If I knew my brief encounter with the Prosperity Burger at McDonalds would haunt me forever, I would’ve never made that order. But you know how it can be difficult to predict the future right? It’s much easier to blog about the past, and act like you knew it all along.

However, this story plays itself out quite differently.

Some men say that a woman can tear even the strongest man apart.

But with a prosperity burger?

Well, let’s start this story at almost midnight, on a recent Thursday. A very hungry Thursday. My gut suggested grabbing a prosperity burger from McDonalds (yeah I know, I usually avoid McDonalds, but I was in the mood for beef, and there wasn’t many beefy options at the time).

Little did I know what a horrible choice it would be.

Because it led me to “her”. Yes, her. She was standing right there, behind the McDonald’s counter in her clean white headscarf. Innocent. Her pleasant demeanor invited me to approach her, and initiate the conversation that would change everything.

The deadly order

“One double prosperity burger, just the burger, no fries or drink or any of the other stuff”

Damn her. She accepted my money like a pro. Smiling. Clearly, she has done this before, many times. I didn’t think too much of it, after all, I was in McDonalds paying for a burger. I don’t overthink such things.

Upon handing me my receipt, she said “Duduk dulu.”, smiling. Which means “Sit down, first” in Malay. She didn’t give me much of a choice. Firm but friendly. I obeyed.

Moments later, she passed me my Prosperity Burger, still smiling. But my thoughts were only on the burger. For someone on the brink of starvation, everything looked like food. Her headscarf contained beef patties. Her lips were made of ketchup.

And she fulfilled my desires.

Having an actual burger in my mouth, at the time, was like having my daydreams come to life. Oh it was so, so good.

But funnily enough, something felt wrong.

It didn’t taste right.

I looked at the burger. Seemed fine.

I went for my second bite.

Yummy. OK. MM. Yes. Ok. Hmm. OK. Halt.

Something tastes wrong.

Something IS wrong.

Very wrong.

I looked at the burger again.

I knew it.

The edge of reason

What I was holding in my hands completely DISGUSTED ME.

It was actually a SINGLE prosperity burger.

What sort of vilified heartless soul would cheat me of my magic gastronomoment?

Didn’t she know I paid for a DOUBLE prosperity burger?

I was outraged. RM16 for a double burger is silly. Starved senseless boys like me fall for it. But RM16 for a single?

I was back at a counter with a burger in my hand, demanding the additional beef patty I deserved. Deep down, I was hoping she would even let me finish this single AND give me a new double. Then I would have TRIPLE prosperity burger and be a very prosperous guy.

But no. She had other plans.

Smiling of course, she said nothing. Her body language instructed me to instead, give up my single burger. I was hesitant. If I gave her my burger, I would have no burger. What would she want to do with my half eaten burger anyway? I bet she could get plenty of burgers from where she is at.

But after some more of her smiling, and hand gestures, I gave in, and handed her my burger.

I could see her. Holding my burger. Walking behind the trays. She spoke to some dude who I assume is a manager of sorts. Good. She is using my half butchered burger as evidence to give me plenty more burgers. Burgers I deserved. Right? RIGHT? Huh, lady?

But no. Like I said, she had other plans. Involving torture.

The moments which followed happened in slow motion. She would look at me, smiling, then gently look downwards, letting my burger slip out of her hands… I would stretch my arm across the counter shouting “Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakkk….” (“Sister, in Malay. Polite way of referring to “devil woman”)

SLAM DUNK. She friggin threw a PERFECTLY GOOD burger into the bin.

A perfectly good burger HOLY MOTHER.

Sure, it was missing one beef patty. But surely it didn’t deserve the bin? Think about what could’ve been my free burger. Think about the starving African children without prosperity burgers. Wasted. Didn’t she hear me scream? What was she smiling about?

OK. No more Mr.Nice guy.

In perfectly broken Malay I demanded answers:

“Did you just throw the burger away?

Or did you put it in some drawer? Can you take it out? I can still eat it.

It was a good burger. Can you dust it a bit and bring it out for me? You didn’t throw it away, did you? C’mon. Did you throw it away?”

The only response was the same devious smile she so consistently maintained. Mocking me. Her lips no longer reminded me of ketchup. It made me think of blood.

