A Christmas Carol

For the recent Christmas celebration, I was fortunate to experience it with most of my extended family even my relatives from Singapore who came to Kuala Lumpur. As usual there was a splendid Christmas dinner which most of us (but me) helped to prepare and as usual, there were carols to be sung. I had never really paid much attention to Christmas carols before, but this year, my mom wanted me to prepare a selection of carols in MIDI format to be sung later on. After looking through the list of songs, I realized that many of them had little connection to the actual meaning of Christmas. In fact most of them had nothing to do with Christianity. I read the lyrics for ‘Frosty the Snowman’ for the first time (really) and found nothing in relation to Christmas. The song was about a magical snowman and him having fun before his time went out. Songs like ‘Jingle Bells’, ‘Winter Wonderland’, and ‘Let it Snow’ are mostly about the season of winter which would be unfamiliar to us living in a tropical country like Malaysia. Perhaps those songs originated in Europe or America where Christmas was during the season of winter but the fact remains that such songs have totally influenced the meaning of Christmas. Most people associate Christmas with snow, Santa Claus and other commercialized features and some even forget why the holiday is significant in the first place. Of course, there are some carols that reflect the Christian meaning of Christmas like ‘Hark now hear the Angels sing’ but they are too few in comparison to the other ‘commercialized’ carols. Even in malls when they play carols for the pleasure of shoppers, how often is it that one hears the carol ‘Mary’s Boy Child’ compared to ‘Jingle Bell Rock’?

I was reminded of another holiday I experienced in Canada- Halloween. Last year was my first encounter with Halloween (which is sadly not celebrated in Malaysia) and I too found it disturbing because like Christmas, Halloween has become over-commercialized. People dress up in outrageous costumes and get drunk all night but how many people know the original reason for celebrating Halloween? It started out as the Celtic harvest festival Sam Hain and people used to believe that at that time, the boundaries between the living world and the spiritual world would weaken, hence all the dressing up was to frighten away evil spirits. I asked one of my friends if he knew how the name Halloween came about and he was clueless. For those of you who are also clueless, Halloween is a contraction of All Hallows (saints) Eve as it was on the eve of All Saints Day- November 1^st. The church intentionally chose that day as it was already familiar to the people as Sam Hain.

I would give a brief history for Christmas too, but I expect more people would know it better than All Hallows Eve. I certainly hope that when I return for 2008’s Christmas, there would be more emphasis on the Christian, rather than the commercial aspect.

Fire Down Below

Have you ever encountered the situation where the fire alarm goes off for an actual emergency, but you just ignore it thinking that it’s just another drill? A few weeks ago, the management decided to test the fire alarms in my block and prior to the test, they sent out emails telling all of us not to worry if sirens and lights would suddenly come on. For weeks I expected them to carry out the test but they never did, until 2 weeks ago. The alarms went off for no apparent reason but a voice over the intercom calmed us all down saying it’s just a test. Then last Monday, there was an actual fire in one of the floors below me. I was on my way back from doing laundry when suddenly the fire alarms went on. At first, I was surprised that they wanted to test the alarms twice in such a short span of time so I ignored it and went about cleaning my room. After a few moments, I noticed the absence of the voice over the intercom explaining the situation, so I stepped out of my room to have a look. Everyone was in the hallway looking as bewildered as I was.

Eventually we all got the idea that there was an actual fire somewhere in the building so we had to evacuate. I was still in doubt so I locked my room door and made sure my belongings were secure before leaving. We all had to take the stairs because that’s just standard fire escape procedure. Everyone was busy chatting away happily as if there was nothing to worry about (and indeed there was nothing to worry) and as we passed the third floor, we spotted the source of the fire. The third floor lounge was filled with smoke and the smell was awful, like burning plastic. Outside, the security guards gave the explanation. Someone tried to cook something in the microwave, the microwave caught fire, the food item caught fire, she threw it in the trash can and it caught fire and the sink eventually caught fire as well. Luckily, the fire was confined to the lounge area, so there really was nothing to worry. Perhaps they were worried about the hazards of the smoke that was rapidly spreading throughout the building.

