Not a typical Singaporean

After meeting with the team for our GNIE school project today, AP, PY and I adjourned for a gossip break before continuing with our part of the project work.

PY is a PRC who was recruited from China by the Singapore government to study nursing in a Singapore polytechnic and had worked in Singapore for some years to fulfil her bond obligations. She has a negative impression of Singaporeans. E.g. not smart* (see below), kiasu (competitive), selfish, and so on.

I realized on our first day at school that PY did not liked being associated with anyone/anything Singaporean. I introduced myself as a Singaporean in class. When PY later introduced that she graduated from XYZ Polytechnic in Singapore, I remarked enthusiastically, "Hey, we were from the same school!" but PY's response was muted. So I asked her which hospital she was from, and when she replied, I mentioned that I had a friend was working there and asked her which department she was from. She snubbed me. Since she did not seem friendly at all, I hung out with the relatively easy-going young Filipinos (like AP) instead.

Towards the end of the 1st semester, after about 4 months of school together, one day during lab, PY suddenly remarked to me, "You seem smart, not like my schoolmates in Singapore. Why?" I just smiled. IMHO, PY, like many of the PRC students recruited/sponsored by the Singapore government, forgot to take into account that she has gone through a selection process, a filtration which (hopefully) ensures that she has some "quality" that would put her head-and-shoulders above the average Singaporean student. [Otherwise, how can the Singapore government justify spending money on foreigners instead of its own citizens?] However, she was comparing herself against the average Singaporean polytechnic student -- no, make that the "bottom of the barrel" of Singaporean polytechnic students because nursing was (still is?) one of the easiest faculty to qualify for in the Singapore polytechnics. [Note: Nursing, despite its "noble" job nature, does not generally attract the crème de la crème students because of its pathetic pay and work conditions in Singapore.] Thus, I was not surprised that PY had assumed that I was like her typical Singaporean peers back in her polytechnic days and snubbed me initially. [Not that it was fair/right for her to snub her peers, but it is understandable given the superiority complex common amongst PRC "scholars" on Singapore government sponsorships and the typical Singaporean's prejudice against PRCs. Click here and here for examples.]

In addition, PY did not think highly of her Singapore nursing education. E.g. Whenever I remarked that we are both "well-trained by the Singapore system", PY would reject my suggestion and countered that it boils down to the individual. Admittedly, she was under the 3-year diploma in nursing programme with mostly teenage-students, so her teachers were stricter (i.e. more disciplinary/punitive) in their approach. I was from the 2-year accelerated programme with fabulous teachers who treated us as motivated matured learners. In fact, PY looked surprised today when I told her that my (main) nursing lecturers were UK-trained and trained us based on UK standards. That is, they trained us to function as critical-thinking RNs who assess patients independently and advocate for our patients, much like RNs in Canada.

Anyway, time flies and we have been in school for almost 9 months. During this time, although we have had some classroom interactions, PY and I generally moved amongst different circles. After all, we were not in the same clinical groups. Over the months, PY heard feedback from the other classmates about me -- "WD did this...", "WD did that..." (generally positive feedback). In fact, one Korean classmate SS even went so far as to say, "I want to migrate to Singapore. Singapore is such a good country! Clean, strong economy, good education, good government. Even the people are nice, look at WD..." At which point, PY told SS, "You cannot judge like that, WD is not a typical Singaporean." [I learned about all these today straight from the horse's mouth.]

So over gossip break today, PY told me candidly that she did not like me initially because of her negative experiences in Singapore, both in nursing school and at the hospitals. How bad is nursing in Singapore? Well, both of us agreed that we never want to return to nursing in Singapore, ever again. In fact, she has forgotten much about her "Singapore experience" as she let the bad stuff slide off from her memory. She also told me how she came to change her mind about me, a Singaporean (see the preceding paragraph).

AP, PY and I went on to share and discuss our generalizations of the "typical" Filipino, India Indian, Iranian, South Korean, PRC and Singaporean. We recognize that generalizations are just that -- it is not wise to let our initial prejudices get in the way of getting to know an individual. E.g. IMHO, PY and I have more similarities than differences in our approach to work and our attitude towards academic performance.

