Due to increase price of aluminium as well as people moving away from soft drinks, it will be shrunk from 355ml to 350ml.
I've finally gotten around to do it up, download it from here (yes, it's a PDF file, you'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader if you cannot read it). It's just a round up of what's been happening in the forum since March.
Down in Limerick, three Chinese renters demolished part of their accommodation to grow cannibis were busted. I suppose it's a scam that gangs do but we never hear about it, but some still get through. I hope this does not cause too much trouble for Chinese renters.
Hutchinson Telecom's made a deal with Apple to officially launch the iPhone in HK.
Existing subscribers of Hutchison Telecom, a unit of conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa , were expected to be the first users of the iPhone in an early program starting this summer, the South China Morning Post said.
You don't really have to look hard, just head into the Golden Arcade.
At present, Hong Kong people can only buy the iPhone, a mobile phone that allows Internet access and plays music, through unofficial channels often in the form of parallel imports.
Other than that, there are no other details are given by Hutchison Telecom.
In Cantonese, we normally greet each other with "你食咗饭未呀?" (nei sik-zo faan mei aa?), in English it means "Have you eaten (rice) yet?". The reason being, back in history, there was a lot of widespread famine through out China, and Chinese would be very creative on how to make dinner from whatever food they find, including rice. So food is very important to Chinese people, that is why there are so many ways of just cooking chicken alone!
For most of the Chinese, rice is a regularly eaten with other dishes, I say most Chinese as other provinces might be regularly eat noodles instead of rice, for example. What I'm trying to say is that "食饭" (sik faan) basically means dinner. Even now that I reside in Dublin and I don't cook Chinese dinner that often, my mom would as me that question very early on in the phone conversation, and vice-versa.
What's worrying me is the cost of food going through the roof now, especially rice. Normally rice would be the most affordable, but with so much demand, will it going to be a luxury?
All the way in Israel that is. Asian restaurants were protesting on the plans of the government to cut the number of visa to foreign chefs, saying that their aim is to train locally. Sushi and noodles are up next in upcoming strikes. I'm so surprised how popular Asian food is:
"Customers say they are shocked and can't live without South Asian food. [...]
I got annoyed with how some people view that Asian food is easy to cook, well, it is, but I grew up watching, learning and eating family home cooked Chinese dinner, and also the restaurant was a big part of my life when I was young. This irked me a little:
Government lawyer Shoshana Strauss told the Reuters news agency that "everyone can make Chinese food, it's not impossible to learn [...]
There is something missing, the chef/cook also needs to know culturally how food is made, you cannot just learn it, you grew up with it, as mentioned at the end of that article.
It's just like the health inspections, there are different ways of preparing food, you annot assume it's all done the same. Sushi are dealt with differently, you cannot check the temperature when you serve that. What about steak that are done rare? Chow mein are actually noodles, but they come dried, so they need to be soaked in boiling water, and needs to be cooled down. Health inspectors could not get around their head that you cannot just put them straight into the fridge, as the texture will not be as supple. That's just one example. Of course, there are common sense to how things should be stored. But little attention to different cultural ways would ease tension.
I would like to present to all of you, IBC's first newsletter, which could be found at: http://kaykays.com/stuff/newsletter/2008/issue01.pdf
I am hoping to release these newsletters on a quarterly basis, kind of a recap on what's happening in IBC forums and blog.
Ideas and/or contribution to newsletter welcome, contact me via IBC Forum.
Check out the pictures shot by this guy.
But this one from the BBC News site is even better, see for yourself.
According to the census, it is. But what proportions are from Mainland China recently, arrived here for decades etc? It's not detailed enough. You cannot really lump all Chinese together.
My hubby mentioned that he saw this in The Irish Times a few days back, but forgot to tell me. Anyway, he found the link to the news story on RTE. Here it is anyway: RTE video clip - First Chinese graduate called to the bar
Interesting, check this out. What do people think of how the images perceive both cultures? Some maybe stereotypical, but some are true as well, in my opinion.
Really, tell me what you think when you see this quote?
Luo Lei's parents were able to help his campaign by taking the class for a trip on the modern monorail system - which is managed by his father's police department - and by giving him gifts to hand out after his final speech.
And...
Cheng Cheng ensured that his classmates shouted down Xu Xiaofei before she had even started to speak, and she found it difficult to recover.
All this for trying to get elected for class monitor in a Chinese school1. There was alot of underhandedness when I read how a class of 8 year olds go about their campaign.
I wonder how this differ from class reps/monitor being selected in Irish schools? This just reminds me of the Simpson's episode when Bart ran for class president against Lisa. Does that kind of dirty campaigning in schools really happen in US?
1 Please Vote For Me is part of the BBC's Why Democracy? season and will be broadcast on Sunday 7 October at 2000 BST on BBC Four. - Democracy in a Chinese classroom
Those Japanese think of everything! I've been thought a craze of making sushi at home, and it's so simple! Ok, it make take a few hours to prepare (more so for things to cool down), but they are so scrumptious as well. But back to the point of this post, a sushi maker to make life easier for all you budding sushi makers. Ok, as my cousin pointed out, it is a bit small, but I still like the idea. Heehee.