“Duduk dulu”. She ordered me to sit down again, smiling.

Defeated, I went into the corner of McDonals and sulked. She eventually passed me a double prosperity burger (believe me, I checked). I didn’t even look at her, in fear of her safety. Hungry men can do nasty things. I wolfed the burger down and drove off, still grieving over the innocent burger sacrificed at the hands of that… that… heartless beast.

The drive home was a long one.

Between the traffic lights, I fought against my emotions. Stop. Go. Stop. Go. I obeyed, yet I didn’t want to. What’s the point? Why should I listen and obey the social constructs of our ‘civil’ society, when there may be dozens of innocent burgers out there DYING as a result?

Post trauma rationalization

Yes, I know you may be emotionally worked up upon reading this. It is kind of a big deal. That’s OK. I know how you feel. No need to over-react, my dear. Let’s slow down a bit and make sense of the situation.

Times like these are testing.

You question the deeper things.

What’s right and wrong? Was it right for the smiling lady to destroy my burger? Was it wrong for me to feel bad about the incident, despite me getting bonus burger bites at the end of it?

As far as my lawyer friends laughed, there are no statutory laws, landmark cases, or legal implications useful to the situation. Turning our backs against the law, we’re forced to fall back on something equally made-up: our moral compass.

To use this compass, we need to cut our heartstrings from the equation with the reliably sharp broadsword of logic, and invite a special guest onto this episode.

Meet my friend Norman. Normative ethics.

Normative ethics involves arriving at moral standards that regulate right and wrong conduct. In a sense, it is a search for an ideal litmus test of ‘what is proper conduct’ (I stole of all this smart talk from this website, just so you know I am not nearly as smart, or as original as I can sound.)

According to normative ethics, there are 3 ways to (very simplistically) look at, and judge the prosperity burger incident – and who was right and wrong.

1) Virtue Theory

This is where virtues, like values or habits, like wisdom, courage, temperance, justice, generosity, self-respect, etc is called upon to justify what is right.

Verdict:

Since

1. I cannot describe any good virtues to justify the smiling lady’s waste of my burger.
2. My good virtue is ‘Valuing food and not wasting it’

Hence, by virtue theory, I am morally right.

However, some might argue that the lady was protecting me from having too many prosperity burgers (which are clearly bad for me). Perhaps the lady didn’t want me to smell like pepper and onions for a month, or add too many calories to my diet. We need to look at this objectively.

2) Duty Theories

This suggests that all of us have some sort of duty, or obligation. Such as the Golden Rule: “We should do to others what we would want others to do to us.” For example: I shouldn’t spit at babies and young children, if I don’t like being spitted at myself.

Verdict:

She should not throw away my perfectly good burger, in the same way she wouldn’t want me to meet her at home later and throw away her nasi lemak.

Hence, she is morally wrong.

3) Consequentialist Theories

“An action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more favorable than unfavorable.” Or “the means justifies the ends”.The most popular form is Utilitarianism: Eg. “It is right if it results in the greater good to the most people”.

Verdict:

The disposal of a perfectly good burger benefited NO ONE. Ok?? NO ONE. However, giving the burger to me would have at least benefited me, right, and consequently my loyal support and positive emotions of gratitude will indirectly benefit her.

Hence giving me the perfectly good burger was morally right.

Conculsion

So there you have it.

A partially fictional (of course I’m not worked up about a friggin burger. Though it was a perfectly good one. A good, edible, burger. A prosperous beefy burger.) moral dilemma thoroughly detailed, debated, and demystified, without any tangible effect on what happened.

Looks like you can’t change the past with bitching rhetoric after all ;)

Though you can change how you feel about it. And perhaps how you would feel about the future incidents. Right?

You might even ask, how would I deal with a similar situation in the future?

Since you asked. I thought of ordering a DOUBLE prosperity burger, eat one of the patties, and bring it back to the lady and accuse her of giving me a SINGLE. Ha! Take that! But that wouldn’t be morally right, by any moral measure. Oh no. And it probably won’t get her stop smiling either.

Anyways. I’ve been working so hard lately, this blog post really is an absurd satire thingy to entertain myself. Not to be taken too seriously ;)

Hope 2008 has been a great year for you. Here’s to a prosperous new year!

