Goodies in Kuching City On Month of November 2009

Recommended by Money Tai Tai

To get a wrong plumber to inspect your suspected faulty toilet could cost you lots of money, and if you were stupid enough to believe him you actually would waste a branded toilet bowl because he suggested you to change a new toilet. These days I like to ask the best to recommend the best, I deeply believe the best would mix with the best, asking the best tango with mediocre and the cooperation won’t last.

Always make confirmation to make sure they are able to fix your faulty things then ask for an approximate service charge before you engage them. I bear no responsible if you don’t work along with anyone of them, I can only tell you first, “Very sorry!”

Here comes the foods!

Little CottageNo.30D LRG 2 B2
Tabuan Laru
Kuching
Please Call Lina: 0128888736
Business Hour:
Lunch
Mon to Sat
9:00 – 14:00
Dinner
Fri & Sat
18:00 – 20:00

My sister’s old classmate invited me to a lunch in my neighbourhood which I never aware of there got such a rustic romantic eatery in Kuching city. The minute I walked in the place I could forget all those hectic noisy city burden life style and here is really a haven for a fine lazy afternoon dinning.

If you have just returned from overseas, you would appreciate these local cuisines waiting for you to order, these spicy foods came in served with red rice. On this open concept restaurant I could also browse through their antiques made of our own local hard woods, where a repainted simple big empty cookie tin could came out a unique cum artistic displayed item. My sister’s classmate joked, “If you like the decoration so much, why you don’t unearth some of your grandma’s old heirloom, repainted to decorate your house?”

This is the first eatery in Kuching city which gave me a very strong impression of its own individualistic concept, simple yet never lost its sensitive artistic touch. For dinner it only opened on Friday and Saturday.

Open concept kitchen

Red rice served with yummy local Malaysian delicacies

Here comes the specialists and Professionals!


Plumber Mr. Fong of Kuching, 0198764132
He works with the assisting from his son. Obviously to me he is very experience and expertise. He was trained to fix water pump too. What is so special of him? He knows how to fix those foreign branded sanitary products, old and new. I think he is very quick in his works, trustable, humble and honest.

Kuching First Tempered Glass Factory Mr. Yeo, 0168641908
After I called the company for three times, finally the big boss came instead of his salesman. Once I made the advanced payment, work done quickly as scheduled. Employees got good and polite altitude. During work, you have to inspect yourself especially over precisions of their work if you are very fussy over particulars.

Kuching Johnson Suisse Authorized Distributor Mr Tiaw, 0168638187
I rated him highly, when I contacted him through my email request to KL Johnson, Mr. Tiaw came to my house immediately, although my toilet was not sold by him as it’s an old Armitage Shanks. He inspected the toilet he could name the brands of specific parts and know what went wrong. He helped me to get hold of a very reliable plumber, Mr. Fong. (He never asked me to buy a new Johnson Suisse toilet!) The plumber came almost as quickly as him to my house to fix my toilet.

Australian Registered Migration Agent Mr. Chrispian Chan Email:chrispian.migrate@gmail.com; 0168712168/ 0403 173488

Gard Cert in Austalian Migration Law & Practice; Chartered Accountant (England & Wales, Malaysia)
You mention to him that moneytaitai recommended you, let him beat the bush around for a while before he knows who am I!

Pest Control in Kuching, Manager of NLC Mr. Caleb Tang 0128816488
Very efficient management and advices in pest control for your house and compound.

Outbound and Rock Climbing Mr.Malcolm Jitan 0128886461;Email:outdoortrks@gmail.comDip CIM (UK); MBA (HULL);
For teaching or experiencing rock climbing in Sarawak state, Malcolm, his wife and son are the sole specialists.

Fixing Faulty Digital Piano in Kuching, Technician Mr. Joseph Yeo 0128101702He is retired telekom technician; only one so far in Sarawak state who can repair unknown complications and problems of an old digital piano or electric organ. You have to bargain a fair price with him before engaging him and details of how long his repairing can last. You have to consider he might have to spend hours and hours to fix your organ or digital piano under a magnifying glass, discussing to reach a point of mutual understanding.

Joseph Yeo at work

Old Grandpiano (Or Upright) Filings and Regulations in Kuching, Technician Mr. Christopher Foo 0198469842Trained by the Japanese master technician to do old grandpianos filings and regulations. Of course he can do tuning, moving and ensemble of any kind of grandpianos.

Reliable and before engagement you must bargain an agreeable price with him.

Fixing Laundry Machine/Aircond/TV; Ah Kong 0128844754

He was recommended to me by the plumber, Mr. Fong. I think Ah Kong is humble, honest and reliable, when I asked him to clean my washing machine, he told me how I could do it simply by myself. He did his job quickly and obviously very experience and expertise.

