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Gearing up for Chinese New Year with a day of shopping at Sunway Pyramid
This morning, I decided to visit one of the busiest shopping malls in Malaysia, Sunway Pyramid.
I live in a wonderful area the light rail transit (LRT) network is just a walk away. (In fact, from my apartment, I can take the LRT to KL Sentral and even catch trains to another state.)
However, today’s trip wasn’t going to be far; just to Sunway Pyramid, which is near where I live.
I opted not to drive there for a few reasons:
(A) Traffic is crazy on Saturdays
(B) parking is nearly impossible at the mall on weekends
(C) I anticipated eating a lot of food, so I figured the walking would help burn the sugar off!I parked my car near the LRT station. Fortunately, it’s the weekend, and since Chinese New Year is just a few days away, more parking spots were available because many people have already travelled home.
From there, it was just a short 50m walk to the station.
The BRT is on an elevated road, and only these busses can use it. After boarding the train, I travelled to the USJ7 station, which is close to my parents’ place, and from there, I took the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) to Sunway Pyramid. My favourite part of this journey is the slow walk on the elevated walkway from the station to the mall.
By the way, the mall is massive—so big that it can take a while to walk to the shop you want to visit! Sunway Pyramid is bloody huge, so you are guaranteed to make many steps if you come to this place.
A Chinese New Year must-have: Bakkwa
My main mission today was to buy bakkwa (preserved meat) for my parents. I don’t know whether if this a Chinese tradition, but it’s my family’s tradition and a must-have for the festival.
Bakkwa tends to be expensive during this season. Still, I bought quite a large amount. My mom is definitely going to scold me for it, but I just wanted to treat them.
Thankfully, I got to the shop around 11 am and avoided the long queues that tend to form later in the day. With the shopping part done, it was time for lunch.
Sunway Pyramid has seriously good food
Every time I visit Sunway Pyramid, I make it a point to eat at Village Duck. Their roast duck is sublime, and so is their char siew.
After lunch, I walked around a bit more before indulging in coffee and cheesecake.
Since I’m not much of a shopper, and the crowds were just too much for me, I decided to head back after the coffee.
Back home now and honestly, today was quite an indulgent day for me, as I don’t usually eat this much. (And so richly) If I do eat like this, I always make sure to walk at least 10,000 steps or have a hard workout at the gym.
Current step count: 8300. Time to step it up!
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Weekend Tales #8: My favourite things of 2024
I was wondering who in the world would be interested in my favourite things. But then I realised that one of them could actually save your life, so here am I sharing it.
Siti the kitty
She’s a little bite-y, but we have this little ritual where, each time she sees me, she’ll let out a little high-pitched meow which is a mimic of my equally high-pitched greeting to her: “Heeeey!”
Then she’ll proceed to make cookies at her catio fence, slow blinking at me. And I try to touch her toe beans. Sometimes she escapes her catio, and I find her doing belly flops at my front door … three floors up. (We live in a town-house-like apartment.) I don’t know how she knows where I live, but she gives me joy lol.
Nourished by Science and The Glucose Goddess
These two Youtube channels can save your life. No, I’m really not kidding.
I’ve struggled with my weight all my life, and my recent A1C was inching towards pre-diabetic range. I was desperate to do something, but felt that I’ve tried everything to lose weight but just couldn’t. This has been an especially despairing thing for me as, before the pandemic, I was much slimmer and my A1C was stellar. However, the pandemic hit and I just lost all control. Trying to lose weight in your forties, as a woman, is fraught with difficulties.
These two Youtube channels: Nourished by Science and The Glucose Goddess taught me the best, life-changing hacks I’ve ever learned: How to control your blood sugar levels. But hacks is probably not the right word, it’s more like, how to eat and live the way our ancestors did and not get diabetic.
The Glucose Goddess talks about the same thing, but in a more user-friendly, entertaining way. But I prefer Nourished by Science as it’s more evidence-based and thorough.
The most impactful “hacks” I’ve implemented are:
- Exercising after meals
- Vegetable starters before every meal
- Eating earlier in the day rather than later
It makes so much sense, really. Our ancestors didn’t eat a heavy meal in the morning only to laze about and do nothing. Most went to work in the fields, burning what they’ve consumed. They also didn’t eat all the time. Food was not plentiful.
So, watch the video, I implore you – this could save you future pain, and even if you’re pre-diabetic or diabetic, it could still help you.