All of us had to wait outside in the freezing cold for the firemen to arrive. Fortunately, they didn’t take too long to arrive and they were quite quick to assess the situation. It was quite exciting to see the firemen, in their heavy gear and gas masks and axes enter the building. I even thought they were going to use their hose and spray through the windows or something as one of their crew started unloading the hoses. Eventually, they fixed the situation (the hose was not needed...Awww…I wanted to see some spraying action) and we were all allowed to go back inside. Although this incident was just a minor issue, I would never again underestimate the importance of the fire alarm. Luckily my room is next to the fire escape so in the event of an actual fire, I can escape easily.

Crime and Punishment

Do not buy this laptop...ever

It amazes me to think how important the skill of rhetoric is. What the ancient Greeks learnt as rhetoric has today become the techniques of propaganda and persuasion. Recently, I am in need of good rhetorical skills because of a serious problem that I am suffering from. In an earlier entry, I spoke of having a bad Internet connection in my room. I even went as far as to blame the Internet Service Provider for its bad quality and accused them of intentionally refusing to help me. Eventually, after numerous attempts to acquire a refund from them, they did send a technician to check on my computer during the night, which was when the connection usually dies. It seems that the problem was not with the ISP, but with my laptop. The techie was unable to provide an accurate description of the problem, claiming that these issues were really hard to debug because they occurred so randomly. The best hope for me, he suggested, was to have the computer checked out at a computer hardware store and hopefully, someone there would be able to find out what the problem is. All that he could think of was that my Ethernet card (or whatever that is) is faulty or that there was a problem with the driver.

I tried to think how it was possible that I did not notice this problem earlier. I realized that when I got my laptop, I had been using the wireless at home, so there was no problem with the Internet. When I moved into campus, I had to plug in a cable to use the Internet, and that was when the problems started. This new problem was just the latest in a string of problems that I have been having with my laptop. I realize now what an awful mistake it was to buy an Acer laptop. First their graphics driver kept on crashing whenever I played Halo 2 (when I played Half Life 2, it occasionally crashed as well). Then I realized that if it went into sleep mode, I couldn’t wake it up. Whenever that happened, I was forced to shut it down prematurely, thereby causing further damage to the hard drive. Thus, I have reconfigured my settings so that it would never enter sleep mode, no matter how long it stays on. In addition, the microphone was not working, even though Windows said that the device was working perfectly. With all these problems getting me all worked up, I am not keen on paying anyone to fix them. As the nearest Acer service centre is all the way in Ottawa, I have no other choice but to go home and get it fixed there, and that’s where my rhetorical skills will have to be used. I need to convince those Acer guys that their laptop sucks, and that they owe me for all the trouble that it has given. No matter what, I am not going to pay for any repairs, even if I have to fiercely threaten them. Damn Acer…

With my finals approaching and all the term papers due, I really need my computer to work but now that I know the problem is with the computer, rather than the ISP, there is no one else that I can express my rage to. I just can’t wait to go home and get it fixed (hopefully, for free). Something else that I need to pick up in KL is lots of wrapping paper- the clear, transparent ones that we use to wrap books to protect them. For some reason, I just can’t find them here. Not a single bookstore sells them. As for winter, it has snowed a couple of times, but it’s not that cold yet. I’ll have to wait for next year to truly experience winter. In fact, I haven’t bought any thick winter jackets yet. The main reason is because I don’t like the way they look, all puffy and fat, but I also want to see how long I can last with the jackets that I currently have. Even if the temperature were to suddenly drop, I can always wear lots of layers.

The October Country

Knowing that I wouldn't smile if I posed for a photo, someone tried to secretly take one of me when I was laughing...not a good one as you can see...