But yeah I’m on the plane right now, on the way to Sarawak, and guess what.

No, it’s not the dude in the magazine.

I know you like looking at pictures, but let me give you the full picture. I think I found love. And it’s in the advertisement pictured above.

1. The ad copy

This is Seiko Criteria. Selected by Daniel Wu. A chronograph that measures in increments of 1/20 seconds for up to 12 hours with rotary slide rule. 10 bar (100m) water resistant. The watch for the man on the move. Is it you?

Babygirl, you read my mind! You must be psychic! Gosh it’s like we’ve known each other for ages!

“A chronograph that measures in increments of 1/20 seconds for up to 12 hours” is EXACTLY what’s missing in my life!

I’ve been dreaming of it ever since I started time traveling.

Or when I leap through trains doors on the way to work, the last thing I want is to miscalculate an increment of 1/20 seconds, right? Heck I remember being late for business meetings for up to 3/20 of a seconds WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE sweet mother praise the earth!

What was that? It comes with a rotary slide rule? Okay. Might come in handy when I bored on the throne, and decide to measure a body part.

But yeah. Just look at you. You’re a work of art. Just look at your face.

2. Your face…

What a round, smooth face you have…

I remember all those lonely nights, when I’m in my room, 100m underwater, I would dream of a face like yours. Mysterious. Look at all the junk on your face. You’re an enigma.

Will you tell me more?

Nautical miles? Fuel? Oil? Stat? LBS? Calculator? Is the temperature in the cockpit okay? Is it tiger mating season yet?

Your face tells a thousand stories, and my brain will hurt if I knew them all.

3. Plain looking man

Who is this guy? Why is he undressing you with his eyes? This ticks me off a little. I’ll let him off this time. But you ask him to watch out okay.

4. My tie

My tie has nothing to do with my rant about this stupid watch advertisement. I’m just killing time before this aircraft lands.

And the pilot just mumbled some stuff about it (the landing, not my tie).

I guess this is where I stop bashing the advertisement. I mean, I’m sure some men will rush out and buy this watch, and I haven’t worn a watch since kindergarten so perhaps I’m out of their target market.

Conclusion

If you want to be seriously confused every time you want to know the time, or if you truly desire a chronograph that measures in increments of 1/20 seconds for up to 12 hours with rotary slide rule you can ask Daniel Wu for shopping advice.

Meanwhile, I’m off to the rainforest music festival in Sarawak, and forget time even exists.

Talk later.

What a pity.

Then the unexpected happened…

I would call you instead!

You send me an SMS right? And I’m like KAZZAAAAM!!! HELLO!!! And you’re like WHOA SLOW DOWN BOYO, but I’m like YOWZAAA!!! MY SMS IS BROKEN SO TALK TO ME HONEYBUNS

This would happen with every SMS that demanded a reply.

I started talking to more people.

And people talked back.

Profound?

I wish I could tell you how I now have deeper relationships with the universe. But no. It has made no noteworthy difference in my life.

I guess I’m still noting it down, because I never imagined a lifestyle experiment involving not sending any SMSes for 3 weeks.

I mean, what if you couldn’t send SMSes for 3 weeks?

Try it.

You’ll see what a pointless exercise in frustration it is. I’m getting my phone fixed this week.

Side observation:

Mobile phones and me = Women and me

They look good at first, but after a couple of months they start to act strangely. Guess I pressed the wrong buttons.

The sketch you see is “hdd”, from my gallery of digital doodles

It was a long night.

Nika’s friend had a friend visiting from Poland, it is her first night here in KL. She was walking in front of Bangsar Permai apartments on Jln Tanduk, Bangsar, when 3 men leapt out of the car, armed with a giant curved parang.

She got robbed, in front of the guard house of the apartments!

Being the courageous hero manly man I am, I was in Nika’s apartment hanging out, drinking some sour Polish soup they made.

As soon as Nika’s friend stumbled into the apartment in tears, my spider-like reflexes prompted the extension of my muscular arm into my pocket, initiating crucial contact with the police department.

Then my shirt…

I could go on.

But let’s not dwell in the past.

This blog post is about solutions!

