8 March 2022 Tuesday Shall we move?

I cooked lunch on Tuesday, the chicken was in the fridge for long enough; celery, carrots, onions, olives and tinned tomatoes meant chicken cacciatore which the young ones seem to enjoy with a bit of rice. SML's latest addition is a young man from Miri 'Ah Boy' he joined us, followed by Arlene who sat down with a proposition - to relocate our office to the suburbs. Leong was worried that I would be reluctant to move, being so infatuated with the old town area where I grew up. But after almost 6 years, I don't mind a bit of change I told her - a larger place would mean distancing is easier, we can reinstate our library and maybe even have accommodation. I offered to install a full scale kitchen and dining facility on site, I wanted the proximity of food and books.

Fingers crossed. 

Sketch crawl - definition

I tried to find the definition of a sketch-crawl on the internet but could not find anything definitive.

I think it is related to the 'pub-crawl' where people visit as many pubs or bars as possible within a designated time, stopping to have several drinks at each place. A sketch crawl works much the same way, with sketches 'collected' along the way. So, whenever I can, I map out a route through my neighbourhood or someone else's (when I am traveling) and have my own sketch-crawl; recording vignettes of life there.

Each sketch usually takes 10-15 minutes, to capture the main forms and some details to be finished afterwards.
* though this year I resolved to finish my sketches 'on-site'.

End

A Stolen Afternoon

There was a time when a stolen afternoon meant something entirely different for Sam and I, but the thrill of mischief is similar. One recent afternoon, we found ourselves bored with what we were doing, I was drawing alternative layouts of a bathroom and she was preparing dinner. We decided to drop everything and sneak off for a coffee at my favourite part of town.


Carpenter Street was quiet at three o'clock in the afternoon. The coffee wasn't especially good and neither was the pastry but we were grateful for the freedom to leave work behind and pretend we were on holiday for a while. Not talking yet glad of each other's company.

kim joo noodle shop - an institution for some

and across the road; bike shops and tea merchants

Autumn Moon Festival

 

courtesy of Grace Teoh from Penang

 

Another excuse to overload on sugar by eating moon cakes, but now that my palate has matured from years of being married to a Cantonese woman, I turn my nose up at the local "tau sah" (sweet bean-paste) moon cakes, scoff at the trendy StarBucks mocha-latte-pandan flavours and eat only the finest "lin-yoong" (lotus-seed paste) moon cakes from KL (where else?). 

But when no one is looking..(Sam especially) I gorge on the local 'gu-chia-lin' (bullock cart wheels) large flat moon cakes bought from the Third Mile Bazaar

 Peggy's inaugural Kuching USk Sketch Crawl - in conjunction with the street celebrations on Carpenter Street
(drawn quickly with BIC Crystal 1.6 mm ballpoint pen because fish porridge from Lau Eya Keng is calling out to me)

Chinese cough remedies

I was coughing badly for the past 4 weeks - the two doses of anti-biotics did not help so I decided to give Chinese herbal medicine a try. This meant going to Carpenter Street in the old part of town to visit Dr. Bong who comes highly recommended by my mom. He prescribed 24 doses of powdered herbs to be mixed in half a cup of warm water and taken three times a day. 

I read somewhere *that our memory of scent and taste is retained more deeply in our memory - often bringing on powerful recollections of past events related to a particular smell. The taste of the muddy mixture reminded me of my 'Ah-mah' (maternal grandmother) remedies administered in the first seven years of my life when I lived with her.

In them days, the powdered herbs were administered via a rolled piece of paper and 'blown' into your mouth (or the back of your throat if you have a cough or sore throat). You are not allowed to swallow for a time to allow the medicine to work and in those minutes, the gritty texture stuck to the back of your throat and lodged in your windpipe with each breath. 

from the bottom of the driveway

These are my 'drawings from memory' - of grandma s house at Jalan Tabuan. It is no longer there. It burned down one night in 1987, I was in Australia studying for my degree. When I was told the news over the phone; my mom mistook my stunned silence for a bad connection, perhaps not aware of how much the 'old house' and my memories there meant to me.

a continuous line of timber shutters provides protection from weather

Seven years of my life was spent there; new born till Primary One after which I stayed over on most weekends until I was ten - almost all my childhood memories had something to do with the rambling old house and its 4-acre jungle of a 'garden'. I remember the gravel driveway that wound up a small hill to the house - it was alright if you were in a car but most of the time we were on foot or on bikes which meant that you had to struggle against the gradient and the bumpy gravel.

the drive runs under the house where most of the time a small grey-blue Mazda is parked until Grandma goes for her card-games

Closer to the house, gravel turns to concrete and you catch sight of the house - a powdery blue timber structure with shutters on the first floor raised on brick piers one storey high.The formal living and dining rooms were on the ground floor while the bedrooms were upstairs, the kitchen with its wood-fire stove was in a separate single storey structure. The highlight of each week was lunch at Grandma's where she holds court with hot soups and an equally fiery temper.

the doorway on the right leads to the formal living room

the corridor, the stairs to bedrooms and the kitchen block

Conversations with Marcel. #2

Another email to Marcel, who grew up in this part of old Kuching town.

Just a quick note to let you know Sam and I am thinking of you and Kummy; a quick sketch of 'Lau Eya Keng' to accompany the quick note. They have spruced this place and managed to acquire the shop lot left of this sketch (where TECK JOO used to be) and moved the cooking stalls in there.

So that the tables, chairs and people are the only things in the forecourt like street theatre - good eh?

The Kueh Chap is waiting for you...