My walking pad
This little device only cost me RM300 (less than US$80) and it’s the no-excuse machine in my house which I use to get my steps in when I couldn’t do it outside like I want to. I usually get on the walking pad right after a meal and watch TV while walking. I barely feel the time pass by. A walking pad is a treadmill without frills, essentially. It fits neatly beneath your sofa, and some can even fold. I just have mine at the side of the sofa, ready for me to hop on when I need to.
My favourite Chinese Dramas of 2024
Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty 2, one of my favourite Chinese dramas of 2024. I love CDramas so much I am now going to write about them in the newsletter.
It’s been a great CDrama year for me. You can read my blog post about the Chinese dramas that stole my heart in my Chinese drama blog, DramaTea.
Pleco’s document reader, which enables me to to read Chinese ebooks!
Pleco is a well-known Chinese dictionary app. You can actually buy an add-on where you can read ebooks or documents with it. Why do this on Pleco? Well, it enables you to tap on words you don’t recognise, and it gives you the meaning in English. You can even turn it into a flashcard!
I started 2024 completely illiterate in Chinese. I’ve always felt ashamed about that, as I wrote in Hello from a banana. While I’m able to converse in Hokkien and a little bit in Mandarin, I’ve always been sad I couldn’t read Chinese literature in the original language.
Being able to recognise the text in a webnovel or in a Weibo post just makes me a little teary-eyed. Finally, I’m able to connect with my heritage in a meaningful way – because being able to read means I can one day access China’s wealth of knowledge and literature. I may not be there yet but I have a finger in it!
This should be a Substack issue, but I just want to share how profound it is to be able to read Chinese at last, even if it’s at a low level. If you ask me if I’ve ever felt ashamed to be Chinese, I’d say no. I don’t share the typical American-Chinese experience in this. But I was ashamed of not being Chinese enough.
When you are a descendant of a hybrid, creole culture like the Peranakans, which is a mash of Chinese, Malay, Thai and even British influences, you have a hard time knowing who to “support”.
I grew up being taught that I shouldn’t be like that type of Chinese – the ones that attend Chinese schools – because they just think differently.
That said, I never felt that my kin in Chinese schools were inferior, just that our thought processes are extremely different. Now, I’m glad for the fusion of East & West in my thinking.
My dad was a complete banana, in the sense that he couldn’t converse in Mandarin or read Chinese. Though he spoke Hokkien, he preferred to speak to us in English. And Queen’s English, mind you. I grew up being taught how to speak like a British lady lol.
But, the one part of his heritage that he loved was Chinese literature, so he gave us books (in English of course lol) of the great classics like Dream of Red Chambers, Journey to the West and Justice Bao. He also began my obsession with Chinese dramas by feeding me them at a young age.
However, I’ve always felt upset I couldn’t read these books in the original Chinese. Learning to read Chinese felt impossible due to life’s pressures etc.
But I started earnestly this year, and I’ve made enough progress that I could understand what was written on Weibo! (Though at low end.)
This vital connection to my Chinese part is just making me … proud? I’m discovering more and more what makes my culture so amazing. It’s a lovely feeling.
The little sunbirds that nest in my balcony every year
I’ve seen three sunbird couples raise their chicks right at my doorstep the last two years. I hope they come again in 2025.
It’s the simple things in life that makes you happy.
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My experience ‘going paid’ on Subastack in 2024
Well, has it been a while! And here am I, back to overwhelm your inbox with a girnomous essay! Just kidding – I hope?
Anyway, recently, in a moment of weakness, I subscribed to a popular newsletter about increasing Substack paid subscriptions. I wondered if there was a “magic formula” for Substack success.
Turns out, there isn’t any.
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Weekend Tales #7: Year ends and bodice rippers in the desert
I may be disappointed with a lot of my goals in 2024, but I am proud to say that my gardening skills have gotten to the point where I regularly harvest vegetables from my tiny balcony garden. This vege is “kangkung” or water spinach. Apologies for the late newsletter. I’ve just survived a tough quarter at work. By “tough” I mean, “Hey, OMG here are 100 tickets and can you get it done by today” kind of tough.
Before you start wondering what I mean by “tough”, I want to quickly say that I really love my job, and I’m not just saying this in case my boss has subscribed to this newsletter (er, hi boss if you are?). But my current role in tech has been the most rewarding role I’ve had. It’s one of the rare jobs that seem perfectly syncronised with my personality and how I’d like to work, down to project management systems.
I had a very tough pivot from journalism. After leaving journalism, I didn’t think I’d find a career as satisfying, but technical writing has proven to my happy place, even better, dare I say, than journalism.
Journalism was glamorous though. I cannot deny that it was insanely wonderful to travel all over the world in the first 10 years of my career.
