Tactless Relatives7/14/2008 8:25:42 PM
One of the most common comments I get from relatives are, "Wah! Fat already! VERY FAT ALREADY AH!"
I'll smile a polite smile and as much as I want to bite back, "Yeah, people would definitely know we are related now," I would have to say, "Hehe yalor" and swallow the gulp that is forming in my throat. I'm still a girl who is sensitive about my tummy and my thunder arms. It is usually the old aunties who have no qualms about poking your flabs or squeezing your arms as tight as they can. Have they forgotten what it was like to be young and wanting to look good? Sure, I know that they want the best for me but I'm not exactly overweight (65kg at 170cm. THERE, I said it. On national paper too.), so don't push me to the brink of anorexia already.
Relatives and their tact. They don't really go hand in hand, do they? Would they dare to spew the same comments to people who are mere acquaintances to them? Do they go out in the streets and see a slightly overweight girl and yell out, "Oi, fat already! Been eating a lot ah?" We can't strike them for there is this stupid thing called 'Respect Your Elders'. Just because I'm a child in the eyes of the extended family, a lowly insignificant individual of the younger generation, does it mean it is okay to make comments about my physical appearance as you see fit?
As I age, I see my nephews, nieces and younger cousins grow up and I find myself going, "It was just yesterday when they were tiny tots running about," and thus spawns the "WAH SO BIG GIRL/BOY ALREADY!" comments that has previously peppered my yearly chinese new year visits. Middle age relatives are usually stuck in a perpetual time warp and will always forget if you're still in high school or primary school. It's not all that flattering if you're 13 and some relative asks, "So, finishing college soon right?" Believe me, it happened to me before.
Then there's the golden question of The Boyfriend. I prefer the no beating around the bush approach. Most people would blush, get squeamish and say something like, "No lah, don't have yet."
A relative would ask in a teasing manner, "So, Jolene, got boyfriend already right?"
I would deadpan, "Yup."
She would then ask this in an extra teasing manner, "When getting married?"
"27 years old." Straight to the point, that's my style.
Then she starts to take you a little more seriously, "Oh I see, I see. Six years more only,"
"A lot of time to build up that ang pow," I would then add.
And there you have it, problem solved. No more annoying boyfriend questions with a non-hesitant manner of answering. Unless they up the game by saying things like, "So when can we meet him?" I have not mastered that as I have yet to warm up to the idea of relatives and boyfriend, being in one place, at the same time. Many I-look-at-you-you-look-at-me moments of silence. Too awkward for my liking.
Some of the more fun loving relatives have even gone so far as to ask, "So, done it already ah?"
This does not require you to answer them with real answers but giving cheeky replies might work. Do say "I'm not sure if that one counted....." and then trail off mysteriously. Just be sure that your parents are not around to hear your answers. Also, do consider a good barter system. Satiate their aunty-ish curiosities and gain an experienced best friend or adult to get you out of sticky situations, in return, you tell them everything their poor nubile kids tell you.
Questions that probe about my love life, weight and growth matters are still expected of these nosey, know-it-all relatives. But how do you deal with comments from the grandaunties who just say it as it is, "The older you get, the less pretty you are!" I was once that girl who cried all the way home on her bicycle when some boys from school called me ugly. I mean no person with an average self esteem will be able to stomach such insults so why should we be subjected to such mockery from our so-called caring relatives? Again, it all boils down to the fact that they are our elders (this is starting to sound like some Red Indian Tribal Woman's Rant) which somehow gives them the right to criticize as they see fit, to poke their noses where they assume it belongs. To them it is just words that don't mean anything when used on a person a few generations younger.
Although, I have to thank my lucky stars that I have yet to get embroiled in any strange affairs or any sort of situation that would make for interesting family gossip. I do not want to be that wild child who gets the evil eye from judging relatives at family functions or be the one that the younger kids are told, "Do you want to end up like your Cousin Jolene?" It's bad enough to have to deal with the wagging tongues of particular relatives when they look you up and down three times a year (chinese new year, a wedding and a funeral). Hence, no further drama is necessary.
Is it an older generation thing to criticize and assume that that is how they show that their concerned about us? I have parents for that, thank you very much. Big family gatherings are meant for catching up and bonding, not unintended insults that are "only for your own good mah!"