My Liberica Coffee Seedlings

A diary of coffee plants

Written by Mrs. Money



For past months I tried to browse through internet thinking of getting coffee seedlings to cultivate in my garden, and it really discouraged me when I learned how slowly for a coffee seed to grow into a mature coffee plant.

This morning one of my neighbours brought me the best gift of the year: two Liberica species coffee seedlings (from cuttings), I really wanted to give her a bear hug and kisses on her both cheeks but she said, “No no no I caught flu!”

She gave me a valuable lesson about coffee, she said this Liberica species will be the best for our altitude, as Arabica is only suitable for highland, even if I try to plant it, it might not bloom and bear fruits, and Robusta might only bear small fruits.

Can’t wait for the two babies Liberica to grow up, I am now day dreaming (looking forward) my home grown, self roasted and brewed coffee! Of course by that time I will still send my neighbour some beams even if she will be far away in Jamaica!

Nov. 14th, 2009 when I first received these two seedlings from my friend Rosma

August 2010, white coffee blossoms

Coffee blossoms smelt really good and looked pretty and pleasing

Always a Surprise!
Organic Gardening

Written by Mrs. Money

Vegetables, fruits and herbs

Every morning you greet me

Small and green, red and glossy

You look happy to meet me
Pouring of rain may you bloom and grow

Bloom and grow forever

Bless my little garden forever

Sowed with seeds from a purple passion fruit, but I see not a dot of purplish yet, friends who seem it said it's the biggest passion fruit they ever seem.

A surprise giant roma tomatoes harvest, but I didn't pay much attention to this rojak patch, otherwise I believe these giants could grow a lot bigger. In this picture, I put an egg in a center to compare the giants

Perfect and Big: When water hens didn't come steal a bite on my egg plants again

For the first passion fruit. It took 40 days from flowering to a pre-mature dropping fruit caused by either drought or touched by on of my naughty kids. It was really sour and you can see from its palish yellow pulp.

This is the size of the first pre-mature passion fruit on RM100 bill with an egg to compare

Many passion fruit flowers emerged, I did hand pollination for them

Harvesting of Baby Corn Shoots

Written by Mrs. Money

Thanks to my cousin who bought me the baby corn seeds, I only sowed 5 seeds to get 5 seedlings and they all grew up so well, after three months, now is the harvesting time.

Baby Corn Shoots Plants


After first harvest, must chop off from the first top leaf and its flowers to encourage more corn shoot emerged downwards, normal a plant can produce around 10 shoots



Still too young to harvest, let diameter reaches up an inch on first harvest, than 2cm on subsequent harvests


Good enough for a meal

The corn saved as seeds for germinating purpose, a love gift for my dad, he got the whole mature corn. I hope the baby sweet corns will slow down my old folks' aging rate!

VARIATIONS IN DABAI PRESERVATION

Most traditional way of preparing dabai with salt,sugar and soy sauce

Created and Written by Mrs. Money

Variation 1: How to Prepare Dried Dabai

This variation of dabai can be eaten as titbits, plain or ones can fry it with fried mince onion, garlic and ikan bilis or dry shrimp. We can also add dried dabai to certain Sarawakiens' native vegetables as a kind of carrier to bring out memorable unique taste, use dabai to fry rice or as a garnish when steaming salted fish or meat.

I also come out an idea, if Italians use olive to make their bread; we should make dabai bread as one of Sarawakians’ specialties.

This is the best gift you can bring out of country to our own Sarawakien relatives and friends, or leave it in the freezer until their next homecoming visit.

If dabai oxidized to purple ---- sour, my way of preservation you would get a surprise.

Clean dabai with water, add olive oil to massage then rinse off with water. Rinse again with hot water very quickly.

Dry dabai under the sun

In a wok, add olive oil and salt

Fry the dabai until dried up

Remove dabai seeds with a spoon

Give a final quick fry, surprised to see the yellow color is there?

Once dry up, pack in a cleaned bottle and sprinkle some salt on the top


Store in freezer

Variation 2: Dabai in Olive Oil

Sterilized bottle or glass container with boiling water, after that dry it

Dry dabai under the sun

Once dabai got dried up, sprinkle some salt and sugar

Fry dabai quickly over a wok or heat dabai in microwave oven

Let the dabai cool down

Transfer dabai into the sterilized container until full

Add extra virgin olive oil

Store in refrigerator

THOUGHTS DURING DABAI HARVEST

Written by Mrs.Money

Mr. Money called me a night ahead to pick up freshly picked Dabai from Cat City bus station. He said a week ago he helped his mom to sell Dabai harvest in Sibu, but the price was not reasonably high, so he decided this week he rather gave free Dabai to his wife. He knows I love Dabai and would be able to produce his Dabai in different variations, whenever my friends told him that his mom’s dabai was good he was so happy.