My new slow cooker

I had been thinking about buying a slow cooker for a long time.

Sometime last year, PN asked me why I did not cook more frequently. I told her that I was too lazy and the time spent on cooking seems unjustifiable given that I was just cooking for one (i.e. feeding myself). So she suggested that I buy a slow cooker, set the timer-up so that I get freshly cooked meals each time I return home.

Then earlier this year, when my cousin's wife visited, she made the same suggestion as PN. At the same time, she also shared verbally with me her Traditional Chinese Medicinal recipe for turning white hair to black. [Yes, my cousin's wife does not have any white hair despite being in her late-40's!] The beauty secret tempted me, but still I felt that since I am on a "student budget" I should not buy anything that is "non-essential".

Early in August, I mentioned to a friend in Singapore about my cousin's wife's recipe for regaining black hair. My friend was interested to try it, so I obtained the recipe again form my cousin's wife. Thus I am tempted once again to buy a slow cooker to boil that "magic potion".

So I asked the universe for a "sign" that I should spend that money on my health. Yeah, I am kind of thrifty on the non-essential purchases at the moment given that I had already spent my part of my annual fun budget on the trip to Banff, Alberta.

Last week, the temporary house-mate monk nagged at me about the state of my health. He told me to make 四神汤 ["4 gods soup"] and listed the ingredients for me.

I acted as if I knew nuts about herbal soups and did not quite understand the monk's instructions mainly because I have learnt from previous interactions earlier that week that he wanted to feel wiser* than me. [*Note: More about that, perhaps in a future post.] In any case, his recipe for 四神汤 ["4 gods soup"] is slightly different from my mother's, so I was somewhat confused and had to check the internet. [Apparently my mother has a modified recipe.] The monk did not know that, being Cantonese, I have grown up drinking herbal/medicinal soups; and for a period during my mid-teens and early 20's, my sister and I had to cook for our entire family of 7 -- soup, 2 to 3 dishes and rice daily.

Coincidentally, there was a sale on slow cookers in a shop, so I did some price comparison and online research. Finally I bought a slow cooker last Wednesday.

My new slow cooker

Have you watched the classic Spider Man where Peter Parker designed his own mechanical web-shooters and suddenly he is up for the challenge? Yeah, it feels a bit similar for me with my new slow cooker. Suddenly, so many of the food that I grew up with seems within reasonable reach. E.g. I no longer have to sit next to the stove for 2 hours just to get that nicely creamed Cantonese congee.

My first experiment

Cantonese congee with medicinal ingredients

The next day, I woke up to Cantonese congee with medicinal ingredients. For the following few days, my neighbouring house-mate thought that the monk was cooking mushrooms when he smelled the fragrance of mushrooms in the air. [It was me braising shitake mushrooms with the cooker in my room.] As it is, I have pre-cooked and froze/refrigerated most of my meals for this week. It is really nice to be able to cook specifically to my own taste and also to share good food with friends.

Brunch, encyclopedia and British accent

(A) Brunch

I just returned from brunch with the Mensa Canada group. We ate at Hazelmere Golf and Tennis Club near the American and Canadian border. Given the proximity to the border, several restaurants/outlets fly both the Canadian and American flags outside their stores. It was a lovely ride down south and back, passing by miles and miles of agriculture land, including some horse farms.

I had the buffet breakfast. It was mostly typical English buffet items with a North American touch. Have to say, the food quality is good* at CAD28, inclusive of tax and tips -- but do remember that this is typical bland English-style food, so you'd have to appreciate the ingredients, i.e. do not expect the dishes to be spicy. [*Note: Except for the cooked-on-the-spot egg Benedict which I did not try, as it seems like I'd prefer the ones at The Pantry in Richmond because I like them slightly more runny.] It even has the donut-shaped Canadian award-winning cheese with a dark/black-coloured herbed-rind amongst its cheese-and-cracker selection. [I do not know the name of the cheese, but for now, you can imagine that it looks like the Grey Owl, except that it comes in a donut-shape.]

