Kai Fong's Party

Kai Fong hosted a party on Saturday evening to celebrate the 85th birthday of his mother and the birthday of one of his three boys. Kok Mun and I had been specifically invited on Friday evening when we met to drink tea in our usual place.

You know how Kok Mun and I dislike such function when you know the host's family too well. Surely, we would bump into his 6 older sisters, his brothers in-law, his mums, his wife's family members, all the 姨妈姑姐 etc, etc. I mean we know his family members since young and you surely have to join them for some chit-chat when you meet them. Moreover, there would be many children running around.

The party started at 7pm, so I decided to turn up at 10:45pm hoping that his relatives and the children would have left. To my horror, everybody was still around when I arrived at 10:45pm. I hesitated to get into his house and decided to give Kok Mun a call first. Kok Mun said he saw me outside the house and asked me to get in. They were waiting for me to start eating.

I sneaked in quietly, turned left and headed straight towards the bench where Kok Mun and Kai Fong were sitting. The first person who greeted me loudly was Catherine, Boon Kang's wife. Catherine said she has not seen me for many years and told me that I still look handsome as before. Well! Thank you very much, Catherine, for announcing my arrival!

I felt a bit unease and asked Kok Mun whether he has spoken to Kai Fong's eldest sister and brother in law. When we were studying in NUS last time, we used to stay in her house whenever we went to JB to spend the weekend. Kok Mun said he has not spoken to her and her husband yet. I said isn't it rude not to greet people who have taken care of you one way or another. Kok Mun said if you are rich and you ignore people, people would say you are arrogant. Since both of us are not rich, it is okay to ignore people. Nobody would said we are arrogant. But  In fact, Kok Mun said if you are poor and you ignore people, the most that people can say is that you are lofty (清高) and Kok Mun said he is now a lofty  (清高) person. I kept quiet and continued eating.

I am not sure whether Kai Fong had hired an Indian caterer. We had nasi bryani, curry chicken, asam fish, rendang daging, etc for dinner in the party. I wonder how the children can love such food.

Well! It turned out that the rendang daging was the best dish. I almost finished the whole plate. It was made by his wife. The cake was nice too. It was a Japanese green tea cake with cream and red bean. The green tea was just nice. Not bitter at all. The icing and cream with red bean was wonderful. It was bought from a nearby cake shop. We got the whole cake to ourselves because a lot of aunties and uncles in the party are diabetic.

I couldn't helped being amazed by this boy. He is the exact carbon copy of his daddy. He made me remember the old days in school when his father was my classmate. Can you guess who is the father of this boy?

Well! Cheese! One get-together photo for old time sake.

The Blooming of Unknown Flower

If you look around, a lot of flower trees are in full bloom along the road in Singapore and Malaysia recently. There are pink flower trees and white flower trees. The flower petals that have fallen cover the ground with a carpet of pink or white. The forest of tropical countries are rich with many different species of plants and animals. Unlike people in temperature countries who can pinpoint to you which is a pine and which is a poplar, many of us are tongue tight when asked about the name of certain plant. I found myself in this situation when my Japanese friends came to visit. They always like to ask, "What is that plant with all spiky red leaves?", "What is that plant full of small yellow flowers?".

The Japanese are well known for their craze for the cherry blossom. They would plant cherry trees all over the place and wait the entire year for the 2 to 3 weeks of cheery blossom. During cherry blossom, all major newspapers and television channels will update the cherry tree flowering information daily. Which place the cherry tree are still in green leaves, which place the cherry trees are budding, which place the cherry trees are in full bloom. On top of that, the so called "Cherry Blossom Front Line" are daily reported.

Whether intentional or by their nature, the Japanese are extremely sensitive to seasonal changes. They call this sensitivity "Jun". The sensitivity to seasonal changes is reflected in their cuisine, arts and culture. During cherry blossom, Japanese will organize picnic parties under the cherry blossom to drink sake, sing song, dance, etc. I always tell my Japanese friends that we are living in a place whereby there is only summer throughout the year. We wear the same style of clothing throughout the year. Some of our plants flower throughout the year. No big deal. And the seasonial flowering plants flower in different time throughout the year. So, we are not so sentimental when it comes to  blossoming of flowers.

The extent in which the Japanese worship the cherry blossom can be said to be a national craze. Not only do their worship the cherry blossom during day time, they also put up special lighting on each cherry tree to enjoy the cherry blossom at night.

The blossoming of this unknown flower has happened for almost 3 weeks. If you know the name of the flower, kindly let me know. Perhaps, I should invite my Japanese friends to come here to sing song and drink sake under the blossoming trees.

