Asian vs Western Culture

Through power of chain letters today I received an interesting overview of the differences between Chinese/Asian (including the Indians, Japanese, Thais, Koreans, Indonesian, Malays, Dayaks, etc...) and Western Culture, research conducted by Liu Young, Chinese born who studied in Germany. Without much talking about it - see for yourself, pictures speak thousand words...

Blue --> Westerner
Red --> Asian

Opinion

Way of Life

Punctuality

Contacts

Anger

Queue when Waiting

Sundays on the Road

Party



In the restaurant



Traveling



Handling of Problems



Three meals a day



Transportation
1970
2006

Elderly in day to day life

Moods and Weather

What's Trendy

Sainsbury's "Fishy" Deal...

Was shopping for Niki's birthday dinner groceries when we chanced upon this fish that was on offer for £7.99 and it was damn huge. Couldn't resist the good offer so we bought the fish, and the next thought was, "How were we going to cook this gigantic fish?".

Jon Chan, usual with his whacky ideas, gave the suggestion of BBQ. Mighty fine idea but then, its the month of December, which means that UK is currently in the first half of the winter season already. Contemplating on the idea, everyone got high and happy and well. Shit happens. We DID BBQ in the middle of the fucking chilly winter. Great or horrible idea? You decide.

Jon Chan (middle), the mastermind of the winter BBQ >.>'''

Mweee. Fishie. =3


Pretty sure that the pictures did the talking. About how crazy we were over the fishie...

p/s: Edward Saw, when you're back, we're going to do another fish of that size again just so you don't miss out...

AMA Assignment down, 4 more to go...

*Lets out a sigh of relief* Phew...Managed to complete the assignment, review the flow of the essay and managed to squeeze 2486 words out of the maximum 2500 words for my assignment.

What can I say? It's more challenging than Year One's and Year Two's assignments that I had did previously but nonetheless it proved to be quite challenging as no assignments had made me or any of my friends to stay awake for 1-2 nights just to complete the assignment.

It's safely inside the assignment postbox beside the Cribbs Cafe at the Bristol Business School (BBS) reception. Let's hope for the best results for this piece of work. Oh and yeah, that picture down there was what was submitted to the assignment postbox ^^

Relevance Lost - The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting + Sleepless nights = AMA Assignment

What's Love?

What do you mean by ‘love’? What do you mean by ‘I love you’? According to Oxford Dictionary love is:

1. an intense feeling of deep affection.


2. a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone.


3. a great interest and pleasure in something.


4. a person or thing that one loves.
   

From here, we can see that love is quite unexplainable word. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia state a quite long explanation. Read it.

For me, ‘love’ means taking care someone unconditionally and have great feelings and interest for that person. So, what is love by the way?

Let’s see some love quotes by some people.

• “One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” - Sophocles


• “Attention is the most basic form of love; through it we bless and are blessed.” - John Tarrant


• “We love because it’s the only true adventure.” - Nikki Giovanni


• “Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it, and it darts away.” - Dorothy Parker


• “Love is Blind.” - Cherylyn Chee


• “Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing.” - Goethe


• “To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia.” - H.L. Mencken


• “Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it…It really is worth fighting for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk everything, you risk even more.” - Erica Jong


• “Sometimes love is stronger than a man’s convictions.” - Isaac Bashevis Singer


• “Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes


• “Maybe love is like luck. You have to go all the way to find it.” - Robert Mitchum


• “Love stretches your heart and makes you big inside.” - Margaret Walker


• “Love has no awareness of merit or demerit; it has no scale… Love loves; this is its nature.” - Howard Thurman


• “Love is like war: Easy to begin but hard to end.” - Anonymous


• “Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.” - Rainer Maria Rilke


• “Where love is, no room is too small.” - Talmud


• “Loves makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.” - Zora Neale Hurston


• “Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” - Mark Twain


• “Love is more than three words mumbled before bedtime. Love is sustained by action, a pattern of devotion in the things we do for each other every day.” - Nicholas Sparks


• “To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven.” - Karen Sunde


• “A love song is just a caress set to music.” - Sigmund Romberg


• “Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.” - Peter Ustinov


• “Love is like a violin. The music may stop now and then, but the strings remain forever.” - unknown


• “Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.” - Erich Fromm


• “In the final analysis, love is the only reflection of man’s worth.” - Bill Wundram, Iowa Quad Cities Times


• “Love doesn’t make the world go round, love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” - Elizabeth Browning


• “Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
  
  A medley of extemporanea;
  
  And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
  
  And I am Marie of Roumania.”
  