...in the menu, that is. The Chinese government is tackling badly translated menus.
[...] the poor English translations "either scare or embarrass foreign customers and may cause misunderstanding of China's diet habits".
Two examples from the article:
* "virgin chicken" for a young chicken dish
* "burnt lion's head" for pork meatballs
Thing is, anything translated straight from Chinese, from kungfu styles to food dishes to meanings of paintings to people's nicknames etc., they can be confusing. That is why especially in martial arts movies, names are so funny.
But aside from bad translation, the Chinese government are tackling bad manners like spitting and just being plain rude. Hopefully this will last longer, and it's not just for the Olympics.
I'm just wondering, why can't the the expats just send their kids to the normal schools instead of having so much problems with school places shortages at the International schools. I suppose most of these expats and people who are returning to HK feel that they have to give their kids the best school. Snobbery, yeah. But I suppose when I have kids, I want them to go the best school we could afford (*hint hint, my hubby's school.. heehee). But most expats are business people, and status is everything, even more so in HK.
But on the other hand, HKU was snubbed by a top student and chose Peking University, even though she was offered $560,000 scholarship.
It's a fake, asmy bro pointed out. I had this saved in my google notebook, but never got a chance to post it... It's a hoax!.
Pork bun suppliers are making them out of cardboard, which is initially soaked in caustic soda, then mixed with fatty meat and steamed. And this is in Beijing, where the Olympics is going to be held. Definately not good publicity. Why do certain people have to con other people, and isn't there a heath risk at all?
From the Beeb, some pictures on the historic area of central HK, that will be demolished for new skyscrapers and apartments.
This opens a new window: In pictures A historic part of Hong Kong is under threat from developers
*gulp... my heart kind of stopped when I saw this headline, Hong Kong probes cable car plunge. Hong Kong as you know, now has cable cars travelling to the Bronze Buddha (Ngong Ping Skyrail) and Ocean Park has them as well. The incident could happen in one or the other. It happened to be Ngong Ping Skyrail cable cars. But luckily no-one got hurt, and it happened in a test run, and the ride was closed on the day. But still, it's pretty scary thing to hear about since my hubby and I were on it earlier this year. And we love cable cars. I suppose it's a known risk that this will happen, but still... eep!
The problem with too many people (around 1.3 billion) and only 100 surnames might just rear its ugly head. Even though there are just over 1600 surnames in total in China. Changes suggested that both parents surnames are to be adopted to help ease confusion, especially for the police.
At least 100 000 people share the name "Wang Tao", the China Daily said, citing the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Just saw this in my search for more Irish Chinese blogs, news etc... Interesting opinion found in the Indo. Heehee, and I did indeed fill out the Census.
... for appoving fake drugs. He was a former head of the State Food and Drug Administration, so nothing to sniff at either, quiet a tough sentance for someone who was so high up. [1]
As I expected, China is trying very hard to clean up its image with regards to all the food and drug fiasco that came into light recently.
Given the scares, imports of dodgey meats into America are highlighted in this Washington Post article.
All I can think of is the prawn paste made in HK, it's disgusting how it's made, dried in the sun, lots of things flying around it, but that is how it matures. Sure, take cheese, bacteria is used to mature it. What about meat in N. European countries, where they just bury it in the ice for storage and come back to it a year later, rotten but is eaten as a delicacy. So in one culture, how certain foods are prepared and eaten is different.
Back to the fake drugs, cosmetics and food stuff... Hong Kongers always have know there are fake stuff in HK from Mainland, it's sometimes hard to tell the difference. A bargain is always found in HK, so you never know which bargain is potentially a life-threatening one.
All I can say, I'm glad I am in the EU, it's not perfect, but it still eliminates all the scary imports. In my opinion, even US drugs are dangerous and untested, and not suited for the general market, and I am glad some are banned in the EU.
Well, China's not the only offender (but still needs alot of work to clean up their exports), here is an interesting look at what was refused by the FDA in the States: U.S. Food and Drug Administration Import Refusal Reports
[1] Read full article: Death penalty for China official
For us here in Ireland, it's the property bubble, but in China, another kind of bubble has appeared, the graveyard bubble. This means people buy plots of land in a graveyard, and depending on the location of the plots, they can be sold for lots of money. But some punters did not get any plots of land after handing over their life savings. This for profit attitude again has a cost on normal people who just want their loved ones last resting place to be good. But loved one who is laid to rest and then gets moved out after the "lease" has expired is a strange way to show how much they love them. It's strange how things work over there.
... and by text messages according to the Beeb report about supposed tainted bananas from China's Hainan Island. Word of mouth can really be dangerous, even if it's by text.
Ok, it's only a few stories, but enough to open your eyes if you decide to move to Dublin and work there. From the Indo online, I read experiences of different people who had to not only share a house, or a room, but a bed. Or rent a sofa?!? This might be the extreme, but with my friends commenting on rents going up all the time, I am not surprised that people who arrived for the first time in the city, and find it hard to find some decent accommodation.
