This morning I had “dian pien ngu” for breakfast at a coffeeshop in Miri Commercial Centre. This was the first time I had breakfast in that part of Miri.

“Dian pien ngu” is a Foochow delicacy. “Dian” means wok, “pien” means side and “ngu” means paste in Foochow.� It is a savoury soup with rice cakes,fish balls, black fungus, dried cuttlefish shreds, shredded pork and some dried flower thingy. Rice flour is mixed with water to form a liquid paste. This paste is then poured on to the side of the wok and once cooked, it is scrapped into the wok and cooked in a soup.

I have not taken “dian pien ngu” for quite a long time as I cannot find really good ones in Miri. The “dian pien ngu” I had today was actually not too bad.

A couple of days ago, my mother-in-law gave me a lot of “kompian” from Sibu as she knows I am a great fan of this Foochow delicacy. “Kompian” is made from lightly salted flour sprinkled with sesame seeds and baked in traditional open charcoal oven. It is actually a type of sesame bagel.� When it is hot from the oven, it tastes great.

I am a Hokkien but I� love Foochow delicacies such as “dian pien ngu”, “kompian”, “kampuan mien” (dry mee) and “peh tin yok chicken” ( chicken cooked in a herbal soup). The reason is simple. I was born in Bintangor (where the inhabitants are predominantly Foochow)� and lived there� about 17 years. Even in my birth certificate, my surname was registered as “Ling” (Foochow spelling of my family name) when it should have been “Lim” (Hokkien spelling) as the nurse who recorded my birth just assumed that I was Foochow. So I am stucked with a Foochow name and my Malaysian identity card shows my Foochow name with my Hokkien name as an alias! I guess I am fated to be close to Foochows…….my wife is Foochow and many of my closest friends are Foochow too.

Foochows are very-hardworking and not averse to toils and risk-taking. It comes as no surprise that the richest Chinese in Sarawak are mostly Foochow. If you don’t believe, just think of all the Sarawak Chinese tycoons and see how many are Foochow.

Let me teach you a couple of commonly-used Foochow phrases:

Siah pa moi? = Have you eaten?

Ken chin kuan= Talking rubbish

And ask your Foochow friend how to say “3278″ in Foochow…..it will be a “revelation” for you, hahaha!

A few days ago I saw an exotic local fruit at a hawker in front of �the Magnum 4D outlet in Boulvard Commercial Center. The fruit is known as keranji (dialium indum) locally.

The fruits come from a tall, tropical tree which has become a threathened tree species due to its valued hard and compact wood. The fruits are grape-size with thin black brittle inedible shells. Each fruit typically has a hard brown seed but some fruits have two seeds. The fruit tastes like tamarind as it is a type of velvet tamarind.

I remember eating this fruit when I was a small kid so I could not resist buying some. Cracking open the shell and eating the flesh covering the seed sure brought back memories of my childhood in Bintangor, Sarawak. �As kids, we used to eat this fruit and sometimes played a game with�the fruits. Two person competed with each other with each holding a fruit between the thumb and the forefinger and pressing the fruit against the other person’s fruit.The person whose fruit’s shell broke had to surrender his or her fruit to the other person. The games kids played, haha!

Lee Ching Wei finally did it! He clinched his first All-England championship in the men’s singles final at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham yesterday. It was his seventh attempt to win the All-England.

He overcame a stubborn Kenichi Tago of Japan 21-19, 21-19 in a 47-minute final to be crowned the champion at the centenary of the world’s oldest badminton tournament.

With this win, Chong Wei has become the first player ever to win three back-to-back Super Series titles. �Prior to this All-England title, he has won the Super Series Masters Finals in South Korea and Malaysia.

Syabas, Chong Wei!

Yes, Canada has done it! Canada successfully won the ice hockey gold through a golden goal by Sidney Crosby in overtime to give Canada an euphoric 3-2 victory over USA at the Vancouver Games. The win sparked off massive celebrations across Canada from the Atlantic provinces right up to the Yukon. With a total haul of 14 golds, Canada created history for the most golds won by any country at a Winter Olympics.

Ice hockey is the most popular sports in Canada.� Indeed the country seems fanatical about the sports. Ice hockey stars are revered. Don’t be surprised if some Canadians give you a blank stare when you mention Wayne Rooney or Ronaldo. But ask them about Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Orr or Guy Lafleur and see how they respond.