If you think about it… everyone you know, knows someone who got robbed or snatched or whatever. Right? Don’t know someone? Well, you know me, and it’s happened to my mom, my ex-girlfriend’s sister, and even I got robbed! Twice! (Both times the robbers got caught / humiliated but that’s another story.)

Gah! Bah! We have to stop these crimes!

Since I want to avoid any real confrontation, here’s the plan.

1. Guys and girls walking around the city? Carry an ugly market-like plastic bag, and put vegetables in it.
2. Make sure a cucumber, or a cabbage is sticking out, so it is clear that you are carrying a bag of vegetables.
3. Place all your valuables next to the cabbage. Wallet, money, handphone, whatever. Wrap it up, place it in the cleverly disguised bag of vegetables.
4. Carry your usual bag, the way you normally would, except you could place a home made booby trap. No booby trap? Place a couple of extra vegetables in there. Maybe a rotten one, too.
5. In the event of danger, drop your plastic bag of vegetables (which contain your belongings) on the floor. Or throw it far away. And give the criminals your expensive looking bag (the one with the booby traps)

OK…ok… You may think this is a stupid idea.

After all, not too many people have real booby traps for robbers. Heck I was thinking time bombs but not everyone has time bombs.

You can also argue that a robber who goes home to find a bag of vegetables might anger him enough to go out and rob some more victims.

But perhaps, in the long run, if all of us implement my idea, robbers may get sick of vegetables, and try other stunts to get money, like becoming social entrepreneurs.

I guess, the idea has too many maybes.

Since this is a serious topic, allow me to suggest some alternatives.

1. Resolve economic disparity through changes in public policy and the education system
2. Increase employment opportunities and skills development for the urban poor
3. Form a special task force to crack down on snatch thieves and robbers

But if you analyze the above solutions, and compare it to my vegetable bag trick, they are just as likely to get implemented, and have any real effect on the recent crime spree.

Seriously.

But I won’t complain about stuff here… Solution focus! Yes, yes! And if for some reason, the solution is beyond my pea-sized brain, I need your help.

If you have any real ideas on what we can do to stop this sort of crime, do share.

I promise to give the best idea a bag of vegetables. (I did this for a friend’s birthday once, so I’m not kidding)

Tell me your great idea for solving snatch thieves and armed robberies, and I will give you a healthy reward.

In my extended Chinese family, the annual exodus back to the village for Chinese New Year is pure hell for fat kids.

Pure. Hell.

My relatives have no mercy on fat kids.

Maybe it’s just my relatives. Or maybe all Malaysian families, not just Chinese ones like mine.

I don’t know. You tell me.

Imagine for a moment…

1. You are related to me
2. You put on weight since last year
3. You came to my village

Are you imagining that?

Scary eh. It is just the beginning.

• Everyone will take turns to point at you with comments and questions. Like “Wow, you are so fat now! What happened?” or “Putting on weight? Very prosperous! Hehe!”
• They will even pit you against other fat relatives… “Look at kor-kor (means brother in Chinese dialect), if you don’t watch out your belly will be as big as his!”
• They will do this, a couple of times, even if you smile politely in return, or ignore them.
• They might even throw you some rude accusations cum weight-loss advice… “Exercise! You never exercise!”
• And yes, they do all of the above, even if they are fatter than you.

In some other context, or culture, this is called bullying. But for my relatives, this is Chinese New Year.

Sigh. I can’t help but feel bad for the fat kids in my family.

But to be very honest with you, sometimes, I’m tempted to join in the fun.

Hey bro, it’s not the year of the pig!

Haha. Ok, that was mean. But you have to understand, I was keeping that in all day.

For the record I am not a fat kid.

I’m fortunate to have an athletic figure. I probably don’t know what it feels like to be fat (and I intend to keep things this way).

However, my older brother, who has long ago decided being fat was no big deal (pun), has to endure this.

Good thing he developed a few defense mechanisms against my extended family. The most powerful being “Wall of ignorance”. It’s almost as though he puts on an invisible cloak, as he goes for the next plate of rice.

Why does it have to be like this?

It’s not like fat kids go up to the elderly and go “Wow! You’re so old!”

I’m guessing, either…

• My relatives are mean! They get kicks out of laughing at fat kids.
• Or, my family members mean well, and believe taunting will drive a fat kid to shed the pounds.