Of all the careers I’ve had (and I’ve had a crazy number of pivots), it probably satisfies my massive thirst for new experiences the most. However, it can be a demoralising profession, especially towards the end when the industry was falling apart.
Maybe, one day I’ll tell you about this.
So, big apologies. My brain is a little overwhelmed of late I have fallen so behind in commenting on people’s newsletters and I feel guilty. I do read them though, please be assured you are read!
Also, I want to share my gratitude to the people who have deigned to be paid subscribers. I don’t really talk about paid subscriptions etc, because I know it’s a lot of pressure, but I appreciate all of you, paid and unpaid, for believing that my writing is worth your time.
Anyway, I’m glad to have closed the quarter satisfactorily, and it’s now time to begin a new one. However, this quarter I’m doing something a little different. Instead of in December, I’m currently doing my personal year-end evaluation three months early.
So, here I am in a Hilton suite writing this issue while watching the Korean Drama Brain Works and Chinese drama, Love in the Desert.
This was suggested to me by someone on the Internet and I thought it was a good idea to evaluate your strategy and restrategise so that you can meet your goals. It is sort of a “last chance to meet your goals” sprint, so to speak. Instead of ending the year with disappointment that you’ve fallen short of your goals, you can at least end it knowing that you’ve tried best because you tried another tactic to achieve them in the last quarter.
Personally, I’m not very pleased with myself this year, though I have to say that I achieved a lot of my work and writing goals, I have sorely underachieved in the health and social category.
I really, really need to improve my health! I’m of that age where it really matters.
But, anyway, before I bore you, I just want to quickly say that in the next few weeks I’m taking a break, but not from sending you Substack issues. I have a wealth of writing that I’ve published in the past that I’d love to share instead. And I hope you will enjoy them too.
Before I go, here are some things that could pique your interest:
What I wrote
I didn’t write much beyond Tai Tales, but if you feel like it you can read my Chinese drama reviews here:
An amnesiac woman tries to be a dutiful wife. But in truth, she’s being used as bait by her husband to lure a nefarious bandit. A rare, beautiful gem of a drama that will make you smile and sigh.
A big-shot banker is demoted to a tiny branch of his bank when he refuses to participate in his superiors’ corrupt dealings. He refuses to lie low and causes ripples in his new place of work.
Okay, nerdier stuff I wrote:
The circle of competence and our information diet
When it comes to information consumption, am I focusing on a subject that will help me improve my life or make it worse?
Auditing my social media use and information consumption
When you get such extreme mental fatigue from social media and you just want to check out and sleep all day – you know you’ve got a problem.
Okay, maybe I wrote a lot LOL.
Great reads
Some interesting articles I read recently:
Has China’s younger generation really chosen to ‘lie flat’?
Even in Malaysia, Chinese youths face great pressure to excel. I remember watching a Youtube video of an naturalised American who visited China recently. There, he asked some Chinese teenagers about their plans, and they were already planning for their careers. He was so amazed by that.
I remember thinking, wait, Americans don’t do that at 16?? When I was 16 I was already drawing flowcharts for my path towards a medical career and working for the United Nations. (Which, er, as you can see, took a sharp detour to journalism in my 20s.)
I’m not sure if Chinese youths in Malaysia or youths in China have the greater pressure, but it is a pressure all Chinese people understand well. The belief that the Great Exam will change your life is a pervasive one in China, and among the diaspora in Malaysia.
This newsletter from the fabulous Baiguan offers three stories around this lie flat phenomenon in China.
The long strange trip of Julian Assange
With Julian Assange giving his first speech since he was released from prison, I wanted to get up to speed about him. This is a good primer.
Can China’s Long-Suffering Idol Fans Catch a Break?
Since I moderate a Reddit sub (a “responsibility” that I question each day) that often discusses this topic, I try to read up about it. Honestly, I’m still flummoxed by how insane fandom can get and don’t know what to think of it. Frankly, I think they’re (the stars, the industry) are milking profits off these young, para-socialised minds and the symbiotic yet toxic relationship disturbs me.
What I watched
Happily devouring a trashy drama that can be best described as “bandits and royalty in the desert”. Basically about a princess who ends up entangled with a bandit, a prince and a king. It’s not exactly “intellectual” TV, but it is about as much drama as I can handle right now LOL.
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I love Malaysia. I also resent it.
Photo by Ishan @seefromthesky I like watching videos of tourists making videos of their trips to Kuala Lumpur. Apparently, it’s a very Malaysian thing to watch these videos. Some say it’s down to our insecurity as Malaysians, we just like to be reassured that we’re awesome, and these foreigners most assuredly would say something nice and complimentary about Malaysia. For me, I probably have a bit of the latter and also this: I’ve been down and negative about Malaysia all my life, and it’s nice to be reminded about the good things we have in the country.
