teaspoons-fool

Rest and...
Littered along the meandering highways lying several hundred meters apart are R&R stations. In english, R&R seems to stand for Rest and Relax, as for bahasa, it can be Rehat dan R%$@#!. The symbols mean that Teresa does not know what the second word stands for.

R&R station: 'Janda Baik'
but as Teresa would like to introduce it, Welcome to 'Widow Good'
A three level cocoon of semi vacant shoplots of food to make a hungry traveller go craze. The patrons are spoilt by choice. Since McDees is just next to the gigantic 'Medan Selera'** aka the cocoon. Teresa has a choice to see the throne more than necessary or spare her digestive tracts (that is to choose clean food or cleaner food).

**When enquired what Medan means..
"Is it the same as a hawker center?", Teresa asked. He shook his head and said, "A hawker center has a lot of mobile stalls, very smelly and the chairs and tables fixed wan but ah a coffee shop is a coffee shop even though got stalls that can move ". "So is it a food court?" Teresa asked still confused. He looked at her for a brief moment and explained, "A food court the stalls cannot move but can also be very smelly and the chairs and tables can also move". Teresa went home and sought her trusty dictionary.

Word: MEDAN
Dictionary meaning: Field; Square

Word: SELERA
Dictionary meaning: Appetite; Desire (for food)

Imagine...
Desire square, Desire Field, Appetite Square, Square Appetite!, Appetite Field! A Field of an Appetite! Squarish Desire!

She has been to several 'medan selera's but they are all dirty, non air-conditioned, badly sanitized, flies infested, fixated chairs and tables or a mixture of either food arena. But hey, when one has a desire and appetite for food, head to the square field!!!!

She is afraid to use the word 'Food Court' to define Medan Selera, because she is very much influenced by Singapore's slave to consistency. She finds that it is easier to define the various eating sites. Just throw out blah blah food court, blah blah hawker center, blah blah restaurant, you are understood immediately. Understanding in terms of what to expect, the location, the type of ambience and etc.

What do you find in the tropical rainforest in East Malaysia...
2000 plus feet above sea level lies 'Kota Tinggi' , Teresa welcomes you to 'High District'
where upon it lies a french themed resort! Four buildings bordering a cobbled stone street that begins with a draw bridge next to a tiny pond that houses and interesting combo of 2 white swans, 2 black swans and several koi's and no ugly duckling. Fake dark painted wooden beams embeded in cement walls of each block, balconies with wooden shutters, pots of flowers decorating the foot of each window is the facade of 'the french travelling around in horse carraiges' era. Even the roof had its designs using different colored tiles.

Along that single street...
Along the street adding authencity of the place, the name of every shop is in french. There is one fine dining restuarant "Le Cicogne", one 24hr cafe "Le Bison", retail shop("Le Cadeaux" - sells souvenirs), service shops ("Le Lavande" - gives foot reflexology) (Children playpen, 2 arcade lots) and street stalls. The stalls allowed the roaming patrons to get a wax mold of their hand, check out the caricture-specialised artists in their cliche french artiste tilting hat or bargain for items that can be found at 'Petaling Street' (42km from site). Adding to the warmth and festivities (not there is really any) there is a roving clown that appears on a schedule. Lastly, Teresa's favourite, The family restaurant that served food similar to that of Kenny Rogers, was called 'Le Poulet Roti' meaning 'Fried Chicken'. Welcome to Fried Chicken! The name KFC, all of a sudden, rocks.

A mean farm...or a farm with meaning?...
Not too far away is a bunny farm. It is open for the public at a price of 3RM to pet, caress, carry and feed the bunnies. The bunnies range from big to small, black, grey to white and brown. They are caged up in a big wire cage that can fit many people from the public. The people from the public make as much noise as they want. Even though the bunnies get terrified and scared of the disturbances, they have no choice but to relent to the public demands. After all there is 3Rm at stake here. Talking about what is at stake, the bunnies life is at stake. The bunnies, eye witnessed; are crushed, squashed, tossed, squeezed, poked, laughed at, screamed at and force fed. After all, they are working for 3RM that should pay off the feed that cost 1RM a packet. The packet is small and neat. When the contents are removed, it does not even spill over the palm. How neat is that? Since each packet is so small and neat, it takes 2 packets to feed one bunny. Hence each bunny is working to pay off 2RM of feed. That leaves 1RM which will not buy the bunnies a security guard to prevent the public from crushing, squashing, tossing, squeezing, poking, screaming and force feeding the bunnies.

The bunny patting farm at 2000 feet above sea level.

She artfully removes the first three pages of the fresh newspaper. Her father had just purchased it and there was not even a stain on his fingers; She says she is only sharing. The newspaper today covered an excellent topic, a good two page section imploring the police force. The article was originally stemmed from the story of the 'naked ear squat' issue and it was wondefully, actually beautifully stiched together by Wong Chun Wai of ST. We have been waiting long for the media to voice our concerns in the most blatant manner as blatant as the day the incident occured. Below is a very long but worthwhile excerpt.

