My Beloved Xiao Bai

 

I was spring cleaning the apartment, and came across this photo. I smiled as I thought of how much my beloved chow chow, Xiao Bai hated to be photographed. The above is one of those rare pictures taken by my niece, Incy, when she was visiting me from Melbourne. Of course, after the picture was taken, my lethargic pet woke up from his sleep and walked away. He just could not stand the camera! Once I took him to the photo studio and it took the photogragher 30 minutes just to take one shot. Xiao Bai kept moving and turning his back to the camera! Hence when the TV crew were filming "5 Missing Hostesses" in my apartment, they wanted my cute chow chow in the movie, but I told them they might have to spend a lot of time coaxing him.!

At Rialto, whenever I prepared a huge mound of pizza dough, and before waiting for the yeast to rise, I would sculpture the above picture. I would put a piece of cut black olive as Xiao Bai's nose and my staff would laugh seeing the resemblance. My beloved staff, Amudah, would smile and say that I love my dog so much, even thinking of him when at work.

Once I showed the above photo to my client, Mrs. Lim, who is in her late seventies. She thought that Xiaobai's ears were his eyes!! Later she laughed when she realised her mistake.

It has been almost two years since my Xiao Bai passed away, and I miss him and my other two dogs, Kamlette and Kambobo. I am glad to be able to find Xiaobai's double in Spike, pictured in my earlier blog. Whenever I visit Aveline, my colleague, I will definitely pop over to see Spike.

Although dogs do not go to Heaven as animals do not have souls, they already make earth like heaven, especially for those who love dogs. At least I know I do, for my life is made so much more beautiful, colorful and meaningful because of my dogs. I am not a theologian, but I would like to think that God must love dogs very much too for a d-o-g is G-O-D spelt backwards!

Gan Chau

Great Ending of Lunar New Year Celebration!

 

Is that a bear? A lion? Gosh! It's a chow chow!

 

Spike with his lion's fur style! Costs $70 to style him, and only $10 to style me!

 

Spike - Xiaobai's double

 

The friendly residents of Verde Neighbourhood

I had spent 9 days of the Lunar New Year in Penang. This was one of the rare times I went back to Penang for reunion. I tried to avoid going back at this time because bus and plane fares cost more and there is also usually a huge traffic jam at the Causeway.

Hence, I missed quite a lot of interesting functions held at our office as well as by friends. I had been looking fowarding to visiting Dr. Dennis Wee's lovely home and sampling his famous "Hokkien Mee".

My manager, Aveline Tan, invited me to her Verde Neighbourhood pot-luck celebration. There were so many varieties of dishes. The neighbours are very warm and friendly, reminding us of the"kampong" (village) spirit of olden days. The organisers had even put up a stage and invited two popular artistes to sing for us. There was also a lion dance troupe and games on the stage. Four groups were asked to form any character using slices of Mandarin oranges. Our group formed the word, "fu" (luck) and we wished everyone a blessed new year.

I was thrilled when I discovered Aveline's neighbour has a creamy white chow chow which has the spitting image of my beloved Xiao Bai. I was almost close to tears when I patted the neighbour's chow chow, Spike, pictured above. The owner has given him a lion cut and pays the groomer $70 per cut. I stayed over at Aveline's lovely home as it was too late for me to get back. However, deep in my heart, I wanted to see Spike again the following morning.

I thought I was going to take off from work and have a relaxing Chap Goh Meh (15th day of Lunar New Year.) I wanted to go and buy a second hand phone as my Nokia could not function. At the shop I found out that I could repair it and get the phone back in 30 minutes' time. As soon as my phone was repaired a buyer called and wanted to view my client's propety. What perfect timing! Later I told my client I would need to collect the plan of the building for the buyer. He spontaneously invited me to join him and and his family for dinner at his lovely home.

What a lovely ending to this year's lunar New Year celebration!

Gan Chau