Anyway, I just wanted to highlight this issue to other Chinese families out there to see if it makes a difference. I’m not doing this to make my relatives look bad. I like them, they are generally nice people, who contribute to society meaningfully.

It’s great to have family to celebrate with, even though some members come in different sizes :)

Here’s to a healthy, happy new year everyone!

Dear “Amah”,

How are ya? We’re into the final quarter of the year, and boy does time fly! Next thing you know, I’m 94 years old, just like you.

Guess what, I have some good news!

Remember the Apostrophe 16 Word Short Story Writing Competition I told you about. Remember? I shared with you my strategy to win?

It worked! My story was one of the top 16 out of 8,500 entries.

They converted my story into a piece of artwork (left).

However, I didn’t make it to the top 6. If I did, I would be flown to Bali for a writer’s festival, and can probably buy you some fruits when I return.

Nevertheless, the event was really fun, held in the Cental Market Annexe. I’m sure you would’ve enjoyed it.

Okay maybe not, but I enjoyed it.

Got to take silly pictures with other people’s artwork.

Yes, that’s Effa and Nadiah again. No, they’re not Chinese. No, I’m not going to get married with them. I just take pictures with them, that’s all. Yes I have Chinese gal-friends too.

I was catching up with Laych, who is “the older sister” of one of my best friends. Also met the girl who announced the “good news” over the phone.

A.K.A “The Voice”

And this is me licking some underwear. Yes Grandma, this is what young people do these days.

Awwww… :P

The rest of August was pretty cool, too.

Mike and Vishen were travelling about, and the whole MindValley team had to fend for ourselves. We went to so many parties after work!

I’ve blogged about the MDeC creative night, and Flickr24 on the MindValley blog itself. Fun!

But the most fun has to be Yu-jin’s “Gangstas and Ho’s” party!

I grabbed a fake gun and acted like an aggressive ex-con the entire night.

You should’ve seen me grandma. I was shouting profanity at everyone, and using derogatory terms on women.. and everyone was happy!

Strange how things work out sometimes.

Overall, all the little pieces of my life are coming together, and as much as you want me to get married right now, I can’t.

I’m working on so many projects right now, and I’m having too much fun… sometimes I’m not even sure if the conventional idea of marriage is the best approach in this modern day.

I guess when I’m old enough, I’ll understand.

In the meantime, I appreciate your blessings, and I promise to work hard, and work even harder. Sometimes, I’ll party. See you for dinner soon.

sTaY c0Ol 4eVa

One of your many grandsons,
Khailee

I had to defeat him.

Watch video PROOF… of me taking on the “Buko King”.

I remember other incidents of course. Some even more surreal.

Such as being led by an island singer to a lonely streetside music machine to impersonate Tom Jones, The Scorpions, and Britney.

They call it Videoke. I call it Karaoke. The locals call it horrendous.

It’s my second time in the Philippines (Manila and Bohol). I was celebrating my one year of being a contributing, functional member of the working class.

Here’s the side of Philippines I saw… illustrated with some videos, photos, and words… sorted by imagination…

Let me start with the beautiful people in our group…

Dino, the Philippino giant… he isn’t part of our group-group. (We kinda met him there, a friend of a friend)

But I just wanted to show you his picture first.

They call him Dino for a reason… more brontosauraus than T-Rex, though. The gentle giant… he was even taller than I was! Can you believe it? Someone taller than me? You’d better believe it. Here’s some proof.

Ok well Effa is part of our group – group. In fact, she handled most of the nitty-gritty of organizing transport and such.

And of course Nadiah, who provided the bulk of the accomodation and silly but funny commentary. So it was the 3 of us on the trip. Effa, Nadiah, and myself.

Then there was Nadiah’s mom. We stayed at her place. She called me budak cina comel (cute Chinese boy)

We also met up with old friends… Here’s Jaime, a full-blooded Pinoy bloke. I met him a year ago during the HSBC Young Entrepreneur Award. He’s pictured with Effa. Thanks Jaime for your warm hospitality!

And Angeli, Chinese Philippino. Also from the HSBC thing. Angeli took me out on a pretty wild night involving expensive restaurants and full body massages. Here she is pictured with budak Cina comel.