  - Dorothy Parker


• “To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you’re getting this down.”
  
  - Woody Allen

• ad

Christmas Dinner

Imagine, waking up one day, and stepping out of your room, you'd find a piece of hand drawn card on your room door. What would you do?

The front cover of the card

The contents

Pick it up and read right? That's right what I did. And it says:

"To Chris

Because we are "awesome" and great artists, we have made you a Christmas card/invitation to our Christmas dinner on Wednesday 12th December at 3pm in flat 307.

Please RSVP so we know how much to cook.

love
fi & sam
xx"

The Pinky Fairy Mama turns 20th today!

Note: The reason this whole post is in Pink because Pink is mama's favourite color, so bear with the brightness and don't be too blinded by the Pink from your monitor/lcd/tft screenies...

Yep you've got it right! Today is the Pinky Fairy's 20th Birthday...Want to know who is that?

Warning: Spoilers below this line...

Pinky Fairy a.k.a. Cherylyn Chee a.k.a. Mama

Have a happy and lovely 20th (I know you would, cause Papa is there... *blek*)...

Insomniac?

Now to answer the rhetorical question above; No, I'm not an insomniac. Absolutely someone who loves to sleep, and sleep is the single most important part of a university student's life.

So if I'm not an insomniac, then what am I doing awake at 4.25 am (UK time)? The reason? The sweet, 298-page book below:

Relevance Lost - The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting

Yep, that's the book that everyone's been reading over here at UK and everyone's reading the Haystack Syndrome by Eli Goldratt back in Malaysia. Bookworms? Nah, it's for the Advanced Management Accounting (AMA) assignment that is due on the 13th of December 2007.

And the reason we're awake to read this book? Not because it's interesting, not because it has naked girls in it, but because we have to hand in the draft before the 5th of December 2007. Now it was not so rush at first because there were adequate time to do it, but procrastination kicked in again, so here I am. Reading, summarizing, providing a critical argument, research and come up with a conclusion for the literature, literally within 36 hours.

Need my dose of Gundam 00, a new anime which I'm currently watching, for a break time. And right, that ends this post here...

A union of two people - Francis Ng & Fuan Ai Vea

What can I say? Fate works in a way that we will never understand, will never learn how its magic works, but am happy that fate did brought two very lovely people together, may both Francis and Ai Vea have a blissful marriage ahead of them...

Did not have the chance to fly back to Malaysia for their wedding ceremony, but have robbed a few photos off Mei's blog to be posted here temporarily, till Francis passes me his wedding photos.

Maybe age is catching up very fast, marriages are booming everywhere in my circle of friends, wonder which could be the lucky couple next to tie the knot?

Imperial China @ SS15...Lovely chandelier


The lovely couple, Francis & Ai Vea


Fine & modern concept of a wedding dinner

Paintball Day

Had a paintball day yesterday at the Deltra Force paintball site situated at Thatchwood, Thronbury, Bristol BS35 3UF. It was quite far up north, so if one were to hold a map of around UWE, its far up north till it's out of the map actually.

Fifteen of us went, and yes yes, that included the guy that Amy was oogling at from mei and my Friendster...oh, btw Edward the bear took pics with him too. LOL! Amy, jealous or not? Tsk tsk...

Not much could be said about the paintball, maybe because most of them are sore losers anyway. Fragged 4 people for the second round in the jungle but they decided to continue playing after getting shot in the body (i.e. any shot in any part of the body except the hopper, the gun and headshots = dead). Edward even got scolding from a guy who had scolded Ed for shooting him 3 times and gave him a middle finger after he asked him why he was still in the game despite being shot at 3 times. LOL!