During my university days at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada in the late 1970s, I witnessed firsthand the fanatical popularity of ice hockey among Canadians. Being in Montreal, my favorite team was the Montreal Canadiens which was then the most successful team in the NHL, winning 4 consecutive Stanley Cups during the period 1976 to 1979.� And their most famous player then was none other than Guy Lafleur. Fans chanted “Guy, Guy, Guy!” whenever he touched the puck. He became known among English fans as “Flower”, while among French fans he was dubbed “le Demon Blond” or the Blond Devil. He is regarded as one of the greatest ice hockey stars of all time.

Guy Lafleur...the Blond Devil

So I know what it means to the Canadians to win the Winter Olympics ice hockey gold. Ice hockey is their national passion. Ice hockey is to the Canadians what soccer is to most of the rest of the world.� Canada=Ice Hockey! So congratulations Canada!

Canada is such a lovely and peaceful country. If you have never been to Canada, do visit it one day. It is a huge country so it would take you weeks if you want to travel from British Columbia to the Atlantic Provinces. But I can assure you that you won’t regret it….indeed you will be awed by the breathtaking beauty of Canada. Just thinking of Canada brings back a lot of nostalgia of the fun and happy memories I had there. O Canada!

Today is the last day of February and it is also Chap Goh Meh, the finale to the Chinese New Year celebration. Being a Sunday, this year’s Chap Goh Meh will be celebrated on a grander scale by the Chinese.

Chap Goh Meh, meaning “fifteenth night” in Hokkien, is a day to spend with loved ones. It is like Valentine’s Day for the Chinese. On this day, single adults throw oranges into rivers in the hope of finding a life partner. The Hokkien even have a saying which goes “tim kam chua ho ang”� which literally means “throw a mandarin orange, marry a good husband.” But nowadays a lot of young people throw oranges into rivers merely for fun.

People used to write their names and telephone numbers on oranges that they threw into rivers or lakes.� Nowadays with the widespread use of the internet, I guess people will probably write their emails or their websites addresses on the oranges that they throw……some may even write the names that they use on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

To all my friends and associates, I wish you all a very happy Chap Goh Meh!� Go now to the supermarkets to buy a box of mandarin oranges and see you at the lakeside at Bulatan Park tonight! Who knows, you may find your life partner tonight! Hahaha…happy orange throwing!

It is a Chinese custom to give hong pao (Mandarin) or ang pow (Hokkien) or Lai See (Cantonese) to the younger generation during Chinese New Year. A hong pao is simply a red packet with some money in it. The red color symbolizes good luck and is supposed to ward off evil spirits. The packet is often decorated with the Chinese zodiac animal symbol according to what year it is. For instance this year is the Year of the Tiger and there are lots of red packets with the picture or symbol of the tiger printed on them.

The amount of money that a red packet contains is dependent on several factors such as the relationship between the giver and the recipient, the social standing of the giver and the recipient, etc.

The amount of money is almost always an even number and amounts that end with 8 are very popular as 8 sounds like prosperity in Mandarin. However an amount that is usually avoided despite ending with 8 is 38 as “3″ and “8″ when used together refers to an unpleasant woman.Amounts that are usually avoided are those that end in 4 or involve 4 as 4 in Mandarin sounds like death.

Collecting red packets has become a very popular hobby among a lot of Chinese.� Some red packets, like stamps, can command good prices so it can become a lucrative hobby.

My wife is a collector of red packets. This year she has managed to collect a few red packets with the symbols of the tiger printed on them. And I have asked some of my friends in neighboring countries to reserve some of the red packets from their countries for my wife. My wife is looking forward to receive these red packets to add to her collection. To my friends who have so kindly reserved the red packets for my wife, I wish to express my heartfelt thanks! May the Year of the Tiger be a ROARING GOOD YEAR for you!

My wife's Year of the Tiger red packets from Polo shirts!

Year of the Tiger red packets

At the stroke of midnight about half an hour ago, the sky of Miri erupted in a glorious display of fireworks as the Chinese celebrated the arrival of the Year of the Tiger.� And this was accompanied by deafening firecrackers that turned the whole city into a war-like zone. I managed to capture some of the firework display on� my compact digital camera.