Author: Jolene Lai
Date: Monday, July 14, 2008 8:25:42 PM
4 comments
The Sketch 7/14/2008 8:17:45 PM
This was presented during P2P Kinabatangan 2008 at Sukau Rainforest Lodge.Enjoy it>>>
See this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yb2jkYmmmo
Author: p2pgreeniz
Date: Monday, July 14, 2008 8:17:45 PM
0 comments
Are You on Facebook? It's Cool Right?7/3/2008 5:03:44 PM
Many of us these days have an online profile. You know, those little things you put up on Friendster, Facebook or the likes, telling the world how superbly unique you are by doing exactly what a billion other people are doing.
What I wanna discuss today are the subtle and sneaky ways people have started to use online profiles. Have you ever seen a profile where the user, usually a female and a good-looking one at that, deliberately puts up a photo of herself alongside her trusty female sidekick, who happens to be unfortunate enough to be uglier than the user. And the Good Looking One captions her photo as : ' Me and my cute/pretty/gorgeous friend!'
My first thought upon encountering such a profile was , 'Wow she is HOT!". After the initial awe had died down, and I had cleaned myself up, I then began to observe The Hot One's friend."Wow she is UGLY". And it's not like I have anything personal towards the Ugly Duckling, as I myself possess the physical attractiveness and sexual magnetism of a collection of haemorrhoids, but the relative comparison of the two just makes matters worse for the poor gal. I mean, the hot one looks THAT much hotter when placed next to the her ugly companion, who looks THAT much worse. It's like comparing body fat percentage between me and a pen, and then saying ,'Oh Jason, you are so slim!"
That is just self promotion at its sneakiest. Even Pepsi and Coca Cola wouldn't do that. The best either company would do is just say "Here is our drink, it is the best in the world". In all fairness, I suppose one can't really say , "I am the best looking gal in my group of friends", as that will produce a catfight even World War 2 veterans would fear to interfere, but still, how dare she?How dare she be so superficial and heartless?
And the caption in itself is the most devilish and cruel of all. By referring to her ugly friend as 'gorgeous' , and herself who is good looking as just 'Me', that is just rubbing salt, pepper, paprika, and industrial strength hydrochloric acid into an already festering wound. Just for the record, such a thing won't happen to boys, as an act like that will be described as "Totally Gay' and that message will be conveyed to the perpetrator of so heinous an act through the medium of fists to his face and knees to his testicular region. And who's to say industrial strength hydrochloric acid won't be involved at all?
And what about those really really self absorbed individuals who take a picture of just their face, but THEY ARE NOT LOOKING AT THE CAMERA. Instead, they are staring wistfully into space, showing thoughtful and endearing emotions. How much of a poser can you be? Can you imagine how insulted the person holding the camera is? The person being photographed isn't even paying attention to the photographer! "What is so interesting to the left of your visual field that you aren't even looking at me, the loser who agreed to photograph you? Shall I photograph that instead?"
Then it gets worse. Not content with just ONE photo of themselves as their profile photo, some individuals take like, 50 photos of JUST THEIR FACES and then assemble them into a collage of some sort.So now, when you click on their profiles, you are treated to like a million different camera angles of their nostrils, eyebrows, facial hair, pimples, freckles etc etc. It's like they are trying to convince you , "Look, it's really me okay?" in case you get confused with someone else who coincidentally share their name AND their facial features.
I once had a female friend who for her sake of privacy we shall refer to as Miss X who had been going on and on for months about this friend of her friend's who is ABSOLUTELY gorgeous, with smooth skin, anime-like hair and that dangerous, bad boy look about him. Of course, she had only saw him online on his Friendster profile and the only thing she knew about him was through his testimonials, many from girls who described him as "leng chai", "sexy man", "bootlicious", etc etc, all bordering on the pornographic.
When they finally met at a gathering at Starbucks, Miss X nearly puked her coffee via her nostrils.The cruel irony was that this particular dude, whom I shall refer to as Mr. X, had the complexion and skin texture of a rotten pineapple. His bad boy demeanour came from several years of evading the law while selling highly illegal yet very much sought after pirated porn VCDs. All his female 'friends' referred to him as 'the sexy one' out of sarcasm and out of the fact that every single one of them had rejected his advances.
After her coughs and sputters, suddenly Miss X began laughing. I felt a bit disturbed, as clearly this was a bit rude. Mr. X was after all, a stranger she had just met. I reprimanded her for her superficiality. She then apologized and clarified, "It's just so bloody funny 'cause he's actually better looking than you!". .