I love to give fresh vegetables to one of my overseas returned friend, she would always tell me, “Oh my hubby loves it, thank you!” So I decided next time whenever I got something nice she would be the first friend to call.

When I was young, someone who got a garden would always give us left over fruits due to he knew we got so many children. One time my dad out of the blue inspected the fruit, he found out none of the langsat was a perfect one, so he called all my sisters and gave us a lecture, “Come and look at all these semi-rotten fruits, now let me tell you and remember this: whenever you give something to people, you must give the best one to them, if you are not able, so don’t give! Hear it?”

I think we most worry and suspicious about giving something we harvested to a friend who would make bad remarks in front or our back, “Money tai tai gave me some eggplants but all were so small.” or “Money tai tai vegetables are not so nice, I can get a lot better ones from the market.” Thus if a tai tai always made bad remarks about other tai tais, I always hesitated and worried to give away my harvest to her.

Someone told me this: whenever she heard wherever new restaurant or kopitiem got nice and special foods, she would invite one of her friend out to eat, but after many times she decided never ever bring her friend out anymore, as her friend would always make negative comments about the foods they ate that made her felt embarrassed because she was the one who paid. For example her friend would remark, “This beef noodle is not the best, there is one in downtown which is a lot better!” or “I can cook a lot better than this!”

I think even if one got connoisseur’s tongue, as she is not a spy for Michelin, so unless she pays for her own foods then she has right to make her own opinion, for the polite suggestion, I think if people invite us for a meal, we give thanks and praise for a good meal, but if the foods are not nice, just keep quiet, let the hostess makes the noise. (I think a good hostess would feel bad to make you eat inferior meal, or don’t further on depressed her.)

Ones can be blunt but not blunt up to a stupid rude way! To show off you are a good cook or having connoisseur’s taste buds that’s not a right way and time to say.

Another thing is if you are invited for a meal by a friend, always feel happy, smile while eating, nobody enjoys a sour face eating in front of them first thing in the morning or after a tire day. Your friend pays your meal, to show that you appreciate her kindness.

Many years ago, suddenly an old friend visited me, so I brought her to eat in a five stars hotel, but after the meal, she told someone, “Now, Mrs. Money got so much money, she took me to eat in a five stars hotel.” I always wonder why she couldn’t say, “Wow, Mrs Money! What an old friend of mine, she took me eating in a five stars hotel!”

WHITE HAIR TAI TAI
When I Licked My New Wound, I Could Still Feel the Pains of My Old Wounds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency

http://www.recom.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-1638.html

Note:

If one of their family members got killed or hurt by them (I knew one of my relative got injured when a bullet hit his ball, the rest of the story you can imagine yourself!) Let's see they could be tongue-in-cheek again! I called that Chinese murdered Chinese in that era, I was barely a very young girl living in daily fear that my dad could get killed at any minute, he was threatened to be "murdered" because he was "with the govenment"! That's why when I grew up, the minute I got chance I joined in MCD to fight of my phobia of guns and army uniforms.

Written by Mrs. Money

She changed my whole scope of viewing rich tai tais as one of the respective and admirable figures during my unmarried years, she is still a nightmare to me from time to time and a permanent scar remained in my memories, to encounter her was a great regret in my highlight years of my limited career life. I met the white hair tai tai when I first started to set up my business, as a freshly graduate returned from a certain nation probably made her thought that I was a Marxist like her so she wanted to help me, but later perhaps when she realized that she was wrong she revenged.

She couldn’t get a richer tai tai than her to listen for straight two hours of her glory years in jungles revolting for Marxist reign, so almost everyday she would look up for me expecting me to be her keen audience, sometimes she got hypnotised by her same old jungle stories and got in trance by bluffing, “Hey, we merely compromising with the authority, we actually never surrender. If we had won the revolution, today we would be the dignitaries and you civilians ….” or she revealed a chilling cruelness of her deed without any conscience, “In the jungle if I caught those couples falling in love, I would separate them by sending them to different divisions, some of the girls got crazy, I had to order them lock up in cages…..”

For years I questioned myself if such revolt victims died under a psychopath mania’s act within their own camp under such situation, they would died forever in anguish and the indirect murderers could still live on these days as successful businessmen or businesswomen and walking on the street without feeling guilty, they would use the excuse of what they did was all aimed for the success of their revolution.

I was a very innocent girl, only after I experienced her cold hearted trouble makings, I avoided her by moving and staying far away from her but she could haunt after me in an extend by deliberately approaching those she knew that they were my associates. At first she went to visit my part time staff to defame and make stories for two straight hours in her office and then she arranged to play golf to a friend of mine by telling her how much I love married men which indirectly caused me to almost become a rape case victim.

The time I met white hair tai tai, she initially got two good tai tai friends as they all were comrades once. Then I started to keep quiet listening her defamation of her friend tai tai T and following that she began to attack her friend tai tai V. I realized why she attacked tai tai T first now, because her hubby is less successful but tai tai V hubby is as equally wealthy as her hubby.