I also met up with Lea, a good friend from my first trip to the Philippines. We were in Davao for some British Council thing.

Then there’s Nadiah’s gang of Pinoy friends, Aris, Karen, and Dino (again). Here we are clubbing in Manila.

The uniformed guy below is Bobbyjoe Di Mario. He was probing me before I entered the mall. Its kinda normal there. He isn’t exactly my friend, I didn’t party with him or anything. I just felt Bobbyjoe Di Mario as a name, really suited this guy.

We met celebrities, too. Like Keanu Reeves and Thom Yorke, pictured here.

And Boyz II Men

There are more characters, like Silso. But you’ve already met him. He was singing that Scorpions song in the Videoke video above (Silso = local singer who took us to sing with him).

The next day he took us on his boat for a beach adventure. More on that later.

For now I just want to say how much I hate pork. I had too much pork in the Philippines!

I had pork face and ears… also known as sisig, or fear factor.

And pork blood

Made from brother of this poor piglet.

Ugh! That’s enough to get me all vegan.

Let’s shift gears, and transport ourselves to the lovely Bohol islands… namely Panglao beach.

Here’s a video of the many dogs roaming the island, laying bricks everywhere.

When they aren’t laying bricks, they dream of it.

So many dogs…

And here’s the typical beach pictures…

Guess who’s feet belongs to who? (Hint: Effa’s toe hair is gross)

Shopping on the beach!

Pix of us with Silso’s boat.

Apart from beaches… We also visited the Chocolate Hills…

Some of us climbed them…

Too bad Silso didn’t have a car. Our tour guide’s name is Johnny, and he isn’t very cool. His van was okay though.

Johnny took us to see a large snake named “Prony”.

And it’s even scarier caretaker…

More snakes!

And more vicious animals! Like the evil Tarsir… apparently the smallest primate on earth. Scary!

Here I am getting my arm chewed off.

And Nadiah chewing on them to defend me.

We had to do all this scary stuff under the wrath of the sun… and I thought Kuala Lumpur was hot.

At the end of the day…. we’re fortunate to have great accomodation. Like the half-built Villa Amadilla on Panglao Beach…

And its helpful caretaker, Andreas. He helped us kill a cockcroach in the middle of the night.

Casa Rosario in Cebu was good too.

Did you notice that guitar in the picture? I bought it from this guy.

I don’t know his name. But he claimed he made the guitar I bought. It was a cheap guitar, but I loved it!

It’s a great souvenir.

I’m not that big on souvenirs though. They make me miss these moments more… the fond moments… of waiting in transit…

The trike-hauling…

And the cheap (and clean) massage services after a long day of trike-hauling… (Prior to this, I never actually experienced massage)

Ah.. the dreamy days…

And the dreamy nights…

More to come!!!

Next year I’ll attack Boraycay and Baguio (a beach and a mountain area in the Philippines). If you wanna join me just say yes.

Thanks again Nadiah and Effa and my Pinoy pals for the great holiday =)

Rule number 5 for writing fiction, according to the late Kurt Vonnegut, is to start as close to the end as possible..

I’m not sure if I can get closer to the end than this, considering today’s story begins in a cemetery. 

But then again, this is not a piece of fiction.

Or maybe it is.

I’m not sure what it is you accept as the truth regarding life after death.

Today’s story is about chingming, a tradition celebrated in my Chinese tradition.

Okay, maybe not ”celebrate”, but “return to our ancestral burial grounds to clean stuff and pay respect”… something I haven’t done in many years.

My dad usually represents me. He gets excited about cleaning things. It’s 5am and he’s already got his hands on the wheel.

It’s a long drive back to the village.

We arrive at dawn, and pay respect to the lord of the cemetery, by offering him a feast of sorts.

My relatives have their own belief system, their own small gods, symbols, and traditions… their own way of expressing values like gratitude and humility.

On the surface I find the practices unfamiliar and almost ancient. But underneath it all, I’m here with my family for the same reasons. Gratitude.

Then we get busy cleaning up the grave, and touching up the artwork.

Good Job! I wish I knew what the words meant.

This is my uncle and his bunch of jossticks, ready to receive blessings from our late forefathers.