TITLE: POLICE POWER OF STOP, CHECK AND ARREST
In the lead-up to the ear-squat saga, there was already a great deal of unhappines over the reported arrest of four women from China, three of whom are wives of Malaysian nationals, by the Selangor police on Nov 3 on suspicion of having forged passports.

They were held overnight in police custody and they alleged that police personnel demanded money from them and subjected them to a strip-search during which a male constable ogled at them and passed a sexist remark.

A police report was lodged by themon their release adn an investigation ensued.
When the video clip story came out, the women braved themselves to say that the investigation into their report was not thorough enough. To their credit, the police assigned further investigation to a new team whose thoroughness, thank God, has now seemed to satisfy the women and their husbands.

What prompted the arresting officers to suspect that these four foreign ladies had forged passports? Can they stop any person who looks foreign and demand to see their passports? Isn't that stereotyping, something that we have in recent times told the Western world not to do to Muslims?

A Japanese student at a local language college alleged (NST, Dec3) that the taxi he was travelling in was stopped at Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman by a police patrol car on Nov 28. When the two patrolmen discovered that he did not have his passport on him, they arrested and handcuffed him and demanded RM2000 from him.

When he said he had no money, they abused him and took him and the taxi driver to an ATM machine where the taxi driver was directed to withdraw the money asked for, using the student's PIN forced out of him. He was released from arrest when they got the money. He lodged a report on Dec 1 and it is being investigated.

This was definitely a "shake-down" by rogue policemen, if true. The question is, is it an offence for a foreigner who has the right to be in the country, to be caught without having his passport on his person?

At this time I honestly do not know. I only remember an old NRIC law that a foreigner must obtain an NRIC after the third month of his approved presence in Malaysia and , like everybody else, must carry his NRIC with him. In any case, what was the police officer's probabale cause for stopping and checking the student?

On Nov 29, it was alleged (Sunday Star, Dec 4) that two foreign wives of two foreign brothers who had settled down in Johor Baru under the Malaysia My Second Home Programme were picked up on suspicion of working without a permit. They claimed that they told the police they were living across the road where they could pick up their documents to prove their status. But the police allegedly refused to listen and took them to the Skudai police station together with the 18 year old son of one of them who had just returned from college, and detained them in the lock-up.

Hours later, one of the husbands brought the necessary documents to the station (possibly after office hours) but the police still refused to release the women, saying that they would have to verify with the Immigration Department the following day.

What were these documents that the police could not verify immediately on their own? Why couldnt' they take these documents immediately to the Immigration officers for verification, even at night, to avoid unnecessarily holding peoples' wives in custody?

And what was the excuse for arresting and detaining the son? He was not working. He was a student and had just returned from college!

The trio were released late the following day, on the intercession of MCA youth secretary-general Dr Wee Ka Siong. Were they released without their documents being verified "in order" by the Immigration Department? How so?

Dr Wee also claimed that the police said it was all a misunderstanding. A senior police officer was reported to have said that it was probably miscommunication due to a language barrier that wouldn't have arisen if the arrestees had produced their documents.

Dr Wee asked whether it was really necessary for hte police to detain them without first taking them to their home to get their documents? Did the police fail to do this also because of the language barrier?

There are so many Malaysians who speak the language of these foreigners that it is unreasonable for the police not to seek their help to translate for them.

In all the above cases, the police involved had exercised their power of arrest. Was this power reasonably exercised in these three cases?

She has never quite believed in blogging, but she decided to give this a try. Yes,she is relenting chu wen, whom welcomed her with a sordid snigger. After all I don't see how this could impede her brain or lifestyle anyhow. It shall be a little feat to upkeep a tangible journal, scrap book and finger tapping thoughts aka blogging but what is cyber life without little sips of virtual tribulations? She tells me it is just like skipping, you try to catch the loophole and start grooving to the beats of the rope (that would depend if you have nice friends or not) or get into a revolving rope entanglement (if you have long limbs like her, imagine gum stuck to the hair), so all it takes is just practice, to get the hang of it, after a while its fun. (things go wild when your friends go mad and thoroughly enjoy watching you in the middle jumping over and over and over and faster and faster... it almost feels like being the cabbage in mr bean's sock as he spin dries it...oh nasty).

The blog reminds her of the first time she saw the concoction of a common vietnamese drink, it was soda water with milk and raw egg, she was appalled (she was cheated by a raw egg once...reminiscing shall follow in upcoming reverse entries *wink*), yet she ordered and stared at it. She took a sip. The first entry is a sip. The first entry, she insists that i include a vision. She will be telling you the tastes of all the things she sipped...:)