She is a fame of Marxist, but I would never understand why she is a golfer with her gang of mostly datins and despite her deliberately dress up like an old grandma yet her actions proofs that she loves many things capitalist did and practiced. She would never say a single bad word of any of those tai tais with richer and much more famous husbands than hers, yet she made all sort of defamations against other poorer tai tais and made those poor helpless without much background young girls she encountered to go down drain.

One of white hair tai tai young friend L who always prepared ginseng chicken soup for her, but ruthless psycho white hair tai tai effective gossiped to her husband to cause her divorce, she ended to become somebody second mistress. When I saw what had happened to this poor young lady L then I realized the white hair tai tai’s evilness but my action to keep her out of my sight and way was still a beat too late for me, very soon I became her next target, it’s my turn to be tortured by her, out of a blue one day my newest business rival showed up in my office accusing that I wanted to bomb their business which I never or even ever would use such unrelated word in my entire conversation vocabulary.

This unexpected threat from one of the most notorious oil town triad member triggered my depression from that day onwards, the white hair tai tai by then tongue-in-cheek asked me, “Why you don’t want to admit you said it?”
“Hey! I never ever say such silly thing of wanting to bomb some strangers’ business.”
“You know something I don’t like about you is: You always want to be a winner, you are not humble, you are arrogant; you never admit what you did was wrong.”
“Hey! I never ever say such silly thing ……”
“Look at you, what you did wrong you should be brave enough to admit.”

After two hours of unexpected insulting, humiliating and wrongful accusations by locking in white hair tai tai office alone by myself to face the white hair tai tai, two strange rascals and notorious gangster to attack me and forcing me to admit my wrong doing of something I never did yet was not sufficient for white hair tai tai, she wanted me to get locked up eventually in Kuching 7th mile asylum! Luckily I just got locked up in Mt. E stress ward when I got pregnant with my first child.

They promised me it was a parley, insisting I just need to assure them I didn’t say it, who knew that was just a deepest gorge that they planed to throw me in. They all didn’t even give me a minute to clarify my standing, but prosecuted me in the very first minute instead. When I didn’t want to comply as I really never did it, in contrary they began deliberately to twist up more stories aiming to further on pressing me. I never submitted their unlawful and inhuman ways of judging me so I just sealed myself watching them like crowns acting their ways through and left the scene at last like satisfied wolves; they probably had checked my background knew that I didn’t have any powerful backup, that’s why they were so unreasonable to me.

For weeks I was crying hysterically, white hair tai tai could chuckle in a cold heart manner and took her every chance to approach me in her previous jungle style of prosecution, Why you don’t want to admit you said it?”
“Hey! I never ever say such silly thing of wanting to bomb some strangers’ business.”
“You know something I don’t like about you is: You always want to be a winner, you are not humble, you are arrogant; you never admit what you did was wrong.”
“Hey! I never ever say such silly thing ……”
“Look at you, what you did wrong you should be brave enough to admit.”

She was someone I trusted so much, once I even called her as a god mom, so imagine that when something I didn’t do, but somebody you trusted the most insisted saying “YOU DID IT, PLEASE ADMIT IT!”

Like a raping case victim, smart enough knowing she was alone facing a group of wolves that wanted her body, if she further on struggled that would cause her a life.

Only God knows that if I got caught unexpected again, lawfully this time but still with uncivilized interrogations and made up accusations insisted me to admit, I would be much more experienced. I know now why those out-of-mind professional syndicate or authority bullies could kill a stubborn not guilty poor victim later by tossed him out of the window

Since the incident, for months I lived in a torment, only God knew why I had to walk through some darkest days and carried on years like that. One morning, I had a nightmare: I dreamed I was around a pile of dirty clothes, suddenly a beetle appeared, then it turned into a tortoise, the tortoise started to chase after me (I don’t understand why I was afraid of a tortoise in my dream) I began to run, while running it attacked and bit my right leg little toe and it ended bleeding profusely, and I again trying to escape from its attack, all a sudden the tortoise turned into a very old lady devil face, then I saw her nails were so long, she began to use her nail to attack my face, I screamed at I looked into her eye and her grey pupils.

Then I woke up immediately due to the scream, I ended calling and crying hysterically to my mom at 5 in the morning, “Mom, those grey pupil eyes are the white hair tai tai’s….”
“Now, girl cool down, God must be hinting you something, now you have confirmed she is the devil to cause all those pains.”

I decided to move out of white hair tai tai' s reach since that nightmare, actually it was my only time ghost dream in my life up to this date.