Read full article: Rent? Astronomical. Deposit? Ridiculous. A room of your own? Priceless
...do as the Chinese do, so goes the headline in the indo about cultural awareness for Irish companies who are partnering more and more with Chinese companies.
Japan has many strange things, but a media booth that allows one to surf the internet, watch tv, play games, read manga etc. You can even sleep overnight, the staff won't mind! And since there is enough food and drink to last for hours, people are immersed in a world of their own.
Sounds great, but if I was to go into one, I might get addicted. There is definate danger surrounding this one.
Read this article about lift going up by itself and crashed into the ceiling in Tokyo! Eep, that is scary. Given that high-rise buildings are the norm in the Far East, and lifts are very common, it's a bit scary reading this! Even in my current apartment block in Dublin, granted it's only 4/5 floors up, the lift sometimes acts a bit funny e.g., slow to close the doors and start moving!
This is what happens with all the technological advances, and we rely so much on software, as in this case, labelling the colour of a sofa. A direct entry from an out of date dictionary from a Chinese software company into their translation engine caused this furore with the family who found the error of the description. I'm not even going to mention the word in this entry, you'll have to read the article yourself. But is this another form of Chinglish and/or Chinese ignorance?
According to the Indo's article, Asian first time buyers are on the rise.
Octopus smartcards have been deducting money from more than 500 card users who use machines to add credit to their cards. Whoops, no-one knows why, but how do you know it's your card, since the card is no way linked to the person carrying it, it's just e-cash. Hope they solve this little problem. It's a shame that something like this can discourage people to use this handy system of paying for public transport, food, parking etc.
And it's funny that Big White Guy picked up that Departed was mentioned as based on a Japanese movie on TV at the oscars! I did not think it was that good, the backdrop for The Departed just could not compare to Hong Kong! And it was not subtle. I did not even watch the end of The Departed, mainly 'cause I was on the plane, and couldn't be bothered (and I was tired).
Japanese people have gone into a cleaning frenzy.
Fortune-tellers are now advising those who want to succeed in life to start by scrubbing the smallest room.
My host, Dreamhost, had a power outage, and its status has been up and down. My blogs seems to have come back online, but the databases are not up i.e. IBC Forum is not accessible at this time.
Logging a support issue and see if I can get this resolved.
UPDATE: IBC board is now back up.
Seems like the Chinese New Year market has gone ahead. I have not seen or heard much about it, since I only got back from Tokyo last night, and I'm down in Limerick to be with family for CNY.
While I was in Sydney (one of the cities on my honeymoon trip), I came across their big CNY festival. I got hold of their brochure and free postcard. I doubt our future events will be as big as theirs, since our local Chinese population is so small. Just looking around Sydney, you see Chinese realtors, their Chinatown, so much Asian business there.
Since this will be my first CNY as a married woman, it will be my first time handing out Lai Sees. My brother Wil has already said "Sun leen fai lok, lai see dau loi!", this means... "Happy new year, hand me the lai see!". Well, it's not officially New Year, so I did not given him any. >-<
Anyhoo, wishing you all a happy, healthy and a prosperous new year.
Oh, heard about this guy who was going around the city speaking only in Irish as project to see how people react. He said that folks are annoyed with him, or ignored him, or get things wrong. But from what the article depicted, it made city folks ignorant. Well, not really. I think most folks would think he was just a snotty, rich kid being smart-a**ed. If he came up to me, I would find him utterly rude. At least he should introduce to people what he is trying to do.
Discuss at IBC board.
My fiancé pointed it out to me yesterday, the instant noodle creator died. My little brother loves the cup noodles.
Many a time instant noodles was our dinner when we don't have time to cook, this is not now, this was back years ago. Of course we don't just eat one brand all the time, we try many. I cannot remember all the names, but I think one of them is "Yat Ding", the one with a picture of a cartoon boy. Now you have instant rice noodles, macoroni etc...
What to do without them on those last nights after coming home late from work.
A fun read : http://www.dimsum.co.uk/food/confessions-of-a-noodle-freak.html
UPDATE:
Check out this comic.
Has anyone noticed the increase in Chinese medicine.herbal shops lately? There are two opposite each other on Grafton Street alone! There is at least one in shopping centres that I have been to, which includes Jetland shopping centre (Limerick) and Dundrum (Dublin).
From Panorama.dk's 2007 New year pics :
HK's panoramic pic at Lan Kwai Fong
Ok, nothing spectacular in HK, fireworks are normally reserved for the Chinese Lunar New Year.
Happy, happy new year, everyone! Not much ringing in the new year at home, just spent it with family. May this year bring luck, happiness and good health to all.
Well, if they are interested in coming to your country, of course. That is why many countries are pitching themselves to the next wave upon wave of Chinese tourists at the Shanghai Convention Centre. On top of that, there is a book on showing how as a Chinese tourist, how to behave in a civil manner. Heh. It's all here.
