It’s one of those Fridays. I mean that in a good sense. It’s one of those Fridays where there are extra ants in my pants and I want to do 101 things over the weekend, all of them involving me prancing about in the Great Outdoors.

Should I take the bike out? Road or mountain?

Should I hop on a boat and get to Bako?

Should I run up Singai or mosey up the Indian Temple or hop up Santubong? ….hmm no, maybe not Santubong (it’s haunted – haha, ain’t that a great excuse?)

Should I go for a swim? Jump down a waterfall (and swim with a snake)?

It don’t matter what I do, it’s gonna be a good one.

People, it’s GOOD TO BE ALIVE. Now go out there and do something you love for the weekend.

Photo: That’s the look I want on my face this weekend.

Photos (from top): Barbecued fish on pandan leaves, I love these pink, white and green things, traditional Malay goodies, barbecued terubok fish.

Remember that scene in Enter the Dragon, about five minutes into the movie, where Bruce Lee says to the young Shaolin student, “Kick me”? (and he says it oh so coolly).

Well tonight, my Sifu said to me, “Kick me”. I looked at him – brain freeze. In my head I went, “Noooooooooooooooo - déjà vu!” and wanted to run screaming away with hands a-flailing because Sifu was surely going to flip me three times and stuff me down the drain pipe or something like that. But there he was, pointing at his right shoulder.

“Kick me”.

*Gulp* So I did.

“You call that a kick?” At that point I was looking around for a hidden camera. Enter the Kuching Dragon, perhaps? (And if you’ve never watched the movie, please, stop reading and go watch it now. Everybody watches Enter the Dragon, Kung Fu or no Kung Fu).

*Double gulp*, so I did again. Quite a few times because I missed a couple of times (so sue me, it’s not everyday that I kick people on the shoulder). And then the Little Mouse ran to his other shoulder and did her little mouse kicks on him. Two ladies flanking a middle aged man, raising their legs at the same time and kicking him without really pulling back. Holy green hornet, the man did not even flinch.

Geez.

So what am I doing kicking a man at 8.30 on a Thursday evening? (Take that kinky thought out of your head or I’ll kick you instead). It started out as a work project. I needed to understand the philosophy of Kung Fu for work, amongst other reasons (busted ankle – had to do something with less impact, like Wing Chun) Ask me no questions and I’ll give you no kicks. Don’t ask. Just read on. Anyway, Sifu and I are part of a well-oiled team at work, and he gives Wing Chun classes, so there I was.

It was research and when I first started three weeks ago, I had four left feet, two right arms, a wooden noggin and I thought I would never get it. Never mind that I did Tae Kwon Do 24 years ago in school and was not too bad at it. In fact, I used to do 180-degree splits front and side and broke a few boards with some kicks. I even had a plastic medal to show from some long-forgotten tournament which I am completely embarrassed about. But as Bruce Lee once said, boards don’t hit back, and I took it up just for kicks (pun intended), as a sport; not for self defence – all of which are exactly what self defence and Wing Chun are not. The bottom line was, for real I-can-use-this-on-an-attacker Kung Fu, I had to re-programme my preconception of Kung Fu and martial arts. Mentally, I had to do back flips, somersaults and brain contortions to get there.

Three weeks into Wing Chun, and intellectually, I appreciate the philosophy of it more with each lesson. It’s turning out to be a beautiful journey of rediscovery. Kung Fu is the corner stone that has reopened for me a deeper understanding of Chinese culture. With that understanding, a deeper appreciation of connections to other cultures, of universal life philosophies and a re-examining of self. Trust me, it’s like peeling a giant onion. And it ends up not just being about Chinese culture but about life in its entirety. Beautiful, ain’t it? Walk it, then you’ll know it.

Right. Back to the Wing Chun dummy (yeah, muggins here). What connected in the head has not transferred to the body quite yet. While the philosophy is really starting to click in the grey matter, I’m pretty sure I look like one of those movie extras who look positively arthritic when they do Kung Fu. And they’re always the first ones to get their asses kicked or killed.

So anyway. “Kick me”, said Sifu.

I did. And learned what it feels like to do a real kick. Well, not a real hard kick. Just a not-for-show no-nonsense kick.

More about Cyn’s adventures (or should I say misadventures?) in Kung Fu soon.

N.B. Cyn does Wing Chun (or Eng Choon) at Kuching’s first Wing Chun training centre here. She also does White Crane Qigong at the same place, which she absolutely loves because she gets to huff and puff and blow a house down (ya, right).

Photograph sourced from: http://s592.photobucket.com/albums/tt3/hottamale6996/.