3 years later in an occasion I again met that young ex friend L of white hair tai tai, she by then worked very well with her “mister” and her kids were doing very well in studies as well. Then she revealed to me, “Hey, remember once you told white tai tai a man that you were interested?”
“Ya, what happen?”
“You remember she pretended to ask you for the telephone contact of the man’s uncle?”
“Ya, what happen then?”
“You know what white hair tai tai did to you?”
“What?”
“One day she popped in my office telling me that she would never let you live a good life, she said she had just called the man’s uncle.”
“Thanks for telling me that, why didn’t you tell me earlier instead of making me waiting and wasting my time for such stupid man for years?”
“You know I didn’t like to gossip, but after sometimes I felt what white hair tai tai did to us were too much, but I didn’t know how to get hold of you. Other wise I would have tell you earlier. Also she even told me when you first met her that if she didn’t keep an eye on you, you could steal her husband one of these days.”
“BLOODY HELL WITCH, why you didn’t tell me this? I shouldn’t befriend with her if I ever knew she could make such kind of disrespectful remark on me.”
“Hmm, sorry I didn’t know you much that time.”
BLOODY HELL, interested in her old husband or somebody’s husband? The bloody hell dirty idea never came across my mind but she could use her dirty mouth to degrade and pollute me. I respected her before now I realised she was not worth to be respected!

Six month after such truths revealed I met my husband, once bitten by snake, twice shy and I married without even notifying my parents.

Another 3 years later, when my first son was born. Someone who was once the white hair tai tai comrade told my sister, “That white hair lady’s husband got a mistress in our neighbouring state with a teenage son already.”

I took out my fingers and counted, that’s exactly time when she did all the shits to me. If her hubby went on having mistress why she picked on me to bully? She should improve her grandma look rather than attacking me, what were the benefits she got if I really ended on the asylum? I don’t trust rich tai tais much these days, I can all blame on this white hair bitch!

These days I always saw her grandma “kind smiling” face in newspapers as one of the board of directors in a private school, she smartly chose to bully her victims who had no power to challenge her wealth, social status and hypocrite acts.

Poor Teachers and Mean Tai Tais

Written by Mrs. Money

Gift or Earthworm?

When I first moved to C city, I turned to a local ex-CEO old tai tai for an opinion of should I give Chinese New Year gifts to my kids’ school teachers. She replied in a hiss, “No. No need. No, I never heard of such practice in C city. No, there is no such custom here. I only heard of people giving gifts to managers, like my husband when he was a CEO, many people would give him gifts during Chinese New Year, we got so much gifts that I got no place to store them! No need, no need to give gift to teachers, they are well paid these days…….” (“If you give those gifts to those teachers, you better give those gifts to me!” I thought I heard that silent hint from her)

I quietly hissed, “Hi dub! My parents were both teachers.” No wonder they didn’t receive much gifts during Chinese New Year, “poor dad and mom and poor Malaysian teachers!”

My heart just didn’t feel right, so I turned my poor dad for a different opinion, he advised, “Girl, most people used a gift as an earthworm, a hook for a bigger fish. But you shouldn’t follow those fishermen, you give gifts to teachers as your respect and token for their hard work and professional dedications.”

When I worked in Brunei for a year, for only a Christmas but I received the gifts more than 15 years I worked in Malaysia! Not many teachers would encourage their kids to become teachers, but most doctors’ kids ended up as doctors!

Cheap or Friendship?

There was once a very dedicated piano teacher, who always would give extra coaching to her students without asking for extra professional charges during exam eve, some students appreciated her silently but some really took her for granted. Many years later after her mental and physical health both got deteriorated after prolong abused due to overwork, she finally called for a quit.

She was an overseas graduated and a trained piano teacher, with rare Russian technique in hand, many pianists could play but couldn’t teach, however many local piano teachers would choose to attack her teaching and techniques innocently to show that theirs’ are much superior, let those tongue in cheek attacks, however the outstanding exam results of her students were the solid proving bass if she was really good or not; her diploma students were sole survivals under some toughest examiners or after her grade 8 exam student who got nominated by examiners to study in one of any four music institutions under ABRSM international scholarship, those rogue tongues were temporary sealed.

Border town civilians developed short memory and became realistic, visitors come and go in all seasons. Soon older and experienced teachers became passing fancies, young graduates freshly returned from overseas could demand more in their professional fees without much consideration for poorer students.

So one day this piano teacher eavesdropped such conversation, “Miss New is very expensive, but Miss Old is cheap….”

"Miss Old?" Am I really cheap? Or these parents simply never understood my extension of friendships to them thus I didn’t charge them as I should supposedly do.
“Look dub! I am not that cheap as you thought of but because I was treating you as one of my very good friends! I can command my professional fees as one of the highest in state, because I have to babysit your lazy and imperfect ear kids for like 12 to 16 hours a day before exam eve for at least two week to a month. For the whole past 11 months your kids were telling you lies actually they didn’t practise much and you expected your kids to pass with a distinction within or less than a month time practise and you all could still bargain for less practising hours from me. If I could spend my time to stay with your kids instead of partying, why you didn’t cooperate with me? Can you afford to pay me if I charge RM200 per hour for babysitting your kids?”