At the Mexican restaurant. It was Marcus' birthday (the guy next to me), so we made him drink tequilas...as you can see, I don't smile in pictures

At the skytrain station on route to the Indian restaurant (I just can't remember the names of these restaurants), you can't see it from here, but Vancouver's public train system is soo much better that Malaysia's

My pumpkin in the dark...

The month of October has passed at last, and although my exams are definitely not over, I am given a temporary respite from the work (temporary being one or two days). Much has passed in the last month but I am now trying to avoid retelling my trips/ outings in favour of speaking my thoughts. Still, I would briefly touch upon certain events that I attended and enjoyed.

The end of October is marked by the arrival of Halloween. Sure, Halloween is a corruption of All Hallows Eve which is simply the eve of All Hallows (Saints) Day, but here in Vancouver (as in many parts of North America), it has become overly commercialized. Statistics (don’t ask me where I got them) show that pubs and bars earn more on Halloween than on Christmas. The streets were full of people in costumes, some creative, others just plain weird. I myself was too lazy to acquire a costume; otherwise there would be pictures of me wearing it here. On the Saturday before Halloween, I went to Playland, a local carnival that was celebrating Halloween with their annual Fright Nights event. I went with a few others from the International Club because they had discounted tickets. Anyway, the primary attractions were the Haunted Houses. There were 5 of them this year but due to the shortage of time, we only got to see 2 of them. This marked the first time I entered a professional haunted house- previous haunted houses I ‘visited’ were amateur ones. The quality that was put into the houses was astounding with really great makeup for the actors and lighting. Of course, no photographs were allowed inside. I also ate dinner at an Indian restaurant and a Mexican restaurant with other international students. Won’t spend too much time talking about them except to say that the Indian food was good, the Mexican food- bad! I ordered what sounded good on the menu but turned out to be a huge red pepper. It was super spicy and it was about the size of a rugby ball. Luckily I managed to eat the whole thing (mostly). The one event that I really enjoyed was pumpkin carving. I forgot to buy a pumpkin, so I had to share one with my friend Andy. Even though that was the first time we both carved a pumpkin, I must say that we didn’t do that bad of a job. I really like the snarling look that I drew for it.

Now I am going to rant about a problem that I have been suffering from since the day I moved in. Actually the problem got worse these last few weeks, and that is BAD internet connection at night. The problem with my dorm is that Internet service is wired, not wireless. That means to use the Internet in my room; I have to plug in a cable. During the day, the Internet is fine and smooth but at night…it disconnects like every 5 seconds. That is such a big problem because obviously I need to do work at night which is when I have no classes. However, you can imagine that getting thrown offline every 5 seconds is well…annoying to put it mildly. In fact the connection just died a second ago as I was composing this entry. I called the service providers and their lame excuse was that there were too many people using the Internet and that is why the connection is unstable. What? That is the most useless response I ever heard. Why am I getting charged the same amount as everyone else when I’m getting crappier service? I was really quite surprised that they didn’t even suggest that I try pressing certain buttons or some other stunt that might improve my situation but would probably not work. They just blatantly gave me that stupid excuse. At first I tried to ignore the problem but after finding out that the library closes at 10 pm and my room connection was as bad as ever, I really had enough. I sent the Residence Internet service providers threatening voice messages that clearly showed I was furious with them. I raised my voice more and more with each message to show my anger. Finally, when they didn’t seem to call me back, I lost my temper and sent one more message (yesterday in fact) where I yelled at the top of my voice. Of course my whole floor heard it and thought there was an insane shooter on the loose but after I assured everyone that it was just me, and that I was displeased with the Internet, the situation went back to normal. Nevertheless, my yelling did inform the person in charge of my floor to put in a maintenance request. I have yet to hear from them, and the Internet is still as bad as ever. Oh well, I am definitely getting a different Internet provider next year, and hopefully I can demand that my current provider reimburse me for the horrendous Internet quality that I have been having. I can go on about the other problems about my campus, but I think that deserves its own entry.