The boorish behaviour will not disappear overnight, but hopefully it will. I do get mortified when I witness a Mainland Chinese person loudly clearing one's throat and spit on the groud. Eurgh!
On other news..., The China Rose Wedding is coming to Ireland. It's 40 couples who will tie the knot in one ceremony, and honeymoon in Dublin and the west of Ireland in Nov 2007. Cannot find anymore details on this, probably more will pop up when the time is nearer, unless they are all in Chinese.
Update from the damaged undersea cables from Taiwan's earthwauke. Telecommunications and internet services are not fully up, for HK, it would take upto 3 weeks to fix it completely.
More news:
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6213501.stm
* http://hk.news.yahoo.com/061228/60/1yyqu.html
Well, it's post-Christmas leftover time. And what do you normally do with leftover turkey and ham? Our family tends to look forward to turkey congee (although I lost my taste buds due to a crappy cold). All the turkey bones, leftover meat and ham gets toss into this rice porridge... mmmm... It's pretty yummy. It's full of flavour from the roast. I suppose it helps me as well, 'cause I am sick. It's a good comfort food, and keeps you nice and warm.
It's so easy to make. Tastes good, and also good for you!
It's so sad to see things like this, especially when it's committed by an Asian. The killing of the postmaster in Kilkenny was a tragic event, it is good to see the killer remanded in custody. One person can give a whole community a bad name, always the minority. From my experience, the Asians always kept to themselves, and any news that gets into the papers is always bad news.
Man, Chinese people and respect. It can fall foul so easily, as in this case with one Chinese man killing a fellow countryman. But if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.
But some good news, the 1st ethnic Chinese person to run for office in Belfast. It's a tremendous step in regards to all the racism that is happening in N. Ireland. Down here, we should take note of this, maybe we can learn something from it.
Strange to hear about Maid cafés. But they are not just found in Japan, but in Canada as well! Do guys (and gals) actually feel comfortable eating their noodles with these pretty girls all dressed up, whose also willing to talk to them? Strange world.
So banking in China is not efficient. Which is completely opposite to Hong Kong. Everytime I go to the bank in Hong Kong, the queue is long, but it's all done pretty quickly. Better than Ireland, for sure! But why is there a huge difference in efficiency in Mainland China compared to Hong Kong? Maybe Hong Kongers have a faster pace of life, and things needs to be done? This really does not help me picture an improved China at all. This just instills that services are still sloppy, and don't give a toss about the customers. No matter how hard I try not to be biased against Mainland China compared to Hong Kong, people's experiences in China on day-to-day things like this is not helping. I think bad news always makes it ten times as worse, it just increases our ignorances.
Onward with my wedding-related posts. This time it's about western people who live in Japan, and are getting hired as fake priests for western style weddings! Apparently it's quite a money-spinner. The traditional Japanese wedding is not as popular anymore, and the chapels for these weddings can be found anywhere i.e. in the middle of shops in a shopping plaza! The couples know that this is for show, and they do register properly so their marriage is recognised.
It's crazy what Asians do to have a Western style wedding, see another blog entry I posted a while back.
It's not just Chinese who are materialistic, it's Asians in general. Take a Japanese jeweler who are selling gold calendars, yes, gold calendars for around 20 million yen (€133K) each! Crazy, isn't it?
Someone was asking in the IBC forum to create some sort of a gallery for folks here to post up pics. Was playing with Gallery 2, but it sucks. Anyhoo, Flickr is still good to use.
I created a group in Flickr in response to this : http://www.flickr.com/groups/irishbornchinese
So, when more folks post up pics, a flickr badge will be updated with the latest pics from that group, either in HTML or Flash... like as follows:
| www.flickr.com |
But most likely be in HTML. Folks can just send pics from their flickr account to the group, and you can discuss about the pics. Plus it has an RSS feed that people can subscribe to.
Plus if we get enough pics, we can print out cute business cards courtesy of moo.com.
Only in Japan would you find the forerunner of innovative ideas being tried, like this footsteps powered ticket machine.
This is wierd, a robot that cooks Chinese food, called AICookingrobot. Not sure about the replacing of cooks in fastfood restuarants, or home-cooking. I am sure it's a good idea, but I doubt it will take off.
What is otaku-hunting? Well, according to this article, it's targetting and robbing young otakus (obsessed fan of animé, manga and videogames). Young as in, they still attend school. Some of these robbers have been arrested. And the reason why they rob young otakus?
"Otaku are weak and they've got money, so we went after them," one of the arrested youths told the police.
I know you have to be wary in cities, but I am looking forward to Akihabara, and stories like this do not put my mind at ease.
As you may have noticed that I made a little change in the colour scheme of the site. Removed the recent entries from the sidebar, less clutter. Plus a new banner. Updated the scheme throughout the archives (categories and monthly) and individual entries. I hope I did not miss anything out.
It's a slight change, 'cause I don't have time to do a full site re-design.