During music exam eve, “Miss Old” had “to beg” and “threat” some parents to send their "babies" to practise piano in her music school, many parents thought piano is easy due to lots of girls didn’t study well they all became piano teachers!

So if some of those kids were doing very well in school, some mean tai tais would hiss to “Miss Old”, “Aye, easy huh, if you are a good teacher, my kids sure would pass.”
“Dub! Piano needs coordination of dexterities from both mental and physical, it needs to develop reflect action but for school exam, students got time to ponder and recall over answers!”

In short, they would put study as No.1, school band No. 2….. but piano as No. Last importance.

So after the exam was over, mean tai tai called, “How much my kids got?”
“Everybody passed” Miss Old piano teacher hissed in a relief.
“How much my kids scored?”
“1XX and 1XD.”
“Why so low?”
“How much do you want?” (Note: The overall passing rate of this particular music exam for the whole town was less than 50%)
“How much so and so scored?”
“Oh XYZ got a Merit.”
There was a silent
“Ok. Ok”

“Miss Old” never heard a thank you from the mean tai tai.

With her ass working off and after such exam she would get sick on and off for few months due to lack of rest; instead on and off she would hear gossips of how such mean tai tai would try to say something defaming her music school. Mean tai tai would rather find faults to blame on teachers but give excuses for her kids’ laziness, she never realized her kids were both telling her lies due to her strictness and over controlled.

The latest gossip that "Miss Old" heard was one of the mean tai tai's daughters started to date a boy out of her knowledge. Once mean tai tai almost told all her friends, “I won’t let my daughters date in high school years, I told them I would follow them like a shadow if I ever discover that!”

Threat From Mean Tai Tai

This tai tai was imported from an orchid island, she was not that educated but her hubby is a highly demanded professional in our state.

Usually when a less educated girl married to a highly educated smart hubby, she got lots of stress. She is worried if her kids are stupid then her hubby or friends might say, “Hi, that’s your stupid gene.” So she would rather work her ass off and get overnervous to monitor her kids’ homework to make sure that they are No.1 in everything. When her kids couldn't get No.1 in everything she would blame the faults on others or teachers. (sounded nicer to explain to her hubby in this manner) She rather would say, “Hi, I was from a poor family thus I didn’t get a chance to further study, actually I am a very smart girl!”

What happened was this mean tai tai sent her kids to a private school, she would force them to study overnight without sleeping during eve of any school exams thus they both were top students.

One day she found out one of her kid’s subject was marked way bellowing than her other subjects. She approached and questioned the teacher who taught the particular subject, the teacher replied, “Sorry, that’s the standard, sorry I can’t mark it higher.”
“How can? All the rest of my kid’s subjects were over 90s.”
“Sorry, I can’t give it higher, that’s the standard.”

So this mean tai tai got really mad after unsuccessful bargaining, she went to see the principal, demanded him, “You change this teacher or my kids quit this school!”

Eventually the bitchy tai tai won and she could still bragging to her friends about her "wonderful" deed.

Most tai tais could act so meanly, indirectly it was caused by the silence of their hubbies but mistranslated by their wives as the green light to go ahead to treat people meanly. Many classmates of her kids hated her, once they told their piano teacher angrily, “She thinks only her kids are smart, we are all stupid!”

FRIENDSHIPS BETWEEN TAI TAIS
We Can Pull a Cat’s Tail from Time to Time but never to its’ Whisker!

Written by Mrs. Money

What is called friendships?

A decade ago before Money tai tai got married, she got bitten many times by an oil town some most notorious tai tais, after that she developed herself a “taitaiproof” shell and she only began to lose a bit since she got married and “migrated” to C city.

Money tai tai started dubbing herself such a very secular title when she turned jobless, since then she needed to readjust her new tai tais’ life style, very soon she realized that she was a real loser in dabbling amongst tai tais, she ends up rather sweating and tanning under the hot intense equatorial sun amongst plants.

Perhaps imitating their counterpart businessman-husbands, many tai tais would barter-trade friendships with mutual benefits; to elevate their confidents and status they would only befriend truly with other richer and more powerful tai tais.

So if a tai tai with fading prestigious status but she could still tango amongst the meanest elite tai tais club at ease, she should have extra ordinary abilities, PR skills and talents, either in bad way or good way or simply act as a chameleon who would come up to an extend for her own benefits but deliberately or indirectly hurting other simple minded young tai tais.

Watch out for such chameleon who initially would approach and probe an approachable tai tai’s life in a very friendly and helpful ways to acquire such strangers’ private and confidential information, the chameleon would then feed back to her elite tai tai friends “to gossip until qualifying” to join their elite tai tais group, or else such loser would end up abused like a toy rat by them. Nobody enjoys their private life becomes an open book to strangers, but such chameleon is a great entertaining broadcaster, and to her benefactors the chameleon could still act like a pity victim who got bullied by their toy rat!

