Takes practice but I have been on many trips with him in the past.

I chose a black and white rendition as the vegetable patch was overwhelmingly green. Black and white also gives street photography the raw and gritty look befitting the subject.

Panasonic GM-1, ISO 200, f10, 1/320 sec.

#sekinchan #village #streetphotography #blackandwhite #ruralscape

Die Mofo!

There is always one sick mofo who will wait until 3am or abouts. When everything quiets down and everyone is asleep in bed. He will sneak out and set off a fire cracker or exploding fireworks that sounds like an atomic bomb or louder.

It rattles windows, shake the ground, trigger car and bank alarms, make babies wake up crying, kill heart patients. All under the guise of Chinese New Year custom, tradition or culture.

Fuck you! It is not a culture, custom, tradition nor auspicious timing or feng shui, mofos. It is pure evil and a sadistic premeditated action.

Frightened birds will take off blindly from trees in the dark, mother cats will run away in fear from alleys. Abandoned kittens will die of hunger and baby birds will starve to death on trees because of you.

Evil mofo; ask yourself this? How can it be fulfilling or rewarding when everyone in the neighborhood curses you? The accumulated karmic payback will hit you harder than the bomb you set off intentionally at 3 am.

Hope someone can translate this to Chinese and the message gets across.

The Hokkiens Are Having A Blast

It is called the Hokkien New Year in Melaka where the Hokkiens arrived some 500 or 600 years ago. The Pai Ti Kong tradition lives on. It will be a blast midnight tonight. Keep your pets indoor.

Tonight, the Hokkiens will set off enough firecrackers and fireworks to make the world think North Korea launched some nuclear weapons. It’s the ‘coming out from hiding in sugar cane plantation” syndrome.
Don’t let your cats and dogs out tonight as they may be bewildered and wander off until lost.

A girl waiting for the apex of the Pai Ti Kong Festival. At midnight, there’ll be a bonfire of joss paper and firecrackers to celebrate the Jade Emperor God’s birthday. In the meantime, three giant joss sticks
burn in front of a table laden with food and fruits. The home offerings were flanked by two tall sugar cane stalks.

Olympus OM-D, ISO 500, f1.4, 1/60 sec.

#paitikong #hokkien #fujian #culture #melaka #tradition #history #malacca #chinesefestival #taoism

Kailan Stir Fried With Cloves Of Garlic In Oyster Sauce

Uncle William loved the garlic. I don’t. Haha. The dish was shiny and deep green, I tried to capture its glossy look. The leafy kailan is known as the Chinese kale.

Panasonic GM-1, ISO 1000, f4, 1/200 sec.

#foodphotography #kailan #garlic #green #chongfatt #chinesefood #cny