You know, one thing I always wanted to do right and look cool doing was spinning a pen. I always see my best friend (who is from HK) do it. It looks so cool. I can just grasp the basic, but the pen drops more than I spin it. At least I learnt it the proper way. It's more of an Asian thing, they sit in school, bored listening to the teacher, they just twirl their pens, and even while reading or thinking. I don't know why, but maybe it helps them to think about things, calm their nerves?
So what brought this on...? Well, apart from memories of being in school twirling the pen, I came across this crazy vid on Japanese pen twirlers:
Oh, if you want to find out how to do basic twirling, check out the following vid to start you off...
Comments welcome at the IBC forum.
Hey!
Just trying out Google Adsense, since I'm working on the site voluntarily and I fund the site personally, I might as well try and see if I can generate a Euro or two.
It's not too intrusive.
Later all!
Just added the following tweaks to the atom feed generator for the IBC forum:
As I announced in the IBC forum that the Irish Born Chinese Forum now has its own Atom feed.
I finally got around to write it over the weekend, with some tweaks from Mick. And yes, it's written in Python using SQLAlchemy and ElementTree.
You can find the button on the right-hand side of the IBC blog (a bright orange and grey button). Just right-click and copy the link and subscribe to it in your favourite feed reader.
It gets updated every few minutes or so, so it does not bombard my sql server. So be patient, it will update.
Final update, it all works now. Woohoo! Sorry for any inconveniences this may have caused.
Dreamhost got back to me about the links that are now working:
It seems the dns for those domains was incorrect. I updated it in our
database and flushed our nameservers, so they should start working for
you as soon as your isp's nameservers clear their caches.
The one that is working at the moment is http://irishbornchinese.com.
http://irishbornchinese.kaykays.com is still down. Will check later in the day.
Just got word from my bro, Vince (passed on from Wil that is) that the following are links are not working (error id: "bad_httpd_conf"):
I have contacted my host and hopefully they will resolve it soon (they always do 
).
The last time this happened was bad DNS. So we have to have to wait and see.
Apolagies for any inconvenience caused.
You can still use http://kaykays.com and http://kaykays.com/board.
My host (Dreamhost) had some outages, which of course took down my IBC sites and forum.
Just to let you all know. :)
More info : http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/category/system-outages/
Public loos in HK are dreadful, well, less so now I suppose. I would avoid going to public toliets as much as I can. I know, I know, it's bad to hold it in, but being a girl going to a public loo and squatting (it's a hole in the floor loo. Ok, a loo in the floor, it's porcelin, and you can flush it... But it's not your usual toilet bowl!). I hated it. It was disgusting. Guys, you never knew how lucky you all are.
Well, while I was in HK, there was a poll taken on public loos (even Big White Guy mentioned it), and top 3 were given gold, silver and bronze ratings. I read it in the South China Morning Post. Strange, but at least it highlights the crappy public loos HK has. Yes, please improve them. But, lo and behold, I recognised the bronze winner, it was the public loos at the Wishing Tree in Lam Tsuen. I thought that was cool. They do have swish loos, automatic taps, loo flush, everything all spick and span.
But on my recent trip to HK, I do notice the public loos in plazas are really well kept. Now I don't fear as much now going into public loos in HK.
There you go, loos in HK.
Hmm, maybe I should have posted that I was going away for 2 weeks to HK before I left! Anyhoo, I am back now.
Tons of wedding-related shopping done. Golden Plaza near Prince Edward is a 4-floor building packed with wedding stuff for all types of weddings, Eastern and Western styles.
Anyhoo, just spent a wodge of time cleaning up the fake users on the IBC board... I hate them so much, spammers should all have horrible done to them! It's ruining everything for everyone.
Nowadays being a young person in Ireland with things looking bright, good job, great city (I like Dublin), great people... ok, there are downsides like day-to-day expenses of food shopping, bills, house prices (reason why I am still renting). Yes, house prices in Ireland, Dublin in particular are getting out of control. News about young people, especially single females getting 100% mortgages, which they will have to try and pay off for the next 35 years. And interest rates has gone up 3 times already this year, and there are more to come by the end of this year. No matter how I grumble on how small the appartment I am renting, which is in an ideal location and very good security, it does not beat Hong Kong (Tokyo aside, of course). BBC online actually have pictures of flats that were built in the 60s to alleviate "squatters and tenement dwellers". Just thinking about how expensive it is here, does not compare to HK. Ok, maybe the town where my parents are from might be more affordable than here, but I would rather spend that money on a house, not an appartment, here or HK.
Check it out, the pictures speak louder than words.
Comments welcome at IBC forum.
Read about three restaurant staff who were stabbed by two diners (From Irish Independant, need registration to read) , arising from not being happy with their meal. This happened in Magic Wok restaurant in Charlestown, Co Mayo, on Sunday night.
Came across this blog commenting that I am racist?!?!?!?
In their own words:
"This is specially for IBCs (Irish Born Chinese) to post articles with regards to IBC's life in Ireland and comment on articles posted."
Only Irish-born Chinese? Isn't that a tad racist?