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(B) Encyclopedia

On my table we have a mix of working adults and retirees from different industries. From trains, to administration, nursing, civil service, accounting, etc. [In previous gatherings, I have met car salesman, clerk, roofing specialist / comedian / videographer, computer specialist, businessman, unemployed, etc.] There is a wide range of occupations and age in the group. Someone shared about a movie based on a real-life story of a very intelligent girl who rose above her squalid life circumstances. In the movie was a real-life joke related to an encyclopedia, so I asked around the table, and it turns out that everyone at my table had access to an encyclopedia when growing-up.

On my way home, I asked the elderly couple (both Mensa members) who were giving me a ride if they had access to an encyclopedia while growing-up. The man had a set and the lady did not have an encyclopedia, but loved to read randomly from the dictionary. She also mentioned that she would checked the "neighbouring words" as well when she looked up a word and/or the page-delimiting words that looks interesting. I mentioned that I did the same too as a child. We agreed that in converting to the digital/internet media, we have lost that random fun-way to extend our vocabulary and knowledge.

Me, growing up amongst my uncle's books

[Note: I was not smiling because 

I was not allowed to for the photo, 

given that I had black-coloured milk teeth.]

In my early childhood, I lived in an extended family. My paternal grandparents doted on my uncle (father's younger brother) and gave him money to buy whatever books he desired. Amongst them was a set of hard-covered encyclopedia (I think it was the Britannica). My family was not English-speaking, and my uncle never spoked English at home, so at that kindergarten age, I could only muster the A-Z and "A for apple, B for boy, C for cat, ..." and so on. Nevertheless, I loved flipping through the thick and heavy encyclopedia books, looking at the pictures, looking for letters, words, pictures that I could recognize or figure out. Sometimes, I even spent time analyzing the pictures to try to understand them and/or correlate back to the words. That caused quite a bit of conflict at home because my uncle was rather possessive about his books, and he did not like us children to touch his things, even though I would personally put the items back exactly where they were from, right-down to the direction of the binder -- yup, I was anal-retentive for details as I wanted to minimized being accused of messing with my uncle's books. After some negotiations amongst the adults, it was finally agreed that the children (us) were allowed to read only the encyclopedia, and only if we handled the books carefully (absolutely no reading with food/drinks nearby) and put the books back in order after use. Being the introvert that I was (and still am), I remember spending hours, randomly flipping through the pages of the encyclopedia (and secretly some other books as well, including the dictionary). My time spent on the encyclopedia was perhaps only matched by my time spent drawing/copying pictures from the English children's story books that my elder brother borrowed from his primary school class library.

Anyway, just to share this story because the current consensus is that IQ is a composite of nature and nurture. In case you're a parent interested in nurturing your child's in-born abilities. [E.g. My GNIE classmate IT whose daughter's linguistic skills is beyond her years, so I told him about Mensa Canada.] Note: I do not currently own any shares of any encyclopedia, dictionary or educational books publishers. I am just sharing this little tidbit for fun.

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(C) British accent

At brunch today, we had a visitor from the British Mensa -- let's call him Mr SA. He is ethnically South Asian and spoke with a posh upper-middle class British accent. [IMHO, not quite the upper-class Queen's English yet, but similar.]

When Mr SA spoke with the other Canadian Mensa members who were formerly from the UK, he asked them whereabouts they grew up. From their interactions/reactions, I deduced that the (Caucasian) ex-Britons grew up in (much) humbler neighbourhoods than Mr SA. Mr SA, it seems, grew-up amongst the posh crowd. As you can tell from my photo above, I wasn't born with a silver spoon -- quite the opposite is true, I was working class. So yes, Mensa members are from all walks of life and spans across social classes, especially in Metro Vancouver. That said, Canada is comparatively socially-equitable and generally not class-obsessed. Thus I could tell from the reactions of the elderly ex-Britons that they did not quite appreciate Mr SA's questions, although they had answered him politely.