While a lot of Americans believe in the exceptional qualities about their country, a large number of Malaysians, especially non-Malaysians, view Malaysia in a negative, almost inferior light.
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5 more reads from Asia
How difficult is it to find unique voices from Asians who hail from Asia? Especially on Substack? How about bloody difficult? Well, fortunately I’ve done the work for you.
My last issue highlighting unique, but barely talked about newsletters from Asia was quite popular, so I thought I’d unearth five more finds from Asia for you.
You’re probably wondering why I’m so fussy about my selection, why Asians from Asia? How about Asian Americans etc? Well, the English-speaking world is inundated by content from Western perspectives, ideals, and values. Yes, even Asian Americans voices and perspectives are shared more often in the English-speaking space.
But South-East Asian voices? South Asian? East Asian? Well, as most write in their native tongues, or usually do not dwell in Western-dominated Substack, you will hardly find them here.
I want to highlight them so that you can get insights into different perspectives. So here are some of them:
Khải Đơn by Khải Đơn (Vietnam)
Poetry and essays. Yes, she does write a lot in Vietnamese. So if you happen to be learning Vietnamese, congratulations! Comprehensive input right there. Still, she has an English Writing category. Favourite essay: The Man Running from the Death.
Words for Worlds by Gautam Bhatia (India)
Gautam shares his love for science fiction. One of the pleasures of his newsletter is that I get to know about Indian sci-fi authors and authors I’ve not heard about. (BTW I’m so jealous of India’s writing scene!) His selection in Issue 76 is very fascinating as he highlights books from the Middle East.
72 Seasons of Tea by Peck Gee Chua (Malaysia)
Malaysia-born, Kyoto dweller. Found out that she’s a fan of Kishore Mahbubani in her newsletter Idealist x Realist. Anyone who knows about and understands Kishore’s words is worth a lot of reads ;P
Conscious Living by Rachel Ooi (Malaysia)
Can I cheat by including another Malaysian? I appreciate Rachel’s comments when I drop my newsletter, each and every time. 😉 I really relate to her essay, What success truly means. Her essays are a soothing read for the weekend.
China Translated by Robert Wu (China)
You’ve probably heard me rave about Robert a few times in my newsletter. But just in case you missed it, here is he, mentioned again. The essay that made me notice him was his series of essays on Noah Smith, namely, Will China squander its moment in the sun? and Noah Smith is clueless about China. At that time, Noah was driving me insane with his misinterpretation and falsehoods about China, and it was vindicating to read someone who agrees with me LOL. Want a nuanced view of China? Read Robert’s newsletter.
Well, I still have a lot more newsletters from Asian voices in my feeds, so look forward to more in the future. Meanwhile, if you know Asian voices from Asia, drop a comment below!
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Malaysians stunned by Kuala Lumpur sinkhole
A few days ago, news broke out that made me really suspicious of the ground beneath my feet.
A tourist from India was walking around in the popular tourist area of Masjid India when a sinkhole appeared beneath her. She fell into it.
ℹ️ Jalan Masjid India is a popular tourist spot located near Masjid Jamek, a hisotorical landmark. It is an enclave for the local Indian community and has a famous night market.
I remember reading the news and thinking, poor thing. I hope she didn’t break any bones.
And forgot about it.
The next day, I discovered that they could not find her. She had completely disappeared and only her slippers were found.
My brain immediately went: How in the world can someone disappear when falling into an 8m-deep hole??
But it turns out that there was fast-running water in the hole and she was swept away.
One theory is that her body was swept away into the maze of sewage pipes beneath the city. An expert even said that authorities should call off the search because: “These sewer lines have a minimum flow speed of 1m per second. Theoretically, the body could have travelled up to 86.4km within 24 hours.”
To make matters worse, a second sinkhole appeared in the same area a few days after, so now the raod will be closed. The much-awaited Merdeka parade for Malaysia’s national day is also cancelled due to this, out of respect for the victim. (The parade takes place quite close to the area.)
Helpfully, or perhaps unhelpfully, a Malay daily released this map which highlighted sinkhole “danger zones” in Selangor.
Adding to the chaos, a local “bomoh” (witch doctor) is performing rituals at the area. He is a semi-celebrity of sorts, having gained infamy when he performed a ritual in the Kuala Lumpur International Airport after MH370 going missing broke out.
Personally, I think this is a tasteless attention grab and maybe that’s why the religious authorities are not amused and have summoned the bomoh for questioning.