Let's let the picture do the talking of the day, shall we?

The other team's long way to the paintball venue...


After 4 games, still going on strong? Hell yeah!


Mind the ambulance behind me. Someone fell and broke his hand during the first game and had to be carted away in an ambulance...


Frenchay people


Frenchay + Fishponds people

3 Idiotic White Men...

I have no remorse or whatsoever for typing the title above. To other courteous non-asians & asians, have no fear for you did not do what the 3 idiots below did. To the 3 idiots, have a very happy life in hell...certainly you just earned your tickets to hell, betcha a lot of people did pray for the express tickets to hell. Or rather, let's not be so evil. Let's see you 3 trying to make a living in wheelchairs, in wheelchair, neglected and begging for money. Karma will get to you, and at that time, I bet everyone will be filming you instead.

Hypocrite

Wikipedia's Definition:

"Hypocrisy is the act of condemning another person for an act of which the critic is guilty"

Answer.com's Definition:

1. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.
2. An act or instance of such falseness.

M.e.o.w.'s definition of Hypocrites...

"Hypocrites are 50% of the people around us, whether you notice it or not. They often come conveniently in a package which consists of self centered-ness, cockiness, and a good deal of acting skills. These obnoxious people often talk too much for their own good, thinks they're all that, expecting the world to revolve around them. More often than not, they are actually the ones with the most flaws, and yet, they think of themselves as perfection brought to life. In actual fact, they are the perfect example to "empty barrels make the most noise". Normal habits include breaking promises, difficulty in being punctual, and a most admirable talent in creating an impressive amount of excuses that almost sound believable. Somehow, they make themselves sound so righteous, and they deserve exceptions. The professional hypocrite is capable of creating an impression that they are not a hypocrite at all, and hence is able to perform the crime in broad daylight without getting caught.

How to deal with Hypocrites:

If you're feeling nice,
Smile and laugh it off. That way you don't have to lie. If you lie, and agree despite the truth, that makes you no better than the hypocrite him/herself.

If you're feeling sarcastic,
Casually remind them with an excellent example of the criminal in action, and tell them what a great joke it was, that you nearly thought that the person was really a "hypocrite".

If you have a crush on that person,
You will think that person has no flaws, and you'll probably not realize that he/she is being a hypocrite at all. Just stare and drool since he/she is talking to you. Agreeing under crush-influence is excusable to a certain extent.

If you really hate that person so much you get constipation just thinking about that person,
Record that piece of conversation, and play it out loud (or repeatedly) the next time the crime is committed by the hypocrite."

A flurry wave of nonsensical surveys from Blogthings

Your Candy Heart Says "Hug Me"

A total sweetheart, you always have a lot of love to give out. Your heart is open to where ever love takes you! Your ideal Valentine's Day date: a surprise romantic evening that you've planned out Your flirting style: lots of listening and talking What turns you off: fighting and conflict Why you're hot: you're fearless about falling in love

What Does Your Candy Heart Say?

The Part of You That No One Sees

You are powerful, passionate, and dominant. You have a vision of how things should be, and you do your best to make things happen. People rely on you for your strength. You are a rock to many. Underneath it all, you aren't so sure about your passions. So many ideas spark your interest, it is hard for you to get behind a select few. However, you see indecision as a sign of weakness. So you pursue your goals full force - no matter how foolish they turn out to be.

What's the Part of You That No One Sees?

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who have a split personality - cold as ice on the outside but hot as fire in the heart. In love, you feel the most alive when things are straight-forward, and you're told that you're loved. You'd like to your lover to think you are stylish and alluring. You would be forced to break up with someone who was emotional, moody, and difficult to please. Your ideal relationship is comforting. You crave a relationship where you always feel warmth and love. Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment. You think of marriage as something that will confine you. You are afraid of marriage. In this moment, you think of love as something you can get or discard anytime. You're feeling self centered.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

Your Brain is Purple

Of all the brain types, yours is the most idealistic. You tend to think wild, amazing thoughts. Your dreams and fantasies are intense. Your thoughts are creative, inventive, and without boundaries. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking of fictional people and places - or a very different life for yourself.