Tender is the Night

On the way to Stanley Park, the downtown Vancouver skyline in the background

Me explaining the Malaysian way to those who bothered to listen

Waiting for the bus, it was a long wait

On the Thursday night before Thanksgiving, I finally got a chance to eat some (Canadianised) Malaysian food. I can’t exactly remember who’s suggestion it was (maybe mine) to go to a Malaysian restaurant. There were several reasons why we (our group) selected a Malaysian restaurant. The local Canadians wanted to ‘experience’ Malaysian cuisine and I of course, missed eating such food (even though I hate to admit it), but what I really wanted to know was how Canada has affected the tastes of Malaysian food and whether or not the waiters and waitresses could speak Malay. The restaurant in question was The Banana Leaf (as if Malaysia is known for bananas). After a long and boring bus and skytrain ride, we arrived. The decorations were sort of Malaysian- they had factory made waus on the ceiling and plastic banana plants in pots. The place was really crowded so it was a good thing we reserved a table. The food was really expensive though. Back home, satays were dirt cheap, but here, they cost almost 2 dollars a skewer. We spent almost one hour discussing the appropriate meal to share as none of us were bold enough to order an individual dish. Eventually, we decided to order a large platter that had all kinds of stuff on it. On the side, I ordered a plate of char kuay teow for myself. My friends asked me to rate the food’s authenticity. In my opinion, it wasn’t that bad (ignoring the price) but there were a few…oddities. They had pork satay which surprised me because Malaysia is an Islamic nation and I have never come across pork satays in KL. Hmm…maybe they have it elsewhere. Secondly, they had no desserts at all. No ice kacang, or cendol or all the other tooth-decay causing stuff that we Malaysians know and love. For an award winning restaurant (which they are), their lack of desserts was really surprising. Nonetheless, I enjoyed myself that night as it was a change from all the pseudo-Western food that I have been eating. One of the most amusing moments was listening to the way the (local) waiters pronounce words like nasi lemak (naassy lemack), satays (suh-tayz) and roti canai (rohtee chuhnai). Apparently the place was a hoot with locals because as soon as we left, there was another big group waiting to take our place.

The next night was potluck night with the International students. Everyone was supposed to cook, or at least bring at least one dish from their home country. As I am unable to cook anything except fried rice, I decided to go back to The Banana Leaf and order some suh-tayz. I did not realize that they had 2 outlets on the same street (courtesy of poor website information). After ordering the suh-tayz, I took the one hour journey to the same restaurant that I ate the other night, only to find out that I had placed the order with the other restaurant. It took another bus ride to find this other restaurant and by the time I got back to the University, I was 45 minutes late. Fortunately for me, the festivities had not yet started. The coordinator gave a short speech wishing everyone a merry thanksgiving and then explained (with help from our mutual friend Wikipedia) the origins of thanksgiving and potluck. Eventually we were allowed to eat. There were of course a lot of freeloaders but that’s always the case with potlucks. The selection of food was rather limited and with the queue being so long, I did not have the chance to try everything, even my own suh-tayz. Most people (me included) just bought their food. I counted about 4 bowls of potato salad. Well, at least that did not run out. Some of the more devoted attendees actually cooked their food. I got a chance to try some homemade pumpkin pie. It was good…if you liked pumpkin pie and I don’t. After stuffing myself with food I chatted with some people about their home country and whether or not they were already sick of SFU and its high expenses (the university that we’re in). Overall, it was a good night and I am glad that my suh-tayz were all eaten- otherwise I would have to bring them back.