It’s hard to say if the amount of blessing is correlated to the number of joysticks one can hold. My dad had a whole bouquet for some reason.

He wishes for safety and prosperity for the family.

By the way, the above is my great grandmother’s grave.

My grandparents, like many Malaysian Chinese families, came on a boat of sorts all the way from China, lending themselves to stories of poverty and hardship just so I can blog about it on my snazzy laptop, 22inch LCD screen, in my air-conditioned room…

After the kneeling and the jossticks, symbolism goes a step further, with the customary burning of “Hell Money”.

My cousin feeds the fire.

But no one can beat the 6th aunt!

In spite of 6th aunt’s smoke bomb, I still try to do my bit.

Some nephews I have never met look on.

I wondered what was on their minds. Did we share the same questions?

• What happens after the “Hell Money” is burnt?
• Why is it called “Hell Money”? Whatever happened to heaven?
• Are we done? =P

Not yet. We have my grandfather up next.

Roar!

His grave is guarded by some cool statues!

I want a 100 of these lion statues to guard my grave! It’s a great alternative to donating your body to science.

While I admire the lion statues, my uncles begin with the lord of the cemetery again… another feast!

This dude is in charge of the booze.

I made it my duty to paint the magificent lion statues.

And the second round of burning begins. This time we get more literal, burning shoes and shirts.

I wonder what the exchange rate is.

I used to have so much fun doing this as a kid. I mean, how often do you get to burn stuff? It didn’t need some profound reason. I just did it.

Here I am again. Burning stuff.

Yellow paper danced with the wind, and burnt with the flames.

It’s a good thing I captured this tradition digitally, coz it may not survive the future generations.

If my descendants want to feel grateful to me, cool bananas. But I’m coming up with my own customs!

They must make a blog post once a year, about gratitude. I will then read the RSS feed from my Heavenly RSS reader and make an invisible comment on their blog post =P

If they prefer to burn me some “Hell Money” too, that’s fine. Maybe their kids like burning stuff as much as I do.

It’s up to them.

The last thing they need is yet another person telling them what to believe in. Especially a dead person.

Choosing our own beliefs is a task in itself… which become a chore when other people impose their beliefs onto us.

I’m glad I grew up with the freedom to explore, and make decisions for myself.

And that’s a pretty good reason to be thankful.

THE END (for now)

Riddle of the day… what is this contraption doing in the cemetery?

My colleagues and I at MindValley do more than run mySQL queries and AdWords campaigns… we run offline too ;P

7 of us take part in BHPetrol’s 9km Orange Run at TheCurve.

Khailee: I bought new running shorts. I’ll show them to you when you arrive at the finish line.

Mike: Michelle and I are out having drinks, but we’ll still be able to carry you to the finish line if you need help.

Dave: Get used to looking at C675 (my runner’s number)

The Results

The race is over! No-shows Talat and Vishen, they will be buying all of us dinner to make up for their embarrassment to humankind.

Dave earns bragging rights for his feat of endurance.

Even though we’re all completely tired and terribly injured from the intense competition (or in Vishen’s case, intense partying the night before), we’re already making plans for The Penang Bridge Run in later June this year.

I will redeem myself then.

For now, I’m actually kinda disappointed at myself. I’m used to feeling like an athletic breakdancing ninja, competing in sporting events, running every week etc… However, this morning, I was struggling to maintain a running pace. Worse still, I completely busted my right knee!

I’m not even going to remind myself of the octogenarians and schoolchildren who left me in the dust.

THIS IS A WAKE-UP CALL TO MY BODY

• I realize I don’t have the stamina / horse power I used to possess
• I am more prone to injury.
• My mental strength / willingness to exert has decreased

I MUST NOT go down the path to ageing, poor health, and general unattractiveness!

I refuse to let elements of poor health screw up the story of my life! The last thing I want is to be imprisoned in a fragile, vulnerable, limiting shell a.k.a my body.

I guess all I can do now is write about my fury till my mutant healing powers kick in. Once I recuperate, let the training begin!

P.S – Come join us for a run? Or better yet, for your dream job! We’re hiring bloggers and programmers. More on that in a bit.

Call the gang.

No, it didn’t happen like that.

Click here to read the full story, published on TheCICAK.