i finally went out of town! a few friends and i spent the chinese new year weekend in a malaysian province called ipoh. absolutely loved the place. reminded me a lot of bacolod with its old world charm, laid back atmosphere, good food, and good people. i went there with two neighbors: maggie the filipina, and nam the korean. we all stayed with the family of alex, a chinese-malaysian friend of ours.
ipoh is a small town but is famous for it's food and coffee. plus there are a dozen temples all around the place and they're all inside caves!
i think we went to seven different temples over-all. since there was nothing much to do BUT visit temples, we just temple-hopped our way around ipoh for most of the trip and slowly got ourselves acquainted with the place and the laid back lifestyle. i loved the last temple that we went to the most because we went there during the new year itself so it was packed with worshippers!
it was like going to church on holy week except that everyone is chinese, you're inside a cave filled with suffocating smoke thanks to all those joss sticks burning everywhere, and everyone is worshipping a different kind of god here and there. i found it quite cool observing other people worhshipping buddha, and the statues of other gods in those caves. especially when you see those old folks worship. it reminds you of the immense influence religion has on a certain culture.
i loved the food! oh man. it was as if the entire town was one big chinese-malaysian restaurant. if we weren't in a temple, we were eating. it also helped that alex's dad used to be a cook, thus, the food at the house we stayed in was just fantastic. we were eating stuff like duck, abalone, cuttlefish, etc. at their dining table when these are things i normally order in some restaurant. the food outside was great too, of course.
hay. for the sake of mentioning, compared to the malays (muslims) or the indians, i find it easier to relate to the chinese more. for obvious reasons, of course, since the chinese have a strong presence back at home. but what i like about here is that the chinese community seems to be more open to non-chinese and less exclusive. you get to become more interested in getting to know more stuff about the culture.
anyway, i'm still actually on a chinese kind of high. spending the chinese new year in a chinese town in a chinese family's house with their yummy chinese food while absorbing the culture along the way. ayayay. i like! i even got my very first authentic ang paw! hehe. it was a nice thing to experience an important holiday in such a way. very lonely planet, although less backpacker-ish. i'd definitely want to do that again. gong xi fa cai!
to add to my wonderful weekend, on the bus going back to KL from ipoh, i started reading catcher in the rye. boy, was i AMAZED! i don't read books a lot since i'm a highly visual person with a low attention span. i'm the magazine type. and even if i DO read books, i don't read fiction. so i was really quite surprised when i started reading the book, i couldn't stop! it was like reading harry potter only with a more troubled teenager as the protagonist.
panalo ka holden caulfield! i think he's one of those fictional characters that you'd want to meet. in fact, i think every damn male teenager should read this book! especially those from high schools like the one i went to. gosh, why was this book never assigned to me in high school?? i had to read crap from thomas hardy back then. although when i googled it up, the book is both one of the most banned books in the US and most widely discussed in schools. weird. just like holden.
reading holden's narration (well, jd salinger, really) is somewhere in between captivating and intense. whatever your viewpoint though, or upbringing, you seem to be drawn to the character. anyone will be able to relate in one way or another and that's what makes him so interesting. to think i'm not like holden in many ways. i won't be "phony" about it. for one, i don't have post-traumatic stress syndrome and i'm not the type that has nervous breakdowns. pero mehn, astig pa rin siya! hwaw. i think i should start calling my inner holden and stop reading non-fiction books on globalization and terrorism in an effort to be more intelligent or knowledgeable about certain global issues, when in fact it takes me forever to finish them, and just start reading books like catcher in the rye that can leave you amazed after reading it on a bus.
ipoh is a small town but is famous for it's food and coffee. plus there are a dozen temples all around the place and they're all inside caves!
i think we went to seven different temples over-all. since there was nothing much to do BUT visit temples, we just temple-hopped our way around ipoh for most of the trip and slowly got ourselves acquainted with the place and the laid back lifestyle. i loved the last temple that we went to the most because we went there during the new year itself so it was packed with worshippers!
it was like going to church on holy week except that everyone is chinese, you're inside a cave filled with suffocating smoke thanks to all those joss sticks burning everywhere, and everyone is worshipping a different kind of god here and there. i found it quite cool observing other people worhshipping buddha, and the statues of other gods in those caves. especially when you see those old folks worship. it reminds you of the immense influence religion has on a certain culture.
i loved the food! oh man. it was as if the entire town was one big chinese-malaysian restaurant. if we weren't in a temple, we were eating. it also helped that alex's dad used to be a cook, thus, the food at the house we stayed in was just fantastic. we were eating stuff like duck, abalone, cuttlefish, etc. at their dining table when these are things i normally order in some restaurant. the food outside was great too, of course.
hay. for the sake of mentioning, compared to the malays (muslims) or the indians, i find it easier to relate to the chinese more. for obvious reasons, of course, since the chinese have a strong presence back at home. but what i like about here is that the chinese community seems to be more open to non-chinese and less exclusive. you get to become more interested in getting to know more stuff about the culture.
anyway, i'm still actually on a chinese kind of high. spending the chinese new year in a chinese town in a chinese family's house with their yummy chinese food while absorbing the culture along the way. ayayay. i like! i even got my very first authentic ang paw! hehe. it was a nice thing to experience an important holiday in such a way. very lonely planet, although less backpacker-ish. i'd definitely want to do that again. gong xi fa cai!
to add to my wonderful weekend, on the bus going back to KL from ipoh, i started reading catcher in the rye. boy, was i AMAZED! i don't read books a lot since i'm a highly visual person with a low attention span. i'm the magazine type. and even if i DO read books, i don't read fiction. so i was really quite surprised when i started reading the book, i couldn't stop! it was like reading harry potter only with a more troubled teenager as the protagonist.
panalo ka holden caulfield! i think he's one of those fictional characters that you'd want to meet. in fact, i think every damn male teenager should read this book! especially those from high schools like the one i went to. gosh, why was this book never assigned to me in high school?? i had to read crap from thomas hardy back then. although when i googled it up, the book is both one of the most banned books in the US and most widely discussed in schools. weird. just like holden.
reading holden's narration (well, jd salinger, really) is somewhere in between captivating and intense. whatever your viewpoint though, or upbringing, you seem to be drawn to the character. anyone will be able to relate in one way or another and that's what makes him so interesting. to think i'm not like holden in many ways. i won't be "phony" about it. for one, i don't have post-traumatic stress syndrome and i'm not the type that has nervous breakdowns. pero mehn, astig pa rin siya! hwaw. i think i should start calling my inner holden and stop reading non-fiction books on globalization and terrorism in an effort to be more intelligent or knowledgeable about certain global issues, when in fact it takes me forever to finish them, and just start reading books like catcher in the rye that can leave you amazed after reading it on a bus.
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