Finally home again for now…

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China, Quanzhou

I am lousy, I came back with a sore throat and a running nose. I suspect I have a fever coming too.

The sore throat was caused by the excessive drinking last night. I was trying to drown Manager Yang since it was our last day.

Manager Yang is one crappy man, Ok I am no angel either. My staff complained he was slow. So I lied to him. On Monday, I told him we are leaving for Singapore on Thursday. Which was a real fat lie. Our tickets were for the flight on Friday.

On Wednesday morning, he still owed us stuff. Yet he called to ask for our flight timings so that he could arrange for the driver to send us to the airport. I told him no need, he should concentrate on finishing his task on hand first. Of course he was puzzled (and I think suspicious too). He guessed anyway cause we were really not behaving like it was our last day.

Last night, being our real last night, we had a drinking session at the local Kbox style KTV till 1plus in the morning.

On Friday morning, we waited for the car to come and send us to the airport. We waited for 15mins but there was no sight of the car. So I called Manager Yang.

Me: 杨经理，怎么司机还没来啊？

杨：我知道，我也在等他。

Me: 你在哪里等他？

杨：酒店阿

Me: 怎么没看到你？

杨：我在培阎总睡啊！

Me: HUH?!

He had stayed over in 阎总’s hotel room after the drinking session as we really drank quite a bit and he wasn’t in the state to drive himself home. But he had to make it sound like they are super 暧昧. Crappy right?

Anyway, I learnt 3 valuable lessons from this working trip to my Ah gong’s hometown.

1. I learnt that my mum cooks very authentic hokkien dishes that I have always taken it for granted. The Ko Lei Cai Bern, the Jie Cai Fan, the Lo Mian which my mum cooks every weekend. I totally do not miss home food this trip.

2. I can only understand 75% of the Hokkien spoken by the locals.

3. I cant drink a lot. I only dare to drink. There is a hell of difference.

Enough for now. Thou shall go and nurse my painful throat and hug my bed.

Night!

I am going home!

Tags

China, Quanzhou

Once again, I have approached my last day in China for this trip. I did not blog much for the last week because nothing new has happened. I have grown used to using alcohol as my weapon to get China men to work for me that I cant be bothered to blog about it. I have learnt that I do not need to dirty my own hands to get things done. I just need to abuse my title and make damn sure my presence be felt. I am going home till my next trip in March!

My Lacquered Baskets

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China, Quanzhou

Last Sunday, I took a walk down 涂门街 (the Orchard Road of Quanzhou) on my own in search of my kao na. I am glad to announce that I found them behind a temple, in an antique furniture shop. Now, I am in a dilemma, should I hand carry it back? Should I send it back by DHL (DHL office just next door)? Should I send it back by EMS/China Post to save some money? 9 more minutes to decide.

From behind the Great Firewall of Cheena – I can finally understand what the locals are saying… for Now.

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China, Quanzhou

I have been to many places in China but this is the only place where I understand their dialect. I am in Fujian and obviously, the locals speak Hokkien =P Irriitating (maybe I should say amusing) client. I am not angry with him, just irritated, or maybe I should say I am amused. On my first day, just like any other client, he brought me and my team out for dinner And like any other client, one of the first few questions he asked was,”Where is your ancestors’ hometown?” I knew perfectly well that this question would come like it always did.. Before my trip, I was actually in a dilemma, should I say the truth or not? Saying the truth may lead to MORE drinking. When this question was posed, I decided I should answer honestly in case the truth was let out of the bag in future. And as usual, the client will go on and ask, Fujian where? Me: Yongchun Client: Which village? Me: Gu Shan What make this client funny was he would test my command of Hokkien when I least expected it. I did not pass on all occassions but there was a most memorable one thou. He was driving us back to the hotel and while I was starring out of the window but my mind was already on its way to dreamland: Lau Keng Li, le di koon hock gui zou kang gui ni? Understand? No? Too bad then… haha

quanzhou2

quanzhoumap

Did Cheena block wordpress.com?

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China, Quanzhou

I have not been able to access my own blog since this morning, this is making me moody. I am praying that its just momentarily down but I can’t help suspecting it is being blocked by the Great Firewall of China. I was accessing it quite smoothly over the last 3 days. I can survive life without facebook but I cannot survive without ranting away! I cant see my stats! I cant post using Windows Life Writer. I cant post from wordpress.com I am tempted to move to a self-hosted blog but the cost is killing me!I need to be rescued!

From Xiamen to Quanzhou

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China, Quanzhou

The driver had picked me up from Xiamen Airport and I am now in the middle of a 2 hours drive to Quanzhou.My mind started to wonder…. Am I tracing back the route taken by my grandparents nearly 80 years ago? My grandparents did visit their hometown in the eighties. How will they feel if they are still alive today? How would they react to when they see how far their home province has advanced? What greeted me since I left the airport was nothing but endless advertising billboards lining both sides of the expressway, countless factories and blocks and blocks of new residential building. I regretted not trying to understand more about my grandparents’ lives in China and their journey to Singapore. I had a vivid memory of my grandpa sitting in front of me on the sofa, telling me about what happened when he was young. But being young then (I was in secondary school), I was unable to appreciate what he was trying to tell me. I dozed off quite quickly. Thinking back, I really feel like slapping myself =( Our grandparents, and some of you, great grand parents were indeed brave. Brave enough to wonder into the unknowns, start a new life in a place with no kin and to eventually take up citizenships and set up families. If this piece of history would to be repeat itself, i guessed many of us would not have the guts to go as far as our grandparents/great grand parents since we have been living in comfort zone all our lives.