What Color Is Your Brain?

The Road Not Taken

No idea why, but suddenly this poem that I had studied previously in High School just pop-ed out in my mind, and made me felt like blogging it down...Though it has been quite a while since I read the poem, somehow it's just like I've just read it 5 minutes ago...

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
It leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Phyllis Caring Home

Don't know why people can just neglect these folks in a home for the elderly back in Malaysia, seems like they'ev sold their conscience to dollars & cents...

Chinese New Year ads

Don't know why, I just went to youtube.com and searched for Petronas advertisments...And true enough, I found really meaningful advertisments that were produced in the Year 2005, 2006 and 2007 from Petronas for Chinese New Year. Don't know about you all, but it did really touched my heart so much that I was literally T-T over watching the ads.

CNY 2005 Ad

CNY 2006 Ad


CNY 2007 Ad

Guy Fawkes Night

Well, had a surprise invitation from the BA (Business Administration) friends today in the afternoon to go watch fireworks at Clifton Down in Bristol. Didn't know about it until Jomay called me up to enquire whether we were going for the show or not, so just decided to tag along.

The event information

The proceeds are to be donated to charities, so don't really mind in paying the entrance fees, at least its going to charity and not fattening some rich people's pockets.

The camwhoring disease sorta like spread from Ferlynn to us, so before we did head down to the city to catch a bus to Clifton Down, we managed to take a picture of us in a nice scenery in the campus, with the autumn leaves and trees as the background of the picture.

Camwhoring at campus...

Much to our surprise, it wasn't just a bonfire and fireworks display, but it's also a carnival! A lot of the rides there brings back memories of carnivals back in Malaysia (which is extinct!)...

Ferris wheel?

It was on the way in when I spotted St. John's ambulances parked on the road, so as a dedication to Chris Ng that is so into St. John's in Malaysia, George and I decided to show him how St. John's ambulances look like in the UK.

Aha! St. John's ambulance in the UK

Picture of the bonfire, close up...

Bonfire & me...

Some of the fireworks pictures...

And that concludes the event for today. Stay tuned for more daily/event updates in the blog...

80s babies born in Malaysia, read on!

If you are Msia's 80s baby,read through this, we grew up watching Transformers, Thundercats, Woody Woodpecker, Chipmunks, Mickey Mouse, Jem, Mask, Ninja Turtles, Voltron, Baja Hitam, Ultraman n not forgettin POWER RANGERS n BUGS BUNNY!!!and anderra yippa mice? :D , McGyver ?

Had to brush our teeths during recess at primary school? had to hold plastic cups, line up with your classmates side by side and start brushing our teeths at some open area... or maybe near some drain??

Do you still remember that we had 'dentist' rooms where we had to have our teeths check?

Not to forget our 'program minum susu' in primary school.. everybody is suppose to buy like cartons of milk that costed 30 cents.. and you would see everyone drinking it everyday...its d UHT milk...

The teachers who would want to punish us must use yellow rulers to hit us on our palms?? 1 metre length..

That a bowl of mihun soup or some soup only costed 50 cents at the school canteen...

Went to some sundry shop near the school or to the 'roti' man waiting outside our schools so that we can buy junk food like chickedees, mamee, ding dang with some toys in it, 'Ti Kam', ice-cream and we would play games like monopoly, uno, old maid, and all other card games like
that...

Another fun time would be during Pendidikan Jasmani. the boys would play football while the girls would play netball... and it would be like we were playing in the World Cup...

But of course. the best would be main guli, batu seremban, bottlecaps, ice-
cream sticks, 'Pepsi Cola one-two-three', Cops and Robbers, main kejar-kejar duduk,getah... and for the not so active, those kind of 'book games' where we would use buku latihan to draw and ask our friends to play...