Hmm, did that person did not bother read the blurb I have above of my page? I have expressed that I welcome all, even in the forum. So much for me wanting to know other Irish born Chinese of my generation. Of course, I wouldn't forget about other overseas born Chiinese and non-overseas born Chinese.
Sorry folks, problem with the scanner (Canoscan N124OU), doesn't seem to be picked up by the pc, even though I removed the driver and re-installed it. Plugging it into all USB ports, but Windoze does not want to pick it up. This sucks. Well, I will keep trying and see... prob end up getting another scanner, and toss this out the winder (figuratively speaking that is).
A friend emailed me recently about my last post about Moore Street, and he was saying that I should have called it 毛街. Would more Chinese folks think of Mao Tse Tung! Heh, I would be inclined to think of hair or fur myself. *lol
He also said
I knew there was a Chinese pub beside the Alilang Korean restaurant on Parnell street (the eastern part of Parnell Street compared with O'Connell Street, not the same side as UGC). I never went in. From the outside it looked pretty grotty. Maybe it's changed. And I knew it was called 酒酒吧.
Came across this article commenting on the Moore St on how multi-ethnic it has become. Well, we all know that living here, but more and more tourists notice this. And more of these travel articles point that out. I did not even know there was a pub where Asians hang out. Well, there you go. Heh, I normally go to the pubs on the Southside, although I might go to Pravda or D2 sometimes.
Hey all! You can access this site via http://www.irishbornchinese.com! The IBC forum can be access via http://irishbornchinese.com/board.
Wow, smart cards are being faked, I wonder how many do get through though. The article mentions 2 people trying to use the fake cards getting into HK. Another thing though, would there be problems with genuine cards being mis-read? I wonder if there were any complaints from people about them?
What do you think? Discuss at IBC Forum.
As I mentioned in my previous entry that I will upload pics of the CNY's eve dinner at home. Here they are : CNY Eve 2006 dinner.
Just to let you know, the sidebar on the right was getting a little too long from all the links to the monthly archives since 2002! So I have moved them http://kaykays.com/archive_page.html for your perusal. Nothing exciting, but at least it relieves the clutter a bit for now while I try and contemplate on redesign of site that has been put on the longest finger ever! 
You can also find the link the archives page under Personal Links on the sidebar.
I read this article, 'China in their hands, world at their beck and call' in the Indo the other day. More and more Chinese women are in China now earn more money and have more choices. Materialism is on the up and up.
In 21st-century China, expectations of women - and the expectations they have of themselves - have become so complicated that it would be hardly surprising to see a woman steelworker step out of a Maoist propaganda poster clutching a Chanel handbag in one hand and cradling a baby on her other arm.
As I chatted with a friend of mine the other night, some acquintaces of his were trying to set him up with a Chinese girl. But he was a bit turned off after being warned that she is has expensive tastes when it comes to shopping. He can't quite understand why? What is so important about these rip-off items that Chinese women fall head-over-heels over? But it's fundamentally there, every women secretly wants to be lavished on. And none more so than the Asian women.
Before China became as wealthy as they are now (at a phenomonal rate), it was predominantly Chinese women from the wealthy countries like Hong Kong (before crash in 97), Singapore and Japan (they still spend even though the economy has been in great depression). You can see it, in the last decade, it was just HK, Singaporeans and Japanese tour groups. Now it's dominated by Chinese tourists from Mainland China. It's incredible. All the expensive (high street) stores don't care, money (more so cash) are rolling in for them.
For me, I don't really care for Gucci, LV, Dior etc., but for many, it's new found status symbol. Materialism has spread like wildfire in China (to those who can afford it). Then there are those who love the labels, but do not like paying for its high price, and get rather cheaper knockoffs in China on their holidays. Yes, tourists love it there for that. As for me, I don't really care about that either.
UPDATE
I restate how materialistic Asian women are, see this entry in bigwhiteguy's blog about this HK women who bought a 123 number plate cos it was 'cute and memorable'! OMG, that is just crazy... because it cost her HK$1.5 million (EUR160K)!
Wow, what crap weather today. Why are Tuesday's so crappy? Is it just Irish roads that gets jammed up with the slightest hint of rain? Well, it could be worse, my friend Kieran tasted the cold winter in Beijing when he took a trip down to Tianamen Sq.. But another friend of mine Derek is at the ice festival up north, a bit nippy at a cosy -20 degrees celcius.
This is my friend Derek at Harbin. Amazing sculptures! (More of his pics at http://flickr.com/photos/derekindalian/)
I suppose the guys are having so much fun, they probably haven't heard much of the HN51 in Asia. Worrying enough, recent news mentioned that there could be an endemic in HK!
With all the madness of the run up to the Chinese New Year with prices of chicken going as high as HK$200, normal price is HK$20-40. It's no wonder many folks were trying to get as many poultry into the territory. My uncle ended working New Year's just because of the over-ordering of poultry, and had to be sent back (since HK don't allow imported poultry to stay in HK). But on a lighter note, the lantern festival is still happening in HK.