Google has taken the plunge into the world of social media with its announcement about Google Buzz. Its foray into the social media is a melding of pieces of Facebook and Twitter.

Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting and share updates, photos, videos, links and more. There will be no more fuzzy little pictures: Buzz makes it easy to quickly flip through photos and experience them the way they were meant to be seen: big and full-resolution. And videos play inline so you can watch them without opening a new window.

Buzz is built right into Gmail, so you don�t have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch � it just works. Buzz sets you up to follow the people you email and chat with the most. You have the choice to share publicly with the world or privately to a small group of friends each time you post. You can connect other sites you use, such as Picasa, Flickr, Google Reader, YouTube and Twitter, so your friends can easily keep up with what you’re doing online � all in one place.

Making sure that you don’t miss out on the best part of sharing, Buzz sends responses to your posts straight to your inbox. Unlike static email messages, buzz messages in your inbox are live conversations where comments appear in real time.

There are many basic tasks you can perform using Buzz such as leaving a comment on someone else’s buzz, liking it, or even emailing it. And you can make your buzzes private or public too. One of the major benefits is the excellent built-in search functionality. The Buzz search beats Twitter’s search hands down and is definitely one of its killer features.

You can follow the specific people whose posts you want to see, but Buzz also recommends posts from people you’re not directly following, often ones where your friends are having a lively conversation in the comments. If you’re not interested in a particular recommendation, just click the “Not interested” link and your feedback will help improve the recommendations system. Buzz also weeds out uninteresting posts from the people you follow � collapsing inactive posts and short status messages like “brb.” These early versions of ranking and recommendations are just a start; they’re working on improvements that will help you automatically sort through all the social data being produced to find the most relevant conversations that matter to you.

Buzz is also available on your mobile phone. It uses your mobile device and geo location technology to see where you are which can put context into the items that you share on the go. When you’re out on the move, a lot of the information you want to share often has to do with where you are or what you are doing: for example, you may want to buzz about a trendy hair saloon that you are patronising for the first time or the score of the English Premier League game you’re watching at a sports cafe. Buzz for mobile thus brings location to the forefront and makes it easy to have conversations about places. Additionally, the ability to see who is buzzing around you (it doesn�t matter whether you are following them or not) is really neat. Buzz�s integration with Google Maps comes in very handy to find �hot spots� or areas where people have left advice, tips and the like.

In the months to come, it will be very interesting to see how Google Buzz fares against Facebook. Will Buzz triumph over Facebook to become the �Google� of social media? Let�s wait and see!

We went to QQ Duck Specialist in Pelita Commercial Centre for breakfast today. This coffeeshop was doing brisk business because of its barbecue duck. As we parked our car, I noticed dozens of slaughtered ducks and chickens� hanging on some railings behind the coffeeshop.

After breakfast, we went to Bintang Megamall to do some shopping. There were huge crowds there and it took us quite a while to find a parking slot. On arrival at the main entrance of the megamall, we saw a lion dance competition in progress and I managed to snap a few photos before entering the mall.

As soon as you enter the mall, you will immediately feel the Chinese New Year mood. You can see red almost everywhere.� And Chinese New Year music fills the air…….oh ya, kong si kong si kong si ni!

Year of the Tiger

I saw a Caucasian lady browsing around the store selling Chinese New Year lanterns and decorative items. I thought she was just killing time browsing but I later saw her leaving the mall with a few big red lanterns and Chinese New Year decorative items. I guess she must have been gripped by the Chinese New Year mood too, haha!

Spring Is Here!

Today marks the beginning of the season of Spring or Lichun according to the Chinese solar calendar. However Chinese celebrate Chinese New Year on February 14 2010 in accordance with the Lunar calendar.

There are some Chinese who believe that today is a very important day as what happens to you today is an indication of what the year has in store for you. If great things happen to you today, then the rest of the year will be fantastic. However, if unfortunate things happen to you, then the rest of the year will not be smooth too.

If you happen to see a lot of Chinese wearing red today when you go to the bank, don�t be surprised. It is believed that if you wear red and go to the bank to bank in some cash or cheque today, it augurs well for your finances for the rest of the year. Now you know��..will I be seeing you at the bank wearing red today?