This amazing 94-year old used to take care of my breakfast buddy when she was a kid. She is, hands down, the jolliest, smiley-est, bounciest septuagenarian I have ever met. Wait. I take that back.  She’s the jolliest, smiley-est, bounciest person above 50 that I’ve ever met. And I don’t know how she does that, considering that when she was about five years old she was kidnapped from her home in China and shipped to Kuching. She more or less became a slave to the family who ‘adopted’ her. Since the age of five, she had to carry buckets, scrub floors, do hard labour for the people she lived with.  She was treated badly and made to feel unwanted and unworthy (to this day, I heard). At 20, she was married off and had one son. She lost both her husband and little boy to the War and disease. She remarried but again, her man died. She had a daughter and a son though, and made ends meet baby-sitting other people’s children.

Popo is a bit hard of hearing but it doesn’t matter. She flashes her beautiful smile and the world seems brighter. She draws strength from her unwavering faith. Her kids aren’t exactly model offspring to their mum and at her age, she should be getting old the TLC she can get from her family. But she isn’t. Does she complain though? Nope. She prays and sings hymns in Hokkien, which I love because Hokkien is such a fabulous language to sing in. Her memory is pretty formidable too. She remembers what my buddy used to say when she was a toddler.

I love hanging out with happy old people. They’re living historians of the way things were. My buddy Gelzie absolutely adores Popo. I only met her once. We had a beautiful conversation. But it was more the energy that she exuded that had me at hello. And of course, there was her story - a beloved 5-year old who wandered too far from home and was taken away forever. I gathered that her brother from China actually did manage to track her down after decades. But, what do you do when you’ve lived half a life in a different country, torn apart from your own family at a young age?

She’s more family to Gelzie than she is to her own kids. Gelzie’s gone to live in another country now but she makes sure I know how much she misses her old nanny. So here’s to Popo and you, Gelzie.  Groetjes uit Kuching!

Photo: Ong Say Moi, 94. Photo courtesy of A.O.

This post is for those who suffer foot pain, but I pretty much think it applies to victims of any other skeleto-muscular ailment.

Running hurts me. It always have. I grew up thinking that pain was a necessary side effect of running. My first run around the school block for Tae Kwon Do class had me all a grimacing wobbly mess, over 20 years ago. But, no pain no gain, right?

So over the next few decades, I bit down and tolerated foot pain so I could have a super active lifestyle of field athletics, gym and jungle trekking. Which was all pretty fantastic except for the constant pain in the feet.

It was much later on that I learned I have collapsed arches. Plantar fasciitis in medical terms. Some people call it flat feet, but specifically, the correct condition for what I have is “collapsed arches”. I didn’t really take notice of it until one day, my feet just stopped functioning. I couldn’t walk. Every step sent shooting pain up both feet. I couldn’t work because work took me to into the far flung reaches of the rainforest in central Borneo. Most of all, my lifestyle grounded to a painful screeching halt because everything I love to became a great big journey of pain. How’s that for drama?

So finally, I decided I wasn’t invincible after all. Superwoman, yes, but woman of steel, no. That was 2002. Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time, money and effort understanding what ails me WITHOUT compromising my love for physical movement.

What’s the point of this story?

Because:

• Our feet bear the brunt of our weight all our life. They deserve special TLC.
• One in six people have some kind of foot problem.
• Active people, especially heavy active people, are more prone to foot problems at some point in their lives.
• Yes, active people can be heavy too. It doesn’t meant they aren’t fit.
• Foot pain can lead to other complications including heel spurs, knee, hip and back problems.
• Foot pain doesn’t mean you have to give up an active lifestyle.
• Get the pain diagnosed and treated. I’ve used special inserts, gone for massages, gotten help on correcting muscle balance, gone for acupuncture, TCM, medicated foot baths and more. Whatever you do, get it looked at because it CAN get better.

Where am I at today?

Recovering from a heel spur on my right ankle. In any one week, I cycle, hike, gym, swim, do qigong and dabble in a few other things. My current therapy includes massages, acupuncture, stretching and foot baths. There’s no question that I have to be extra careful in any activity that I do. But there’s absolutely no reason why anyone has to suffer pain and stop what they love or would love to do. My life revolves around activity, as it always has and I don’t intend to stop anytime soon.

Here’s more information on feet ailments and plantar fasciitis.

Last night, I met a man who travelled 30,000 kilometres on his motorcycle, from the southernmost tip of a continent northwards until the road ends.

He had the most beautiful inspiring amazing photos. There were so many aspects of his stories that captured the imagination, from the lonely old man who cried to camping out in sub-zero temperatures, to playing peek-a-boo with grizzly bears.

But what really had me was that solitude he embraced in that journey. That divine joy of having nothing but your own company, the road and the open sky.

For that, I would seek to the ends of the earth.

Oh and yes, I want a Yamaha XT too.

With breads.