The Radiant Romance lantern show will light up Kowloon Park January 20 to February 26 to celebrate the Lunar New Year.
An interesting article I found about threats to traditional Chinese celebrations?. Many taboos for Chinese New Year are already lost for all us bananas (heh), I mean overseas Chinese. But this is still true back in the Far East. Younger generations just go an enjoy themselves, with so much influences of the west. It's a shame really. Face was mentioned in the article, I really hate the way face is important in Chinese society. It's snobbiness, but it's all part and parcel of being Chinese. Not very auspicious attitude, right? But everyone enjoys these traditional celebrations. In fact many overseas Chinese embrace it (even if we don't keep with all the aspects). It's great to be celebrating with family, visiting relatives. Something to be happy about. Ok, red packets are on the minds of kids, but curiousity of many young people are aintrigued on where this all come from. With the Chinese Channel on satellite nowadays, many can see what is happening back in the Far East. Everyone gathers together to watch tv like they do in HK as well. It brings us all closer. So I agree with the article that just becuase traditions are changed slightly, does not mean that the traditional celebrations will be lost.
But being the Year of the Dog, according to the lunar calendar... we have 13 months! 
From Asian-pacific news :
The lunar year begins Jan. 29 and lasts 385 days, till Feb. 17, 2007. It includes an extra month between the seventh and eighth months, and two 'lichun' days -- which mark the beginning of spring -- on Feb. 4 of 2006 and 2007.
Now that is long! And I can still get married in the year of dog. 
(Views you want to comment on? Go to Irish Born Chinese forum.)
In my previous entry I mentioned Lam Tsuen's Da Jiu (Peace) festival to give thanks for the safety of the region that was part of the devastating typhoon decades ago. Tai Po's Da Jiu festival does not happen yearly, it's a few decades (not sure how many) between each one, so it is a very big event. Not everyone can go twice is what mom and dad said. Now that's a long time for a big festival.
I got curious then about the typhoon disaster. I remember my dad mentioning many typhoon disaster, and I am wondering was the one in 1937 was the one he talks about (he was not born then). I found this article though when I searched for more information. But the search results did not harbour anymore results.
So 2 young guys armed with a knife trying to rob a Chinese Takeaway up North rang up the police to say that they were threatened with a knife when the takeaway owner picked up a knife and challeneged the robbers!
Give me a break! What chancers.
So a friend of mine will be rotated out to the Beijing office for 2 months (i.e. he will be doing the same job but working in a different office in another country). He mentions inflation here... well, I can imagine how he will feel after his 2 month stint in Beijing and coming back over here! At least he will save some money while he is there, I heard drink is dirt cheap (unless you go to the touristy places of course).
I have not done this for awhile, but not much good news out there, I'm afraid.
Start off with Racists attacks on takeaway delivery people, there has been reported attacks around Dublin over the Christmas period. I am sure there are more around the country. This is not just aimed at Chinese, any non-national attacks have occured as well. But so few are being reported, which I think is a shame. Given that some are afraid to report incidents, I suppose even people who are not immigrants don't report incidents all the time.
A man got arrested for pirating DVDs, for shame is all I could say. Even in Hong Kong, there were less pirated stuff for sale.
And now for something utterly expensive : €12-a-cup of tea is being sold by Harrod's! It's Oolong that can be rebrewed upto 7 times. I am sure the tea shop owner in Tai Po Market would appreciate it. I don't know the name of the street, but it is near Fu Shin Street.
Wishing everyone the very best this 2006. (Since no comments are allowed here anymore... comments can be posted in the IBC forums)
... Haven't checked out BWG's site for awhile and I came across his how should one celebrate Christmas in HK?. Heh, I liked that he mentioned that he visited the Lam Tsuen Wishing Tree. Coupled with watching the HK news today on all the arrangements for folks to ring in the New Year earlier today, it reminded me of my Christmas in HK. Mick and I ended up at a relatives BBQ for xmas. Mick has bad memories about that BBQ, he did not feel too well from eating at a fast food place before heading for the huge BBQ that night!
Anyhoo... we have our bottle of bubbly ready....
Hey all, I am off out of the country for Christmas, so it will be even more quiet, unless I get internet connection.
So happy hols to everyone! I was meant to draw a pic before I go but this will have to do...
Saw this article about 1 person's view of Dublin's diversity. They found the common stereotypes of non-nationals is not what it seems in Fair Old City.
Talk to an Asian man in a convenience store, for instance, and you'll swear he's American.
Of course Asians are one of the multi-ethnic groups of people he briefly mentions. And he included a quip here and there from the locals on their view of a more multcultural society.
More like a diary, but interesting read.
The IBC messageboard has been upgraded to 2.0.11.18 and also added a new style. The new style is also as default.
I also added the Unofficial Fight School in the menu on the right-hand-side.
My bro has a post in the forum duscussing about martial arts (includes link on how I started the Fight School forum).
✼ 韋岐 ✼
... that alot of new immigrants buy homes in Ireland.
