My Favourite Singer

When I checked in the "Referral" sectiion of my sitemeter, I found someone had googled, "Theresa Teng" and had found my blog. I had once written about Theresa Teng.

Although Theresa had passed away, like Elvis Presley, she is also one of my favourite singers. I can never get tired of listening to her songs. I specially like her rendition in Hokkien dialect. One of my favourite is "Ti orh orh" - "Sky is very dark". The tune is lovely, almost playful, despite the grim title. It tells about the difference between the taste of grandpa and grandma. Grandma prefers her food to be salty, while grandpa likes it more bland, and the two went on to fight till they broke the wok!

I remember when I was in Kuching, my eldest sister Lee Lee, being the music mistress in her school, had trained her girls to sing the song in a choir. "Ti orh orh" was beautifully sung in four parts, with a multi racial group of Chinese, Indian, Malay and Eurasian students!

Oh! I wish Theresa had lived on. The world has lost a singer who was not only beautiful with her voice and personality, but one who was kindhearted and generous.

For the sake of my overseas readers who have never heard Theresa's voice, I have put the u-tube rendition of her song, "Ti Orh Orh". Enjoy it!

Gan Chau

Cherry Blossoms

 

 

 

Singapore is known as a Garden City. It is comforting to see trees and plants growing everywhere, providing that much needed shade in an otherwise hot country.

It is not easy for us to grow flowers in our hot climate. The flowers that seem to thrive are bougainvilleas, orchids and bunga raya (hibiscus). Even my neighbours who love gardening like me, seem to have more potted plants than flowers.

Brother shared with me excitedly about the cherry blossoms that seem to be growing everywhere in Canada. How I miss the lovely flowers. Well, since I cannot grow cherry blossoms here in Singapore, and since I do not quite like the artificial, plastic ones on sale at florist shops, I decided to make some cherry blossoms. Irin, my neighbour, was about to throw away the long long plant which had dropped all its leaves. I told her to keep the barren plant.

Armed with some Styrofoams, glue and paint, I created some cherry blossoms on the bare branches of the long long plant. My cherry blossoms will never fade, but when they have gathered enough dust, I will have to throw them away.

Our world will only be full of green, if the Creator had not created flowers of diffuse colours! What a wonderful and colorful world we live in. My dear readers, what are your favourite flowers?

My First Vegetarian Lunch

 

Food and fellowship always great when we are with people we are comfortable with!
With Pat (in red blouse) and K.C. Lim, (next to Pat) and their 4 handsome sons, Kelvin, Clarence, Steven and Leon, Amu, Sally and Jasmin.

 

The young people doing a song item.

 

Some of the lunch crowd hosts and guests

 

Sharing of joy: Mother's Day Celebrataion. Sharing of pain: Fund raising for the Cyclone victims

I was pleasantly surprised when Patricia Chew, my upline for the Quantum Science Products, invited me to the lunch organised by her Buddhist Fellowship, Singapore. It was a joint Mothers' Day cum Vesak Gratitude Lunch where all the nett proceeds will be used to help the cyclone victims in Myanmar.

Patricia and her husband, K.C. have generously bought 30 tickets and she asked me to bring along some friends too. I invited Amu, Jasmin Patel and Sally Tan along. All of us have never been to the Grand Court Vegetarian Restaurant and hence are quite curious.

The ten course lunch was quite sumptuous. It is amazing how the vegetarian dishes are created to appear and taste almost like meat! What great culinary skills! Sally commented that this is one of the best vegetarian restaurants she has been to.

There was some entertainment during the 2 hour lunch. A Norwegian monk, Ajahn Bramali, gave an interesting talk. He now resides in Mohiyana Monastery, Perth. The President of the Fellowship, Angie Monksfield, a Senior IT Professional, who is also the Vice President of Singapore Computer Society, gave an interesting and challenging address. Throughout lunch, the word "gratitude" seemed to surface many times. Gratitude to one's parents for having brought us up; gratitude to God for His blessings of prosperity and safety. I had mentioned in my earlier articles that when we have gratitude towards God and fellowmen, it will put us in the right perspectives of life.

During the Auction Period, a few items were auctioned and garnered generous support. In no time, over $20,000 was raised from the auction. Donation bags were passed around and the Association hopes to raise some $80,000 for the victims.

In one lunch gathering alone, it has enabled me to perceive and understand my Buddhist friends in clearer light. A picture tells a thousand words. It is by social interaction that we can observe, analyse and empathise with the people around us. It is pointless for any one of us to sit in our ivory tower and think we know......when we can actually know better just by being there amongst the people.

Gan Chau