What has Sex got to do with it?

Last Valentine,Ethan Ruan Jing Tian, the male lead of the successful Taiwanese TV series, You are my destiny, was reported to have been caught on camera, dating and holding hands in public with a trendy curly hair man instead of his girlfriend Tiffany Hsu at Eslite Bookstore. Later when the photo of the two was published, the Taiwanese hunk clarified that he was out with his hair stylist and housemate, Mark. He said when guys speak, they tend to use a lot of gestures and there was nothing between them. That reminded of a comment a man in Terengganu, Malaysia made a long time ago. Many Chinese youngsters - boys and girls, share the same house to cut cost when they were either furthering their studies or working in Kuala Lumpur. This had prompted the man to say that premarital sex is common among Chinese. Now, I suppose in the eighties and even now, there are people living in the Victorian age. Why do people ever have this notion that a man and a woman must do that adult thing if they share the same house. It is not just that they could be sleeping in separate rooms and be merely reading a book or watching television; but well, if it were just people of the same sex living in the same house, can't the very same sex people be doing that very adult thing that differen sex people do?

You'd Like to Hold This in Your Hand, Wouldn't You?

You'd like to hold this in your hand, wouldn't you? Now, some of you, being prim and proper, may think of holding something else, something obnoxious but this long cylindrical thing could well be Hua Mei which incidentally is the first baby panda to be born in the western hemisphere since 1990.Her mother Bai Yun(White Cloud) had been artificially inseminated with sperm from the father, Shi Shi (Rock). The Chinese government had loaned Bai Yun and Shi Shi to the San Diego Zoo. Would Bai Yun for a moment wonder if she was a virgin mother, I wonder...For a complete picture of the baby panda, visit Plant and Animal Talk!

Beauty Tips for the MInd

Ah! The fair lady, the late Audrey Hepburn, Belgian-born, Dutch-raised actress of British and Dutch ancestry! In all my life, I have watched just three of her movies, including the The Fair Lady of course which in 1964, was said to be the most anticipated movie since Gone with the Wind.I heard her sang Moon River in Breakfast at Tiffany's and thought she looked extremely elegant with George Peppard but it was actually the black and white movie, Children's Hour, with Shirley MacLaine and James Garner that I really liked, this dark disturbing movie where a child's lies about the lesbian relationship between two women teachers and the shallow minds of the community of adults who believed and supported the child managed to destroy the teachers' careers, relationships and lives.

A poem purportedly written by Audrey Hepburn during her funeral goes:
For attractive lips,
speak words of kindness...
For lovely eyes,
seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure,
share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair,
let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day.
For poise,
walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone...

I thought that was Beauty Tips for the mind!

Funeral Rites for the Living

Funeral Rites being carried out for Hee Yit Fong...

Maybe it was not so bad when journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw his shoes at U.S. President George Bush in a December 2008 press conference in Baghdad, Iraq. Someone despicable would have funeral rites carried out for him or her like in the case of 4 feet five, limped assemblywoman from Jelapang, Perak, Hee Yit Fong. Her story perhaps parallels that of China's famous traitor, the Song Dynasty Prime Minister Qin Hui who signed a peace treaty with the Juchen in the north, thereby relinquishing the northern China to the Juchen; and had a beloved national hero, Yue Fei executed despite protests from the common people. For his misdeeds, Qin Hui and his accomplices, his wife and lackeys Zhang Jun and Mo Qixie were cast in iron, to kneel before the tomb of Yue Fei in Hangzhou's West Lake for eternity. For centuries, these statues have been cursed, spat and urinated upon by young and old and a poem hanging on the gate there reads:

The green hill is fortunate to be the burial ground of a loyal general, the white iron was innocent to be cast into the statues of traitors.

For Hee Yit Fong who caused the downfall of the Perak government and betrayed the trust of the people who elected her, she would not be as innocent as the white iron but fortunate would she be if she could hear the people cry...

Statues of Moqi Xie and Zhang Jun in Hangzhou...

Simple Joys!

I remember once when I went to Taiping Sentral with Chin Heng to watch the thriller movie, Quarantine. The movie which was based on the acclaimed Spanish film REC, according to a review by Michael Ordoña, started off well but progressed badly into a slow-developing zombie movie . In a nutshell, the movie is about a television reporter Angela Vidal played byJennifer Carpenter and her cameramanwho are assigned to spend the night shift with a Los Angeles Fire Station but got trapped instead inside a mysterious apartment building where death looms after a routine 911 call takes them there. I remember though the film started off monotonously and the excitement only started when they got quarantined in the apartment. I remember too that the sky was dark when we started for home and halfway through driving home, it started to pour. Back home, the rain was so heavy that we could not get out of the car but had to wait until the rain stopped. It was really a joy being caught in the rain and not getting drenched! You would get to see a different world from inside a car!

For my simple joys, click Simple Joys!