A healthier and more respectful ceremony by local Indian groups took place near the site, fortunately.
And the prime minister also expressed his condolences to the victim’s family.
A lot of Malaysians seem to believe that the sinkhole is the result of negligence. Perhaps, but the scarier story is that it is also a natural phenomenon. Massive sinkholes have appeared around the world, as this video below demonstrates.
In fact, a sinkhole appeared in Seoul yesterday.
Malaysia rarely gets natural disasters, so when something like this happens, it is literally earth shaking.
I pray for the victim’s family, and I hope that she will be found, somehow.
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That time when I lived in a haunted house
Casually over dinner, like he was talking about an item on a shopping list, my Dad said: “Eh. You know? I think that house we lived in was haunted.”
The family paused just for a few seconds.
And just as casually, we said, “Yeah, we know.”
And one by one, we shared our ghostly encounters in that house numbered 14.
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The circle of competence and our information diet
This is a follow up article to Auditing my social media use and information consumption.
“Organise your professional life rigorously around your circle of competence. This radical focus will bear more than monetary fruits. Above all you’ll save time, because you won’t keep having to decide where to direct your attention. Knowing your circle of competence is your tool, your scalpel, enabling you to divide sources of information into what’s valuable and what’s not.”
— Rolf Dobelli – Stop Reading the NewsI’ve been thinking about this quote more and more these days. If you’ve not heard about the concept of “the circle of competence” below is a good video about it.
I have been thinking about this for a long time. I wrote about the need to be mindful of our information diet. When I got mentally exhausted by Olympics drama on social media, I decided to audit my social media use and realise that I spend a lot of my time – too much of my time – focusing on things outside my circle of competence.
Is this a good use of my time?
NO.
I created this chart to visualize what content would fit in the circles. The ones in purple basically shows how much focus I give on the content. Meaning, I spend a lion’s share of my time on social media browsing and consuming this content.
At first, I wanted to add to each level whether it “benefits my work” or not, but I think that’s not as helpful as “I can control”. So, the red circle represents what I know and can control, but the green circles represent subjects that I cannot control.
Therefore, it makes more sense to focus on the subjects in the red circle as it’ll bring the most benefit to me in my life.
You are probably wondering why I placed “Chinese dramas” in the red circle, but I think it could actually bring me some financial benefits one day if I ever want to monetise the content I’m putting out. (Maybe in my retirement years!)
Currently, it does help me learn Mandarin, so you can say that Chinese dramas will indirectly help me in that goal, and increasing my proficiency in the language will definitely help improve my marketability.
Also, it’s damn fun and totally improving my mental health.
Not sure about the part about managing a 68k Reddit Chinese drama sub though LOL.
This circle is a sobering indictment that I’ve been misplacing my focus when it comes to information consumption. Geopolitics is, unfortunately, at a primal level, entertaining. The content around geopolitics is meant to push our tribal buttons. Worse, not only do I consume geopolitical content, I also release some content about it due to this overpowering curiosity, but I don’t think I’m benefiting anyone.
Also, after writing the little journal entry about my attempt to find out more about the British riots, I have to come to the sad conclusion that I’ll never, ever, ever find out the 100% truth about an event because truth is relative especially in the cruel world of geopolitics.
Also, let’s face it, I’m not an expert. People like Kishore Mahbubani and George Yeo can certainly call themselves that because they were actual government officials that worked in the diplomatic circles.
I, on the other hand, is nothing more than a glorified amateur researcher and consumer of too much Youtube videos on geopolitics.
Sure, I could tell people what I stand for, but how does that help anything beyond making me feel good about myself and signal to others what a virtuous person I am (or devil, depending on what political side they’re on).
On top of all this, political discourse in the Internet and social media age is abysmally broken. It destroys relationships and societies more than it builds. Worse, it could cause political violence.
Do I really want to be exposed and to be part of this unproductive and destructive cycle?
But I must confess, geopolitical news is addictive! I guess there’s something in our brains that craved the idea of being “our side winning” or maybe we just like being scared to death about World War III constantly.
However, all this attention on a topic that is out of our circle of competence is hours taken away from subjects that could actually improve your life, such as studying about improving your health and self care, becoming an expert and influencer in your field and managing your finances better and finally getting debt free.
If there’s one time that I did the whole information consumption right, was that period when I hyperfocused on personal finance content, career optimization and minimalism.
All these topics helped me pay off all my debts, including my mortgage, become debt free, live in a way that I enjoyed and choose the career that aligned with my values.
I now live the life I want.
So, it’s time to go back to that.
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Elizabeth Tai 