Another similar characteristic of these mean rich tai tais: They would never say a single bad word or remark of their superior richer tai tais but would say only mean things to those as equally rich and less rich ones.



Good friend Or Secret Enemy?

Juicy story began when the ever friendly and helpful BB tai tai opened her ears to listen her new friend tai tai A’s problems, but BB tai tai was not able to discrete the private and confidential matters, neither she chose to help genuinely nor “store P & C in her closet”, instead she went on “broadcasting” tai tai A’s private matters to her best friend tai tai B. Tai Tai B got another best friend tai tai C and at the end everyone knew tai tai A's in and out.

Actually BB Tai Tai’s friends from A to Z hardly met and knew each others, but thanks to her “broadcast” seemingly friends A to Z all knew each others’ private businesses here and there and in and out. Life went on peacefully for a dormant volcano when its' lava didn’t leak.

Tai tai A usually listened to BB Tai Tai’s “gossips” from B to Z but dumped those “rubbish” at once because she was always busy her minds to restart her second career in her mid life.

Tai tai B is an older woman who married a very rich established husband, she never needs to worry her slippery tongue or tongue-in-cheek which might one day resulting a slap on her cheek. She is in nature a very helpful and kind tai tai, a great entertainer and humorous in tongue-in-cheek ways, she loves to pull those BB Tai Tai friends’ tails time to time “if she thought” they treated BB Tai Tai meanly, but this time story went on a bit differently …. Tai tai B went on pulling tai tai A’s whisker! Tai tai A somehow reserved her educated, polite and quiet composure without retaliating on scene when her whisker got pull with no reason.

What had happened was recently tai tai A sold her business and BB Tai Tai was the only good friend who knew A’s transactions in and out. Tai tai A discovered BB Tai Tai betrayal as a trusted friend during a breakfast meet when she and tai tai Z exchanged their pleasantry, then tai tai A mentioned to tai tai Z that she already sold her business but was making a lost in her investing assets and renovation, unexpected tai tai B interrupted promptly, rudely and meanly in a very hostile way to tai tai A, “You stayed there, ate there and used the venue for ten over years, you shouldn’t say …. !!!” Tai Tai A's minds was not ready for fighting with a bitch yet when there were people owed her debts which she tried to twist her brain looking for money needed to settle her outstanding credit cards. Tai Tai A “hibernated” such unexpected insult for 3 nights, upon woke up, she got wiser when she recalled those rude remarks tai tai B tried to mock her, actually she thought she should forgive those tai tais as she was not that kind of small hearted tai tai, but she felt if her tail was being pull she could still say meow a bit louder to them, but this time actually someone whom she didn’t know well came along to pull her whisker, she thought that was quite close to her mouth, thus she thought of given a hiss if not a bite.

Tai tai A then questioned herself, “I encountered or ate with tai tai B merely less than 10 times, I didn’t even have her phone contact (Simple: that mean I am not her friend or even associate) why tai tai B got so angry, told me off and acted so hostile towards me upon hearing my conversations related to my sold business, I am very curious why she could retaliate me without losing a single beat?” “I was talking to tai tai Z and actually my business transaction was none of tai tai B business, why she eavesdropped, responded and interrupted heatedly immediately?” “How tai tai B knew how many years I stayed in an O city before I move to C city?” “How tai tai B even knew where I stayed in O city which I kept P & C for 10 over years from most people?” and finally, “Who told tai tai B all about my private business?”

Then tai tai A further on analyzed and speculated why and what BB tai tai and tai tai B could have been gossiping behind her, tai tai A suspected that BB Tai Tai went on asking her main benefactor tai tai B’s opinion, “Hey! Tai tai A sold her business recently for 5K, do you think her business worth that much?” Then the details of tai tai A was given to tai tai B by BB Tai Tai for “evaluation” and at the end they made their conclusions that tai tai A business actually worth a lot less than it deserved. Then BB tai tai complained to tai tai B, “Huh, now she acted proudly like a millionaire and hardly called me out!”
Tai tai B replied, “Big deal?” Let me told her off one of these days if I got chance, she silently decided.

After this incident, tai tai A got so depressed, disappointed and mad, she consulted her wise buddy and spitted out her angers, her wise buddy told her, “Hi, you eating ang mo shits girl, you are too blunt and innocent, you are just not subtle and hypocrite enough to tango with local tai tais. I think you probably were talking too much about yourselves to that BB bitch, so she went on gossiped to those as equally bitchy snobbish friends of hers. They all think now that you are nobody thus they dared to create and make all sorts of bad remarks behind you and dared to challenge in front of you. If you are a Datin or Puan Seri now or your hubby is richer than that tai tai B’s, I bet none of those busy bodies would dare to bully or talk to you in disrespect manner, especially you don’t know that tai tai B so well.”