Do you remember the ice-cream tubes which are actually ice and colouring that are sold for 10 to 20 cents.. the colourful ones.. where you usually bite off the top to glup it down. Orange taste the best..(pop-ice)

What about days when we felt like doing naughty things such as folding papers so small to make 'lastik' amd shoot each other... how about throwing chalks??

Back then, Micheal Jackson was just turning white.. and still had albums coming out.. compared to CD's, we were listening to tapes that sold for RM9.90 ...

In computer class, we were still using black and white computer moniters..played 'Atari'... maybe SEGA or NINTENDO..

well, are we all getting older or what?

1) If you understand what you have read and you are smiling...

2) We have friends from school that are already married...

3) We shake our heads everytime we see high school students fussing about their handphones in school..

4) We don't hang on phone with our friends for hours a day talking about nothing...

5) When we meet back with our friends from time to time, we feel excited and happy talking about old times, the funny 'adventures' or stories that we experienced as a kid..

6) Last but not least, that when you read this, you would think of all the happy & sad memories that you have experienced when you were still a kid and would think of forwarding this to your old friends that you have known since forever... i'm sure they would have a huge smile on their face after reading this.....

p/s: if u feel u're one of them who experinced this, repost this to share it wif ur friends... :P

Halloween

It's Halloween today! Went to the city after class at 12.30pm to get a costume, fortunately managed to get one for £21.99. Even had to queue up outside the blardy shop just because there was too many people doing last minute shopping on Halloween...

And then Jon had this brilliant idea of painting our nails black, so we got a nail polish for £1.99 at that shop too. Eventually managed to paint all of our nails, thanks to Renee and Edward's wife, and the result is as shown below...

O.o Black nails o.O

Original P.E.L.A.C.U.R. commitee members

Scouting in the UK

Attended my first scouts meeting today with the 67th Kingswood (1st Mangotsfield) scouts group today. Lasted for about 1 1/2 hours, but it was different. Very different from the scouting back in Malaysia where it was so uniformed and have little room for improvisation of the activities that are being run back there.

Possibly see this as a long-term commitment towards continuing the scouting path, even managed to drag one of my friend, who was a scout back in primary school, to go along and boy, was he surprised at the different way that they do scouting over here.

Example of activities include scary video nights, ice skating at the mall, air rifle shooting, archery etc...

At one corner of the ex-church converted into scouts meeting place

Along Bukit Beruntung

Secrets to Success?

Found something that is worth sharing, ever felt that u'd need that motivational push? Take a look at the pic above, and give yourself that little motivational push that you need in whatever you are doing...

Your Love Life Secrets, Revealed

Your Love Life Secrets Are

Looking back on your life, you will only have one true love. Although you may have been hurt before, you tend to bring very little scars into new relationships. You expect a lot from your lover - you want the full package. You tend to be very picky. In fights, you love to debate and defend yourself. You logic prevails - or at least you'd like to think so. Getting over a break-up doesn't take long. Easy come, easy go.

Your Love Life Secrets, Revealed

BBQ

Yesterday had a BBQ session over at Niki's place in Caroll Court. It was the first inaugural P.E.L.A.C.U.R LLP's gathering since its inception about a month ago, and was attended by a few other distinguished guests like Mia (Renee's friend), Nora (Renee's housemate), Siang Chuan, Fei Kiat and Teng Teng.

Generally it went okay, but there was one person who was kaypoh & distruptive ruining the BBQ atmosphere, that resulted in some of the attendees getting pissed. Hopefully this becomes a nice lesson for everyone to keep their mouth shut quiet and give some respect to the organizing BBQ host.

Setting that aside, had much fun doing the twist (a.k.a. roti lilit) and Niki was doing the Potato in Egg, both were done ala scout styles that reminds both of us of the scouting days that we used to have back in Malaysia.

BBQ Pit from Argos at a cost of £20, and carried all the way back from Cribbs Causeway by Edward Saw...

Everybody just loves cheese, don't they?