Sunday, November 29, 2009

Becoming normal

The noisy piling in the air force school has stoppped. The welcome silence allowed me to hear the tekukor call in the morning. I wrote to the Tanjong Bungah Residents Association but had not reply from them. I also wrote to the chief minister’s office. I suspect that the later protest by the residents of Hillside, who feared that piling must imply a four storey building, must have been heard by the city council. Let’s see whether the military are governed by our zoning bylaws. Last year, our opposition, made in answer to a notice from the city council, stopped a 3 storey plan from being successful. I must say that ours is an active road containing very aware residents..

I am sleeping less and less, from 12-13 hours a night to 11-12 and now about 10 and 1/2 hours, a progress that has delighted because it gives me more time for reading and working. I put it all down to the bicycle accident a few years ago when I had a mystery fall from which I had a concussion which lay me down in bed for five days to wake up sleeping 12-13 hours a day which made Barbara misthink, on a visit shortly after the accident, that I had died when at 1.30 pm I was still in bed!

Monday, November 23, 2009

Come back!!

My vertigo has now receded so much so that I am reading Dickens Litle Dorrit before bed and in the car - while waiting - Banerjee’s Palace of Illusions, a fantastic tale of magic powers and of supermen which made me a 12 year old again. What a great writer Dickens is. The wealth of detail fascinates whereas The Ship, a story about the history of a glass noodle making family in China, tens to boredom. I now realise that “dunking” doughnut in coffee is American and “Toast sopped in coffee” was English.

KH missed the Chinese passumbul the other day and instead bought one from Fettes Rd from an Indian hawker. It was awful and had a strong hint of the wc; another example of the sort of thing you get nowadays - unemployed fellows trying their hands at cooking to earn a few dollars.

Few weeks later ...

Much better. Some of my former staff visited. One spoke of her caning her children mercilessly and I always thought her an always cheerful and gentle person. She admitted she inherited the habit from her father. All through her account, another of the girls murmered “child abuse” over and over again. We had a great time talking about sprits and dreams and charms.

At a dinner party some visitors from KL said they wanted to have a look at Hard Rock Hotel’s first hotel in Penang. Strange I thought.

It’s been raining cats and dogs robbing the month of its reputation as one of the kite season

With the substantial recession of the nauseating vertigo I have come back to this message to finish it

Much better now and was able to do the back breaking, eye tiring job of preparing The Penang File for launching which was finally published with the aid of Firefox.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Beauty

Sorry but this vertigo thing wont go away and keeps me away from the piano and the computer
But I thought I must keep in touch so here is something about beauty from the Tunhuang Caves

CHAPTER TWO
WU TZU-HSU
Once upon a time there was a King of Ch'u so powerful that his dominions reached as far as the land of Buddha. This King had a minister called Wu She, whose two sons were in service in other kingdoms. Tzu-shang, the elder, was at the Court of the land Of Cheng; Tzu-hsii, the younger, was serving in the land of Liang.
The Heir-Apparent of the King of Ch'u was old enough to have a wife, but was not yet married. The King said to his ministers, 'Who is there that has a daughter lit to be his consort? I have heard that a kingdom without an Eastern Palace<26) is like a land that is half wilderness. . . . Half the majesty of a kingdom belongs to its Crown Prince, yet our Prince has no bride. What should be done?'
'I have heard', said the Grand Minister Wei Ling, 'that the Duke Mu of Ch'in has a daughter of sixteen whose beauty surpasses that of all women. Her eyebrows are like the moon at its waning, her cheeks are like frozen light (?), her eyes are like falling stars, her face has the beauty of a flower, her hair is seven feet long, her nose is straight and her forehead square, her ears are like hanging pearls, her hands fall below her knees, her ten fingers are slender and long. I would have your Majesty give orders that a marriage with her should be negotiated for the Prince. For if arrangements can be made that meet your wishes, it would bring glory to all your domains and be a fine thing!'
So Wei Ling was sent to solicit the Duke of Ch'in's daughter. When he came home with her, *he King of Ch'u sent for him and said, 'I am afraid you have had a hard journey through wind and frost.'