Online profiles do have their perks. But some people overdo it. Have you heard of people who have like, multiple Friendster accounts, and like, a megazillion blogs, each one detailing their personal life by the second? I mean, how many friends can one have? I have seen a few people on Friendster who each have like a total combined number of friends in the thousands. In my opinion, if you have more than a 100 friends, you are a celebrity and no longer need an online profile. Just stick to about 50 or so, and pass the rest to me.
The other day I went to London to visit my friend, S. The politically correct term to describe her is "Facebook Whore", and I feel that it has taken over her life. The moment I met her for the first time in a long while, she immediately exclaimed, "OH MY GAWSH, I have not seen you for so long…on Facebook". I replied that Facebook didn't appeal to me, and she replied with the most dangerous sentence in all of Womankind - "Oh"- in a tone that suggested that I had defecated on her bed. To fill in the awkward silence that followed, I decided to ask her about the virtues of Facebook : -
"See see, it's so cool, you can write on your friends' wall! And you can also check 'wall to wall' and see what others have replied to each other's wall! Cool right? Faster go write something on my wall!" And if you look at your friends' photos, you can move your mouse over their faces and their NAMES WILL APPEAR! Cool right? And if you CLICK on their face, you can immediately see their profile! Cool right? And look look, you can give gifts to your friends! *moves mouse pointer over a Teddy Bear icon the size of a thumbnail*. If you click here, your friend will receive the gift! Cool right? And if you want someone's attention, you can poke that person! Cool right? See, this fella has poked me. So I will poke him back. I tell you, I have been poked by him and his friends for like, 50 times last week. I better go mention that on his wall. Cool right?
We should try to do other stuff besides online profiling. Go out. Talk to an actual living, breathing PERSON. Gossip. Bathe. Fantasize about the opposite sex. Do something you can be proud of. Many years from now, will you tell your grandkids, "Hey, when I was your age, I had an awesome online profile"? Or when you are lying on your deathbed, you ain't gonna say , "Damn, I wish I jazzed up my HTML on my Friendster account". If you got that last joke, you NEED TO GET OUT OF YOUR HOUSE.
Author: sickopsycho666
Date: Thursday, July 03, 2008 5:03:44 PM
6 comments
falling in love with paradise 5/28/2008 12:37:07 PM
To fall in love is a wonderful feeling. Love at first sight makes it even better. Then after the first gaze , you are brought into a sweet and loving embrace.
Having spent almost my entire life living in a city, i try very hard to get connected back to nature. I go for walks and jogs in natural area such as FRIM in Kepong and Bukit Gasing in Petaling Jaya. I go camping out in the nearby jungle reserves. I make vacation plans with my buddies to places such as Pulau Redang and Langkawi and try to enjoy as much of the nature there is.
Coming to Sukau, Kinabatangan initially to me was very much the same purpose as the above mentioned. After spending a few days here, I don't know what i can say. I have seen some of the most beautiful things in all 20 years of my life. I have been more inspired than any speech could have made me. I have meet some of the most unique and wonderful people (in more ways than one) and experiencing Kinabatangan together with them.
There is nothing i can truly say. To me these few days have been a dream, a living breathing and of cause a slightly painful dream...
Wonderful.....
Lai Jian Wei
Wednesday May 28, 2008
12.08pm
The P2P Greeniz is running until May 29 in Kinabatangan Sabah. It is organised by StarYouth, with the cooperation of Maybank. Click here to view some of the pictures taken so far at the expedition.
Author: p2pgreeniz - Lai Jian Wei
Date: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 12:37:07 PM
0 comments
Kinabatangan Forest 5/28/2008 12:36:57 PM
I never knew paradise was only a sea away until now. It's truly inspiring to be away from all the busting city life, just to be here, in Sukau, surrounded by never ending green carpets and 31 other crazy nature loving folks. When can one get this opportunity again? This is where one suddenly sees the “light” after 16 years just to admire, really appreciate and sense the desperate need to just sweep all of these into my embrace. To have both your legs sink 3 feet into a bottomless mud pit, to be able to see a night sky filled with infinite number of stars which one will never see back home in Penang, that is something one can never describe and experience through solely textbooks and the Discovery Channel.
Hence, I plead to everyone of us not to forget the beauty of nature and start taking even small steps to save the greens, so that, at least I may be able to enjoy this chip of paradies, say 50 years from now.
Teng Shin
The P2P Greeniz is running until May 29 in Kinabatangan Sabah. It is organised by StarYouth, with the cooperation of Maybank. Click here to view some of the pictures taken so far at the expedition.
Author: p2pgreeniz - Khoo Teng Shin
Date: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 12:36:57 PM
2 comments
|