After Mr SA left the table to join his family for a shopping trip down at Bellingham, USA, (the lady seated to my right) L mentioned that the USA border guards would probably be confused by Mr SA. His accent is clearly posh-British, but in L's opinion, the USA border guards are typically rather "provincial", and thus they would probably need a double-take to resolve their mental association of "posh-British" = "white skin" when it is clearly a "brown skin" man standing in front of them. Oh what fun!

Building resistance against cold

Autumn equinox will arrive in about 2 weeks. Fall is already creeping in, the sun is rising later and setting earlier. While the daytime temperature still hits a high of 20degC, the night temperature dips down to a single digit low. People start wearing their jackets wherever they go.

My landlord has several rooms which he lets out to short-term tenants. I have a new house-mate today. He is a Buddhist monk from Taiwan. My landlord commented that the monk wears thinner layers of clothes than us, yet he does not seem to feel as cold as us. The monk then mentioned that there are some stuff we can eat to "fight away the cold" (i.e. building resistance against cold weather). So I asked him to share his secret. And here it is.

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• Thinly slice and shred a bit of ginger (老姜 old ginger preferred).
• Boil water. Brew some fresh red tea 红茶. [Note: It has to be red tea because the red tea has a specific function in this brew. Green tea will not do because green tea hurts the digestive track of vegetarians.]
• Add the ginger shreds into the red tea. Let it to steep for a while.
• Drink the above before 12 noon, or at least before 2pm* daily.

*Note: According to the monk, consuming the above brew any later than 2pm will have the opposite effect of the one intended.

Reality check on love

As mentioned in the comments on my previous blog post, I pulled up my old "10 ground rules for love" to do a reality check.

1. He must be single (or divorced or widowed) and available. No "separated", no "just broke-up", no flings. [Checked.]

2. He must be financially able to sustain himself. I don't need him to be rich, but I will not respect him if he needs others' charity to live-on in the long-run. [Checked.]

3. He must love me as I am. I am not perfect. I have my flaws. I need someone who can accept and love me as a whole. [??? No data to form a conclusion.]

4. He must love me enough to want to marry me. We will get married legally as soon as it is convenient. No grand weddings, they are often a source of headaches! [??? No data to form a conclusion.]

5. He must love children or nature. It does not matter if we have any or otherwise. It is just that I don't think much of the kindness/humanity/gratitude of a person if this person cannot bring himself/herself to love children or nature. [Checked, this guy loves nature and hiking. Can also tell lah, he is not a flabby tub.]

6. As an extension of the kindness/gratitude rule, he must care about the people related to himself and me. He does not have to agree with them or like them, but basic fellow human concern is expected. [??? Rumoured to be so. IMHO, not enough data to form a conclusion.]

7. He must live/work in the same city as me for a long enough period. That is, until after marriage and the relationship is strong enough to withstand the distance. [FAILED!!!]

8. I must be able to trust him. He must trust me too. This takes time to build, thus the rule about living in the same city. [??? No data to form a conclusion.]

9. He must be able to forgive. Not necessary to forget, for we learn life lessons from our experience. But in the long run, a willingness to recall the past without anger, bitterness or heavy regret is important to being happy. [??? No data to form a conclusion.]

10. He must be a non-smoker. It is not just about his health. My nose cannot stand the smell of a chronic smoker's breath. [Checked.]

CONCLUSION: Don't put any eggs into that basket for now. Failed critical item number 7.

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Then I decided to parse through the Master of Negativity (i.e. asingaporeanson) test as well.

1) List down 10 flaws about him (in your eyes)

2) Arrange them by order

3) Look at the top 5 flaws 

4) If you can't do 1), you don't know him well enough

5) If you managed to do 3) ask yourself if you can live with them.

6) If the answer to 5) is yes, go ahead and fuck. 

7) and blog it.

At step 1, I got stuck at flaw number 3!

CONCLUSION: "you don't know him well enough"

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Ok, back to being happily single. Yeah!