On Thanksgiving Day itself, I went out with the International Club to Stanley Park. It was a huge park with lots of trails. I was the contact person this time, so I had to make sure I got there on time. Actually I arrived in time, but fortunately, there were other people who were later then I was. Walking in the park was a refreshing change from the hustle and bustle of the campus, but we didn’t see anything really interesting. It was somewhat like Lynn Valley except it wasn’t so…wild. In the middle of the park was a nice lake. We stopped there for a break and I busied myself watching ducks swimming. I have to admit I have never seen live ducks before in any park in Malaysia. The ducks here were apparently used to being fed because they kept staring at me and quacking. I had nothing to give them so eventually they lost interest in me and went somewhere else to beg, errr I mean look for food. We had dinner in The Old Spaghetti Factory which had really cheap spaghetti. Not exactly high class food, but it was worth the money. Although my thanksgiving was in many ways poorer than most people, at least I enjoyed it. Still, turkey would have been good too.

On the Road

Us three guys, Lyndon the Chinese fellow, and Xavier the blond Frenchman

In the museum, in front of a statue of some native, probably Nootka (if Age of Empires 3 got their facts right)

The reggae buskers performing, a bit blurry though

The Legislature building, kinda makes our own Parliament building look absolutely Soviet-ish

The company on the ferry, en route to Vancouver Island

For the past 2 weekends, I have sacrificed valuable study time (not that I would have used it anyway) to go on more trips with the International Club. This entry would be for the first trip- to Victoria, a historic city that is also the capital of British Columbia. I know not many Malaysians are aware of this, in fact very few are even aware of the capital of Canada. I still remember asking people what they think it was and I got answers ranging from Montreal to Toronto. Anyway, I made quite a last minute decision to go to Victoria, so last minute that I only called to confirm on the very day itself- at 7.45 am (we were supposed to meet at 8.30 am). It seemed fortunate that I called because the contact person for this trip had overslept and only woke up when I called her. As I had not informed anyone else that I was coming and with the contact person still in her bedroom, I decided to take a chance and head for the meeting point, hoping that the rest of the company would not have left yet. Despite arriving almost 45 minutes past the arranged time, I was relieved that they were still waiting. It turned out that the company consisted of only 4 people (myself included). We decided to wait at the SFU downtown campus for the contact person (Kelly) to arrive. Being a girl, we estimated that she would take quite some time to arrive. One of us, Xavier was really displeased with all this waiting, as he had arrived early- he was already at the meeting place at 8 am. By the time Kelly arrived, it was almost 11, so we wasted no time catching the bus to the ferry terminal.
The ferry ride was about 2 hours long. Fortunately for us, the weather report was wrong that day (they predicted stormy weather and it was quite sunny) and we spent quite some time on deck admiring the scenery and taking photographs. By the time we arrived at Victoria, it was already late evening. We spent some time taking photographs of some of the city’s famous attractions like the Legislature building and the Empress Hotel. While Vancouver was the more modern, bustling city, Victoria still had its colonial appeal. It really looked very British- indeed a fitting appearance for the capital of a province named British Columbia. We would have gone on a tour of the Legislature, but as ill luck would have it, it was closed on the very weekend that we were in Victoria. After we exhausted ourselves with pictures, we turned our attention to accommodation. We were supposed to stay at a hostel for the night and our coordinator, Lyndon had assured us that they would have room (that’s what they told him anyway over the phone, so he hadn’t bothered to make reservations). To our dismay, they did not have any rooms available for guys, only for girls. As Kelly was the only girl among us, she was able to secure a room at the hostel, while the three of us guys had to take a room in the nearby Strathcona Hotel. Although it was almost double the price of the hostel, it was fairly cheap (comparatively to other hotels) because the three of us shared a room and split the cost.
The next day, we began our tour of the city. Our first stop, or rather the first of the two stops that we only had time to make, was the Royal British Columbia Museum. Well, it was way better than our own Muzium Negara, but otherwise nothing that impressive. Just the usual natural history stuff and some Native American art displays. They did have a special exhibit of artifacts recovered from the Titanic (that cost us a little extra) but that wasn’t too impressive either. The only memorable part of this trip was when one of the museum people pretended he was a survivor of the Titanic and told us a really engaging story that kept us all mesmerized (now that’s how a museum should be run). After the museum, we explored Victoria’s Chinatown (yes it seems that Chinatowns are as abundant as Wall marts now). It was fairly small, not as fancy as Vancouver’s Chinatown. I did catch some reggae buskers performing, and they were good. After that, it was time to go back to the mainland. Although we were lucky to get a discount for ferry tickets for our journey to the island (for some unexplained reason), we didn’t get any for the return trip. This time, we stayed inside the ferry because it was cold and rainy outside. Although I spent quite a fair bit on this trip, I was glad that I went for it.

