False Truth

back from hometown... its a quiet year this time though... fathers side of the family not there... all at s'gor. so what's left for me are my mom's MANDARIN-SPEAKING-AND-HARDLY-UNDERSTANDS-ENGLISH family.


i'm a goner.



even though i've been around with them for the last 18 years (in and out during cny, holidays, etc...):

1) they still dont understand a word of my mandarin (other than wan an (good night) and wo pu chi tao ni chiang shi mo (i dont understand what are you speaking)). ok la maybe more than that.

2) I can kinda understand what they're saying when they're talking to me and it's mostly the same thing: (translated)

3) everytime i sleep over at their place (actually my grandmother's place, they live together but each individual family has their own house. they practically meet everyday.) i always either develop a rash (must be the dust) or get dandruff (must be the dust too). which in the in will take me 3 days of continuous washing to get rid off.


with all that in mind,





yes , this is my hometown,




the land of the antennas


seriously.


it's like a norm here to erect 5 story-length poles in the centre of the house foundation and harness it with 20 or so cables just to stand up. which doesnt really stand up during the monsun season. (they come crashing down if not strong enough)

but my mom's family (mine) did no such thing.

they all got used to the standard short one used in houses like ours. which might not be such a good thing for them considering they dont watch conventional national programmes.

they watch SINGAPORE channels. (thats why all the houses have tall antennas, to be able to receive the signals) and since they dont have tall poles sticking out from the roof, everytime they watch channel 5(singapore) or channel 8 (singapore too), every once in a while the whole screen will fuzz in and out of focus.

bad for the eyes.

and IRRITATING.


imagine if you're watching a very good movie and it's at its climax. just before the real plot is revealed, your screen just flickers and that loud blaring noise you get when you're tuning your TV can be heard for miles around.

by the time you are able to distinguish anything from fuzziness, the hero died and god-knows what happened to him. or somewhere along those lines.




but this year is different.


after serious thought and wise planning we will not encounter such a problem anymore.


introducing to you...



the MEGA-almighty-humongous satellite dish




its more like your average ASTRO dish just that 5 times bigger.



but UNLIKE your average ASTRO,




you can watch TAIWAN channels.



yup you heard me. summore its free too i think.


and yeah honestly before i knew it 3 days has gone and its time to go home! (i'm writing it like this coz almost EVERYBODY know what happens during family gatherings; food, ang pow, FOOD, firecrackers, oranges, battle for the best-dressed, etc etc.... )

pockets slight not as full as before (economy crisis, what'dya expect?), we departed at night to escape the jam. and here i am!

PS: when i started writing this i jsut got back but left it hanging, lazy. now that it's monday i have 2 more posts to go, one on sheryl, another one on ellen and ANOTHER one on DAVID. hmm... maybe just do a combo post? hehe... till next time!