No, not the usual slightly sweetened white loaf at the local bakery. I’m in love with brown breads, rye breads, herbal breads, sour dough, farmer, focaccia, panini and all breads that are chewy, substantial, heavy and give a gorgeous mouthful.

It’s hard to find real breads like that in this town. But I found a pretty decent source in the form of Delizze up at 101, a pretty big delicatessen that has a decent range of hams and sausages, salads to go, tarty desserts and of course, breads. For the longest time, the Delizze banner hung from the windows of its second floor. Nobody knew what it was going to be and when it would open. Then earlier this year, ta daaaa, fanfare and full speed ahead. There it was.

Beyond the breads, desserts and sausage counters is the dining area. Two floors of dining in space plus a large alfresco area on the side of the block (kind of pointless in the day under the tropical heat but I guess it’s ok at night, as long as it doesn’t rain). I finally got the opportunity to sit down and eat there one blazing noon. There were the usual salads, soups of the day, pastas, chicken and meat dishes, starting from RM6.50 and above.

I decided on the seafood chowder and the RM9.50 hot dog (with the 300g sausage, salad and chips). Sounded good. There was also a salad nicoise, just so I had a reasonable range from the menu to do a preliminary review.

My take for the dine-in experience: a subdued 4 out of 10. I expected better from an establishment of Delizze’s stature and calibre. The seafood chowder was a little on the watery side, the hot dog was overrated  and the salad nicoise was…well, mundane. Most of all, everything was a little too heavy on the salt. The service was friendly enough, but attentiveness bordered on non-existent.

Don’t get me wrong. I still love the breads. The pastries and desserts still look tempting; the takeaway sandwiches and salads look pretty good and the hams look delectable. All the more reason for my disappointment in my dine-in experience.

I haven’t had the experience myself, but I hear that more than two people have made constructive comments about the dine-in food and received less-than-friendly retorts from the management. Oh well. For now, I’m just sticking to getting my breads from there.

]]> http://www.cynthiachin.com/delizze/feed http://www.cynthiachin.com/update-on-the-wordsmith http://www.cynthiachin.com/update-on-the-wordsmith#comments Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:28:51 +0000 The Wordsmith http://www.cynthiachin.com/?p=571 I’m in the midst of tweaking and updating my website contents. There’s been very refreshing changes in the development of The Wordsmith in the last few months. In the meantime, do visit my other blog Cynful Words on Blogger. I’m updating my posts to that site temporarily. I’ll be back in full force over here very soon!

THANK YOU for coming over to visit. Come again soon!

My days of constant jungle-trekking are pretty much over, or at least dormant. So I was only prepared for a mid-range 4-hour trek at most. But a relatively easy 55 minutes later on a mild up-slope, the waterfall sang its thunderous song of water and rock right in front of me.

The day was overcast. A light drizzle cooled the walk down nicely. And the water was refrigerator cold. As with most of my forays into the forest, it was a bunch of guy friends and me. Ah Huat and I ended up on one end of waterfall and sat there just taking it all in.

At first, I thought it was just sandflies, or any one of 1001 elements that make you scratch your skin when you’re in the great outdoors. And then Ah Huat gave a manly shriek (it was manly, but still a shriek nonetheless).

I looked down and there was the tail end of a rather stubby brown snake, the skin glistening in the water. It was between the fold of my knee and the rock I was reclining on.  Quite calmly, I moved my leg to let it past. It decided not to. But made like it was going to do a u-turn. Ah Huat shrieked again (in the same manly manner). That got me quite panicky by then. I stood up to let the snake past. And started to slip down the rock I was on.

That was it. I could either smack back down on my backside and sit on the snake or I could jump back in the water and swim for my life.

I swam for my life, closely followed by a panicky Ah Huat.

I have always wanted to run away from home. Just for the heck of it. Like Huckleberry Finn but without the pouting and sulking.

When I was a kid I used to pack my clothes in a little bag and keep it in my closet for when I sneak away at night. One night, I actually tried. I made it to the hallway, looked at the pitch black, turned back and went to sleep.

Today, after 20 odd years, I found the perfect place for running away to.

Kahang, Johor. Small, quiet, one-and-a-half horse town. Perfect for when I want to disappear into a green ether. Nobody would think to find me here. I hide in an obscure house along an obscure alley, quaint in its shabbiness. I can walk into the nearby forest and zazen there for days on end. Or I could just hide in the house and vegetate until I grow roots. If I crave some semblance of a good meal, I can hop on the bus to Mersing, where P1 Café awaits me with not bad pizza, burgers, pasta, beer and superb mango crumble by Urs the Swiss German owner. When I tire of this, I can make my way to Singapore across the causeway and immerse myself in material bliss before I bury myself under my Kahang rock again.

Really, what more does a Wordsmith need?