Pad thai, anyone?

Who doesn't love the Land of Smiles? If you can't go to it, the Land of Smiles comes to you. From Sept 3-7, the elaborate Thai embassy on Orchard Road was open to the public as it staged its 8th annual Thai festival.

This is what I miss about being in Canada. Celebrating different ethnic festivals and honouring diversity. In cosmopolitan Singapore, there isn't very much of that happening which is kinda sad, at least not what I've seen. People largely keep to themselves and hold deep seated racial and cultural prejudices against people different from them.

Overheard a Singaporean Chinese talking to his colleague, an Indian national at the traffic office while trying to get my license converted.

Singaporean Chinese: You know why the line is so long and the process so slow?

Indian national: heee...(obviously didn't understand the question so didn't give appropriate comment)

Singaporean Chinese: You know why or not? (clearly exasperated)

Indian national shakes his head and smiles like a good natured man.

Singaporean Chinese: Because everyone behind that counter is Malay and they're slow and lazy. (He chuckles like he just told the best fucking joke the world's ever heard.)

Indian national clearly didn't understand him but laughs along.

I wonder what the Chinese man says to his Chinese friends about poor blue collar Indian bloke here.

I find it very disturbing when people make comments like that. Maybe it's coz I've always been accepting of different races, cultures and traditions, ever since I was a kid. Then while in Canada, I was exposed to a fairly good mix of people and that has definitely opened my eyes. Of course it reinforced some stereotypes but it also helped dispelled others. It was a good lesson but more importantly it taught me to not judge people so quickly based on their skin colour or cultural background. To me, a person is human, first and foremost, respect and equality are expected.

Anyways, I think these cultural festivals are a great way to bring together people of the same ethnic groups and also to engage others to understand the different cultures and traditions other than their own. It helps to break down barriers when people are open to being exposed to differences, because if fear is in the unknown, then wouldn't it open up some eyes if that fear was dispelled?

So when I heard that the Thai festival was gonna be in town, I told Da Bi we GOTTA check it out. There were stalls selling Thai handicrafts, textiles, apparel and knick knacks. There were also dance performances which were so beautiful to watch. The Thais and Caucasians came out in droves, but sadly, not many Singaporeans.

The best part of the festival was the food station!! It was Thai feast galore!! The trip was sooo worth it as we stuffed our faces full of yummy pad thai, mango salad, sweet potato fries, pineapple fried rice, thai ice tea.....mouthwatering!

Colourful banners outside the Thai Embassy.

Got myself a fresh Thai coconut and it was sooo sweet and good!

Hot Thai ladies performing royal dances. They were so elegant and graceful. I don't know where these demure women came from, they were unearthly. They looked like they glided while the rest of us stomped. Sorry about the pic, don't know what happened there, but who cares, their pretty faces make up for it.

A very pretty cultural candle dance.

At the end of the performances, the audience was invited to come onstage and take pics with the dancers. No one wanted to go up so I jumped at the opportunity and ran up there! Then a line followed after that! Heee...

Da Bi wanted his chance with the hot ladies too....and a man...oh well.

Our Thai mango salad maker. She made it sooooo spicy and soooo good, we went back and bought seconds to bring home.

Shredded green mangoes, ingredients for the mango salad.

Huge urn used for mixing papaya salads.

No, these are not deep friend maggots or cockroaches. Those 'delicacies' you can only find in Thailand. The chicken wings looked soooo yummy but we resisted coz it was too 'heaty' for my sick body. It felt like we were being stalked by chicken wings though, everywhere we turned, we saw them. It was torturous not having them!

Sweet potato fries! These were sooo yummy, we finished the whole box. They're coated very lightly with some flour mixture and were oh-so-good.

We were so happy when we left the festival coz our bellies were full of good and cheap Thai food. Only disappointment was that there was nothing on Muy Thai, the national sport of Thailand.

Ah well...we still had a blast and I hope to see more cultural festivals in Singapore in the future.

Speaking of food, my tummy is growling now...time for a snack!

Lady P.

When All Hell Breaks Loose

BOO.

The 7th month is upon us. Oooooooh...spooky. It is also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival and it falls on the 7th month of the lunar calendar. It is somewhat like Halloween in North America but it has way more importance than just dressing up as ghouls and goblins. This festival is celebrated by the Chinese in parts of Southeast Asia and China. It's actually taken quite seriously by the people, even the non superstitious ones, in Singapore. Malays and Indians alike observe the general dos and don'ts of this month long festival.