It's crazy, just 2 years and there is a huge jump in the percentage of non-nationals buying houses here.
Due to mega amount of sp@m being received each day (clocking up between 10 and 100). I have temporarily disabled comments and trackback.
I will still post articles, but you can further continue discussion at the messageboard.
My apolagies for not allowing folks freely posting legit comments and trackback. Hopefully I will get this resolved as soon as possible. Until I find a better spam filter, or when I get a chance to move my site to something else (which is soon).
I have noticed the word sino used in many articles. I sometimes use it (not alot), and I have always wondered how on earth does the word sino relate to anything Chinese? I suppose, the easy way to find out is to do a search in the dictionary... meaning from Oxford dictionary
combining form Chinese; Chinese : Sino-American. —ORIGIN from Latin Sinae, from Arabic.
Wikipedia did not help here.... it only redirected me to China!
Saw this article about Shanghainese to brush up on their Mandarin and then seeing this article about TV hosts not to use HK or Taiwanese accents when speaking Mandarin. Interestingly enough...
Only just over half China's 1.3 billion people can communicate in Mandarin, the official Xinhua news agency cited a national survey as showing last year, while almost 90 percent can speak dialects ranging from Cantonese to Hokkien and Hakka.
So have you all eaten your mooncakes yet? By golly, you should take a look at this monster of a one! That is one big mooncake!
I know, that does not narrow it down, but this particular friend has a blog of his ongoing adventures over there in Dailan. It's pretty cool to read up on what he's been upto. Maybe I will get a section together with links to non-Chinese blogs living in Asia.
Two men charged with stabbing Gardaí in Dublin were Chinese. Is it a norm now? I thought it was just the usual robbery, but was shocked to find out that they were Chinese! I am disappointed, but also I need to be realistic. There will always be a small number of scumbags for every normal person out there. And on a lighter note (well, sort of)... Chinese Information Centre helped raise over €30K last week for the parents of a Chinese student who died when their house was burgled.
Ok, this is icky, but a leech in your nose, all that blood it's sucking up, and it is all big and squishy. Eeew, and it made it into Beeb's news, but I initially read it on Big White Guy's blog entry. Even so, hiking can be good and can be bad. It's awful to think about hikers being attacked and robbed, but now leeches.
Finally got it up... backed up, ran a few commands and upgraded the board to the newest release. And hey presto! ;) Now folks can chat again .
All visitors to my board maybe experiencing issues with access. If you are ok, please DO NOT CHANGE THE STYLE. An exploit was dsicovered, and I was only aware when a registered user on the board pointed it (Thx, Arsheen!). I will be upgrading to latest phpbb and more information can be found here at the phpbb forums .
Please bear with me until I get home and make the changes.
-- Your friendly admin, Vicky
Well, you have Hong Kongers warding off evil spirits with feng shui underpants! And then I see that they are rolling out 100Mbps and 1Gbps Residential Broadband Services by June 2005. Yowsers! 
The Irish pub that banned smoking will could be in jeopardy because they are being prosecuted for obstructing the pavement from the smokers sitting outside. I think it would be great, no more smokey clothes, but that is my opinion. But the HK government has been proposing this for quite some time. And alot of people apposes it. So only time will tell.
Found a cool pic!
(Click on image for bigger version, it's a panoramic view. Note, the page has many pics.)
If you cannot see the pic (even after re-loading), you can check out other pics, here is another pageful of pics of HK Christmas lights 2004. (Takes a long time to load up, but worth it.)
And I mentioned in my personal blog about a Hello Kitty tree!.
For you Hello Kitty freaks out there.
And finally...
聖誕節同新年快樂!
"Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!" 
-- 李韋岐
Interesting article about Ireland, with Dublin as prime example. I just did not realise that so many Chinese people rent in the Smithfield area though.
Now I have to disagree with BWG's opinion on Fei Fei, but I suppose only folks will know about her if they grew up and see what she goes through (sometimes a bit too much becuase of the intrusiveness of HK paparazzi). She is a true entertainer. Many big stars (yes that's including Jackie Chan, Chow Yeung Fat etc) has respect for her. Fair play to you, Fei Fei.
Nathan Rd to become a pedestrian mecca if the government has their way. Some interesting proposals, but no schedule for anything yet.
Yo! Change of style of IBC board. There are other styles to choose from, and if you are registered forum user, you can change to other styles or back to the original one (subSilver), if you want.
Check it out - http://irishbornchinese.kaykays.com/board
Free meals for lasting love from a restaurant in Guangzhou trying to pass the message on to young people that love should be cherished more.
More than we are, they spend a fortune buying imported pumpkins, partying, dressing up. It's amazing. Here, I think the weather has dampened the booms and bangs of fireworks.
This is getting rather annoying... sp@m ahoy there... after just a weekend away.. I think I accidently removed some old comments by accident. But let us not delve into the past, let's try and keep a positive mind... sigh
Came across this article about someone's experience with the Chinese reaction
and a Happy New Year! 