Tai tai A’s cousin who is though 10 years younger than her, but she is much streetwise, she advised, “If I met a person and she keep telling me other's people stuff, I'll watch out of her because I'll think with other people she might talk about me too. So, I share minimum information about me with her.. I can still hang out, just that my topic will not be about me...”

Conclusion

Friendships need mutual respect amongst each others, I would treat no matter poor and rich in such manner with genuine hearts if they don't do me harms, those who hurt me before I will take a step away from them, as a toy rat soon I will be treated as a passing fancy for mean tai tais!

Migrated Temperate Zone Plants

To Live in the East

Written by Mrs. Money

To migrate those temperate plants to thrive in our equatorial garden is the same like making an Ang Mo wife, a St. Bernard or a Persian Cat to live "happily" in our hot and humid all year round climate. To keep well and take care of these "foreign treasures" take a lot of thought, heart and mind!!!

My dad used to grow purple passion fruit with seeds "smuggled" from Auckland, though with lush leaves but after a year he decided to give up when he got tired of only seeing green leaves everyday.

To plant roses and purple skin passion fruits in our equatorial is indeed a challenge to me, in spite of many people assured me that these plants won't grow long, bloom well and bear much fruits I still go for a challenge. Only God knows that I miss those kinds of western plants, I am happy to see their leaves even if they don't thrive so well under out hot equatorial intense sunshine.

When I bought those rose seedlings from Rose Garden of 10th-mile Kuching , that old wise "Aunty Rose" kindly told me, "Raise the bed when you plant the roses."

Last year my two rose patches bloomed so well with yellow, white, pink and red roses, (I regretted that I didn't have a camera to record those blossoms) six months ago I then left to oil town just for 40 over hours, upon returning first thing I went to inspect my plants in the garden and found out my 4 rose plants died of dyhydration, I looked at my mom's guiltyless face and I mumbling to myself, "It's fine, as long as my two kids under her care is still pink and lively!"

Recently, a staff from this Kuching Popular Agri Chemical Sdn Bhd kindly gave me a package of free sample cow manure, I have been looking for it ever since I planted roses. (I heard since long ago that roses love cow manure)

A year old rose plant reaching as tall as the fence

Six month old young rose plant just started to bloom

First passion fruit blossom, I did its pollination with my fingers!

Successful Pollination

(Emerged an oval baby fruit with its flower still attached)

How to Prepare Dabai

Written by Mrs. Money

Dabai is known for Chinese-Sarawakiens as Iban-Olive, some people would call dabai as Sarawakiens' black olive. Its botanical name is Canarium Odontophyllum and family name is Burseraceae.

Many people don't like after-pickled sour taste of this Sarawakiens' native olive, but after I returned from overseas, I tried to teach my old stubborn mom my way to preserve its orginal fresh flavour but she still prefers to clean and pickle in her traditional ways!

Ingredients:

Extra virgin olive oil

Warm water

Dabai

Procedure of Preparing and Cleaning Dabai:

The secret of preserving dabai for a week without turning into much sour taste after oxidation, I would use extra-virgin olive oil to rub the skin of dabai (as when they dropped to the ground I kind of worry what they would accidentally touched something we called "chicken shits"); after that I would use the cold water to get rid of any suspicious dirty dirts, finally use boiling water to give a quick rinse. Some people would give dabai a sunbath, but I would prefer to dip my dabai for a warm bath.

Traditional (Chinese) Ingredients and Procedure:

After dabai become soft by soaking in warm water, take dabai out of water and mix with salt, soy sauce, sugar

Money Taitai Recipe 1

Ingredients and Procedure :

After the dabai went through olive oil massage and warm bath, take soften dabai out of water to mix with salt, soy sauce, sugar and cincaluk (or use minced dried prawn as alternative) fried with sesame oil (or olive oil) and minced garlic (Optional: Chili)

Money Taitai Recipe 2

Ingredients and Procedure (Western Ways of Pickling):
Prepare pickled solution: Boil water with garlic cloves, vinegar, sugar, salt, chili and mixed herbs of dills and black pepper corns, transfer into a sterilized container
Clean the dabai with cold water after went through olive oil massaging

Transfer the dabai into the container of pickled solution, qive a quick boil.

Let it cool down and store in refrigerator for 2 months.

Money Taitai Recipe 3

Ingredients and Procedure:
Clean dabai with cold water after went through olive oil massaging
Transfer dabai into a small bowl
Top up with sliced pork (non-halal) or beef (preferrable with a bit of fat) and fried smashed garlic and cincaluk with sesame oil
Steam it (can steam together on top of rice)

You will eat until you only see seeds remained!