Restoran Wadi Hadramawt

If you drive along Jalan Ampang from KLCC towards Ampang, you will notice a restaurant decorated with colourful stained glass windows on your left side. This restaurant is Restoran Wadi Hadramawt. Wadi hadramawt or Wadi Hadhramawt is a region near the southern coast of the Arab peninsular stretching from Yemen proper to Oman.  The region now is part of the Republic of Yemen. So, obviously this is a Yemeni restaurant.

The name Wadi Hadhramawt does not sound very auspicious.  Mawt or maut means death in the Arabic and Malay language. Hadhramawt (حضرموت) literally means "Death has come!". Wadi (وادي) means valley. One theory is that the region is named after a nickname of Amar bin Qahtan, meaning "death has come", the reason being that whenever he entered a battle, there were always many people who died.

The people of Hadhramaut are called Hadhramis. The Hadhramis live in densely built towns centered on traditional watering stations along the wadis. Since the early 19th century, large-scale Hadhramaut migration has established sizable Hadhrami minorities in South and South East Asia, namely Hyderabad, Bhatkal, Malabar, Java, Sumatra, Malacca and Singapore. The Hadhramis' visible legacies in Johor Bahru are the Arabic names of places such as Wadi Hana and Wadi Hassan in areas populated by this Arab community. This Arab community yielded significant influence on the culture of Johor which apparent in art performances like Zapin and Hamdolok, musical instruments like gambus.

Several Indonesian ministers, including former Foreign Minister Ali Alatas and former Finance Minister Mari'e Muhammad are of Hadhrami descent, as is the former Prime Minister of East Timor Marí Alkatiri. Hadhramis have also settled along the East African coast, and two former ministers in Kenya, Shariff Nasser and Najib Balala, are of Hadhrami descent.

We usually associate stained glass with windows of Christian churches. In fact, coloured glass has been produced since ancient times. Both the Egyptians and the Romans excelled at the manufacture of small coloured glass objects. Stained glass was also used by Islamic architects in Southwest Asia by the 8th century. Buildings with stained glass looks colourful especially at night.

The restaurant was decorated with Arabic furnishing and pictures of various cities in Wadi Hadramawt. From the windows, I could see many Sheesha smoke pipe too.

When we heard of Yemen, we always have an impression that Yemen is a poor country located in the Middle East with little oil. However, Yemen was once a culturally and technologically advanced place.

Al Mukalla is the capital city of the Hadramaut coastal region in the southern part of Yemen on the Gulf of Aden.

The Old Walled City of Shibam in Wadi Hadhramaut, inscribed by UNESCO in 1982, two years after Yemen joined the world heritage organisation, is nicknamed "Manhattan of the Desert", because of its "skyscrapers". Surrounded by a fortified wall, the 16th-century city is one of the oldest examples of urban planning based on the principle of vertical construction. As the world's oldest skyscraper city, Shibam has been in existence for almost 1,700 years. More photo of Shibam here :- http://www.traveladventures.org/continents/asia/shibam.shtml.

The ancient Old City of Sanaa at an altitude of more than 7,000 feet has been inhabited for over two and a half millennia and was inscribed in 1986 by UNESCO as world heritage site. Sanaa became a major Islamic centre in the 7th Century and the 103 mosques, 14 hammams (traditional bath houses) and more than 6,000 houses that survive all date from before the 11th Century.

On the wall of the restaurant, there is also a phot of the restaurant owner, who is an Yemen citizen with Malaysia's former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, former prime minister of Malaysia visited Wadi Hadramawt during his visit to the Republic of Yemen, in recognition of the prominent role played by the people of Hadramowt in the dissemination of the Islamic religion in the State of Malaysia and other countries in South-East Asia.

The menu of this Yemeni restaurant is not much different from other Arab restaurants you find in Malaysia.

This dish is called Teboulah, not much different from hummus that you will find in most Arab restaurants. The bread is a bit different from Lebanese bread though.

Tea as usual is served in a small glass like most Middle East restaurant. However, the tea is different from our teh tarik. Spices were added into the tea.

One of the Arab dish I like most is Lamb Mandy. The lamb has been pressure-cooked to the extent that it taste like pork rib. But there was no more Lamb Mandy, but Lamb Haneez and Lamb Madghout were still available. So, I ordered Lamb Haneez. What are the difference between Mandy, Haneez and Madghout? There were all long grain Basmatti rice cooked with saffron and raisins.

My friend Azam ordered Chicken Mandy. See! There do not seem to be any difference in the rice served. The chicken was also pressure-cooked I guess. It was really soft. Most Arab restaurant roast their chicken instead. But both taste good.

Dip for the meat.

Lentil soup. We ordered some Baqlawa as dessert. Some Arab restaurant serve extremely sweet Baqlawa, but this one is just nice. Not too sweet. All these came up to about RM54. Not really expensive I would say. If you are thinking of having Arab food, this is one restaurant that I would highly recommend.