The Chinese believe that during this time, the gates of hell spring wide open and hungry ghosts are free to roam earth. Brings to mind battles between good and evil on middle earth in Lord of the Rings, don't you think?

To pacify these spirits, food and offerings are laid out for the taking. The Chinese are big believers of ancestral worship so this festival is also one to commemorate and pay tribute to their ancestors who have passed on. This is done to ensure good fortune and to ward off bad luck for future generations.

It's been a while since I 'celebrated' this festival since I've been out of the country for so long. David and I were wandering around the suburbia heartlands of Bukit Batok when we chanced upon a 'getai', literally meaning song stage. It is an operatic concert of sorts, although no Shakespeare, performed outdoors in Hokkien or Teochew for both the living and the dead, is a visual and audio delight to the uninitiated. This tradition is a dying one because only the living old truly understand and appreciate the art of the melo-drama. They observe it fastidiously because they believe these performances will please the wandering spirits.

As a child, I use to accompany my maternal grandma (bless her soul) to the big open field beside our apartment, foldable stool in tow to watch these concerts, every night for the entire month. My grandma would pick a cool and unobstructed spot and plant herself there for the rest of the night. Me, I didn't really care for the opera on stage. I was happy to be out of the house, roaming with the other neighbourhood kids. Grandma would always try to scare me by warning me of spirits roaming the area as well. That didn't do anything for me as I played hide and seek, hop scotch and 5 stones to my heart's delight.

Memories came flooding back to me as I hear the familiar sounds of squeaky flutes and clashing cymbals, smell the burning of fragrant incense, see the colourful costumes and elaborate make up of the performers. For the first time in my adult life, I wish Grandma was here to explain what the people on stage were wailing about.

A female performer, dressed up as a man, possibly a scholar.

This is was the resident drummer, living out his dream of being a rock star. Think he was the troupe master since he was the one who gave me the OK to take pics.

Offerings of fruit and cake to the wandering dead.

Decorations, symbolizing wealth or gold.

The robe and headgear of a deity or spirit on display. No one sits on this chair other than 'him'.

Chinese deities and spirits aren't always the most benevolent looking. This one looks like the King of Hades, god of the dead.

Alot of spirits are also beliefs based on folklore to scare people into submission.

Hell money to be burnt, as offerings to the dead. It is believed that even in the underworld, material goods are highly coveted.

A dinner table, laid out for the wandering ghosts and spirits, to appease their hungry stomachs while on their roam on earth.

Elaborate 3 story paper houses, complete with paper servants, plants, suits, cars, jewellery, DVD players, to be burnt so that such luxuries can be enjoyed even in the underworld.

Resplendent house offering for the dead.

The burning of offerings begin.

A row of red chairs flank the 1st row in front of the stage. These priority seats are reserved for VIPs, also known as 'the others'. These performers entertain and hopefully appease.

I've never been one to believe in the supernatural but I can fully appreciate the culture and tradition of this festival. It actually makes me a little sad knowing that 2 decades, or even 1 from now, this would probably completely die off.

On that note, I will think about what I will dress up as for Halloween this year. It's the 1st time I am celebrating it in Singapore and my girls and I are excited about what we'll do.

Past years...

Pimpin' it up, Foxy Cleopatro style. Hugo was kinda scared at first, he kept looking at my afro and trying to sniff it. I think I left my afro in Canada...:(

Foxy with Morpheus from the Matrix.

I was a 1920s flapper girl at the company Halloween party.

What will you dress up as this year?

Needing ideas!

Lady P.

Knocking on Heaven's Door...literally.

My buddy, Vincent, and I are comfortable enough with each other to talk about anything. We've known each other since we were freakin' 13, man that was a loooooong time ago.... Coincidentally, apparently my mom use to be his kindergarten teacher! That's him on the left, beside Da Bi.

Don't know how da hell we managed to keep in touch all these years, different classes, I moved away, didn't have e-mail then, stayed away for the next 10 years and here we are, back to square 1. He and I are another testament that men and women can be platonic and still hang out.