A Walk to Remember

Group photo near the suspension bridge (obviously)

A very good poster that I saw in Chinatown

The gorge behind me

Forest behind me

Big white rocks behind me

That's a chipmunk not a squirrel

Now that I have been in Vancouver for almost 3 weeks, I have come to know more people and visit more places. A week ago, I joined the International Club for a trip to Lynn Valley, a scenic park in the North Shore of the city. It’s most famous attraction was a suspension bridge spanning a massive gorge. That was the second time I went to Lynn Valley, the first time was with my residence mates but that trip wasn’t that fun because I didn’t really know anyone back then so it was quite boring for me. I didn’t actually sign up for the club on Club Day so it was by chance that I got their email telling people about the trip. I was supposed to meet them by the waterfront at half past twelve, but I underestimated the time needed to travel. Efficient as it is, Canada’s public transportation system was not on time, so I arrived about 10 minutes after the arranged time. I was really hoping that they would still be there as I had not informed anyone that I was coming and I also foolishly forgot to note down the contact numbers. Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one late, so the group was still there when I arrived. It was almost one when we finally left. On my last trip, we went directly to Lynn Valley by bus (rented school bus), but this time, we would take the Seabus to the North Shore then take the regular bus to Lynn Valley. The appropriately named Seabus was actually a ferry. The ride was fairly short, only about 20 minutes long. After that it was a short bus ride to Lynn Valley.

Upon arrival, Lyndon, our group leader suggested we head for the picnic area, so we could sit down and have lunch. The way he said it made me believe that it was merely a short walk, but it actually took almost 2 hours to get there. Along the way, we paused to take photographs and gawk at the plants and trees around us. I was surprised that there were not many birds in the park, considering that it was more of a natural reserve than a park (natural reserve meaning that animals like bears and cougars do live here). Eventually, we arrived at the picnic area where we had lunch. One of us, Lily, was a smoker but she forgot to bring matches for this trip, or that was what she thought at first. Eventually, she found 2 matches in her bag and we all got a chance to read her cigarette box. It was “Peter Jackson” flavor, and we all had fun trying to read the words on it in French. Xavier, another one of our party, was French so he showed us the proper way to pronounce them. We also discussed about the SFU Student Services, which was horrible compared to UBC (for the uninitiated, SFU stands for Simon Fraser University- my university, and UBC is the University of British Columbia- the other major university in Vancouver). We talked about how SFU overcharges students for certain services like orientation, how they try to make money out of anything possible and how their student services really suck when compared with UBC’s. Yup, I learned a lot of things that day. Lyndon used to do volunteer work for UBC, making his comments credible. He was also very displeased with SFU’s International Office because of their lack of activities for international students, which was probably his main drive to start the International Club.

As the day drew to a close, we decided to end our little hiking trip. We stopped by the Suspension Bridge for a group photograph before heading back. Lyndon the drew from his wealth of experience working for the British Columbia Tourism Board. Dinner was typical HongKee food- that means it was just tolerable. It was amusing watching those who were unfamiliar with Chinese food struggle with the chopsticks. Xavier was exceptionally hilarious because he was holding a chopstick in one hand and a fork in the other. After dinner, we parted our ways but promised to meet up again for the next meeting, and the next outing…to Victoria (capital of British Columbia).