Last weekend, we caught up with each other over tea and got talking about all kinds of shit. Due to the nature of his job, Vincent has travelled the world, seen alot of shit, met alot of people, eaten alot of food. He ate curry for breakfast everyday for more than 2 weeks straight and had the major runs after while in India, dared to eat balut - a nearly fully developed embryo of a baby duck, feathers, bones, beak and all - and chickened out (pun intended) in the Philippines, paid a poor boy living in a mud hut, food and clothes in Ethiopia and met Gene Simmons, frontman of KISS, known for his demonic make up, and declared him a 'chi ko pek', dirty old man . As you can all imagine, he's got some pretty amazing stories to share.

One of the most memorable ones was an incident that he witnessed in Singapore itself. He was in a sleazy part of town, picking up some equipment at a rental place and right beside it is a whorehouse. He saw an old man, in his 80s wobbling up the stairs of the whorehouse with his walking cane. An hour later, when he was heading outside for a smoke, he saw an ambulance pull up outside the whorehouse. Guess what? The old man had died in bliss.

That's some way to go, eh? How about an express ticket to heaven? He thought he was in heaven when he was inside some hooker, then voila, he's literally inside the gates of heaven! I mean, seriously, at least this man died happy. Not a bad way to go...

Which got me thinking, what about the hooker? I mean, she must be fuckin' traumatized out of her fuckin' mind! Here she is, thinking she is doing an old grandpa a favour by giving him the best hard on an 80 year old man can have, then he goes and dies on her, IN her. Man...that's traumatic...like, shit, man...can she ever perform again, knowing that something like this may happen to her again? Or she brushes it off like this was another used condom?

Shit happens. I think since the hooker has decided on this very lucrative profession, she has obviously learnt to detach herself from her clients. Sure, she may be a bit shaken from it, but she'll get over it. Who knows, she may even brag about how she brought a man to fulfillment during the last throes of passion. Quite a title, don't you think? I mean at the end of the day, it may not bring the superstitious old men to her door since they'll be too freaked out that by doing so, they'll be advertently knocking on heaven's door. However, her reputation to bring a man to such orgasmic fruition will be quite the talk of the town, don't you think?

Folks, don't blame me for being heartless. I'm just keeping it real.

What do you think would happen to this hooker?

Searching for answers...

Lady P.

"The only thing you can whip out at a party is a big dick..not a big diploma"

That was a line I heard at Yuk Yuk's, a comedy club, in Toronto many years ago and it never fails to bring a chuckle. How true, no one really thinks about it at a party unless you're already eyeing the man whore you wanna go home with, then who cares if he's a doctor or a plumber, right? Don't need a certificate to prove neither, they pretty much do the same thing, don't they? Hmm...food for thought, that one.

Does size really matter? Of course size matters!! HELLO! Every woman who insists that size doesn't matter is either already cheating on her man or has the DIY department on speed dial. Don't get me wrong, when I say size matters, I'm not saying the bigger, the better coz seriously, this may be news to the boys, BUT bigger isn't really always better! THAT's RIGHT, you've heard right!

Boys with big dongs think they rule the world. They think they're god's gift to women and act like they're god's gift to women. Puhhlease...about freakin' time you get off your high horse. Obviously someone failed to inform those dongs dongs that it's really the technique that qualifies, not the size.

An acquaintance of mine once dated this half Black, half Asian dude and since none of us girls have ever dated a Black man, we were super curious as to her carnal experience. Did he fit the stereotypical measure of a Black man or the stereotypical measure of an Asian man? We wanted to know so we asked her.

Us: So, is he Black or is he Asian?

Her: Neither, He's White.

There was a wink in her eye and then we burst out laughing.

Another friend once met this really cute, really hot French/Native Indian mix while back in college. Boyish, lean, and not too tall, he was perfect eye candy. Alas when it came to nocturnal activities, they just could not seal the deal! Guess what? He was HUGE...like seriously HUGE. No one would ever, in their lives, for one moment think he was so well endowed if you saw him with his clothes on. But once the layers are shed, he was like this massive stallion! He tried to warn her at first but she thought he was shooting the shit with her, you know, displaying his masculinity by exaggerated proportions, but he LITERALLY displayed his masculinity by exaggerated proportions!! After trying once, twice, three times, they gave up and snuggled in bed. He is fondly remembered as Morning Blueballs.

xoxo

Lady P.