Posted on 15 August 2008 @ 00:24 in Personal, Reading, Stress Busters, Travels
Memories are not preserved in photographs, but in the heart and mind.
I’m on my last day of what Marilou calls “Chet’s Excellent Adventure”. I’ve spent 11 days helping out at the Bifengxia Panda Base, followed by two full days of Olympic panda watching at the Beijing Zoo.
I’ve taken nearly 600 pictures and at least 10 videos on my humble Nikon CoolPix 5900. Maybe not as much as I should but then, all I have in it is a 2GB memory card.
And then, on this very last day of my excellent adventure, I miss the two most important photography moments of the whole trip. Especially for the second one, in perfect hindsight, I realised I should’ve shot on video since the place was too dark and flash was not allowed.
It was then I realised that even without the photographs, I still have those moments etched in my heart and my mind. And I can still share them not in pictures but in words.
The first “missed” moment
Keeper Liu Juen was out in the public display with a pan of panda wowotou (bread) for 7 of the 8 Olympic pandas. I was not aware she had gone out with it, since the pandas were all asleep the last time I looked in on them (from the window of the keepers’ control room). So when I heard her voice, I went to look out the window, just in time to see her lead the pack of hungry pandas, trip, fall and get swarmed by the 7 black and white furry cuties. By the time she surfaced, the pan was empty. Usually, she would lead them on a merry jog before rewarding them with the wowotou, but today, they got their treats without having to do anything much.
The second “missed” moment
I’d asked to be allowed to watch the pandas come in after a day of public display. So at 6:00 p.m., Liu Juen said “we’re bringing in the pandas” and beckoned me to join them downstairs.
Three of the pandas were already in.
Duo Duo was in an enclosure of her own, and remained there even after the others had come in. She’d not been eating her bamboo and the keepers had kept her out of public display so that she could concentrate on some serious eating.
Feng Yi and Huan Huan were together in a second enclosure, where they’d undergone some training earlier this afternoon. The door to their enclosure was opened and they were led out to go into the big common enclosure. OMG, I was in the same space with two giant pandas and without any bars between us! One of them, sensing a strange presence (me), turned left towards me instead of right towards the big common enclosure, but was immediately blocked by Liu Juen and redirected in the right direction.
Then the hollering began. Now, the three keepers are all from Sichuan, and like people from Sichuan, they are LOUD! Even in normal conversation, they sound like they’re having a serious argument. So their lungs are in excellent condition for hollering for the other 5 bears to come back in. Four came in almost on cue, but the fifth, Tao Tao, lagged behind but finally showed up. The door behind him slid shut for the day.
In a moment, all 7 were lined up squatting in front of the divider bars. I’d had problems shooting without flash - I was told no flash because it would affect their eyes - so I decided not to take any photographs but just enjoy the moment.
Down the corridor, I saw keeper Gao Qiang approaching with a metal container. It was full of wowotou. As soon as the pandas saw him, their line broke as they stood up and jostled to get the wowotou. At one end, Chui Chui did not join in the “fight” - clever girl, as she knew the wowotou would come to her without her having to fight for it.
Soon, there was no more jostling as each panda settled back to munch on their piece of wowotou.
Looking back, I regretted not taking any pictures, and forgetting that I can take videos instead. I tried to console myself that even if I had video’d the moment, it would’ve come out too grainy. Then I realised a far more perfect recording machine than a digital camera - my heart and my mind. I may not have physical evidence of this precious moment, and my heart and mind may not have the capability to print out a hard copy, but the moment has been “recorded” and saved for playback anytime I wish.
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Posted on 3 March 2007 @ 18:37 in Reading
MPH is Malaysia’s own home-grown bookstore, equivalent to Borders in the States, Chapters in Canada and Waterstone’s in England.
Every once in a while, MPH holds warehouse sales (as do other bookstores such as Popular, Times and Payless). There’s one going on right now, and it lives up to the name “warehouse sale” as it is literally located inside a warehouse.
I went this morning, and came away with the following books:
As I was Passing I and II by Adibah Amin
The Glass Palace and The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by YiYun Li
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
It’s ages since I’ve seen paperbacks priced in the 20s. The only chance to buy books that cheap is through Borders’ 3 for 2 offers. And hardbacks for less than 40? That would be the YiYun Li book, at RM35.00.
I’ve dipped into The Alchemist and fallen in love.
Ms Bookaholic Sharon was at the sale yesterday, and wrote about parking being a nightmare. But I didn’t have any problem finding a parking space. I have access to the biggest parking secret in that neighbourhood - a car wash on the premises of a church across from the sale. The car wash is the secret, but the church is not. There are lots of parking spaces on the premises, but it’s private, not open to anyone but people going to the church, and customers of the car wash. I belong to the latter category.
After I’d made my purchases, and returned to the cool wifi-enabled waiting room at the car wash, I heard some funny tales about the public trying to get into the church premises to park their cars. The funniest was of the woman who told the guard and his immediate superior (on duty today) that she was attending a meeting in church. They stood by as she gathered her stuff to watch and make sure she went in the direction of the church. She dithered, and after a while, got back into her car to drive off. Asked the guard’s immediate superior of this woman: “But I thought you said you were attending a meeting in church?” No answer, she ignored the question and drove off.
I did think of telling friends where to park while they went to the warehouse sale, and have their cars washed at the same time. However, the car wash is usually very busy on Saturdays so I thought it might not be able to handle the extra business. But this Saturday of all Saturdays, the car wash didn’t have much business (its regulars must still be away for the tail-end of Chinese New Year) so it was a missed opportunity for the extra business, and hassle-free parking for my friends.
But now you know where to park and get your car washed during the next MPH warehouse sale … provided it’s held in the same warehouse. Oh, the name of the church is Glad Tidings.
Related Posts:
The Bibliobibuli’s Warehouse Wonderland
Lydia Teh’s MPH Warehouse Sale
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Posted on 17 January 2007 @ 17:03 in Reading, Writing
“Though it’s unlikely you’ll write something nobody has ever heard of, the way you have a chance to compete is in the way you say it.”
Amy Hempel
The Paris Review, Issue 166, Summer 2003
Although it only happened today, I cannot remember how I came upon Jonathan Raban’s review of The Paris Review Interviews Volume 1 in the 13 January 2007 issue of The Guardian. But from there, I went to The Paris Review’s web site, zoomed in on the Interviews section and came upon the above gem by Amy Hempel.
The Interview Index is impressive, going back more than half a century to the 1950s, and includes the likes of Chinua Achebe, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Joyce Cary, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Joseph Heller, Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, Beryl Bainbridge, Paul Auster and yes, Amy Hempel whose little gem above caught my eye in the short time I spent browsing that section.
Most of the interviews featured are excerpts of the originals printed in their respective issues, but there are some complete interviews available for download in PDF format. And - get this - images of manuscript pages. Priceless.
I will be going back for a longer read later on.
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Posted on 31 December 2006 @ 13:06 in Reading
This must be the longest book sale ever. More than a month. I went to the shop near the beginning of the sale and wasn’t too impressed. I went again yesterday. Still not too impressed.
On my way to the supermarket downstairs, I found the real location of the sale. Triple duh, Chet
The one I’d been going to is the proper bookshop. The one with the sale is located where the book section of Parkson used to be. And man, the selection of novels in the proper sale. Wonderful trade paperbacks going for RM12.00 each.
I was impressed.
I got me a few books, including one each by Annie Proulx, Jeanette Winterson, and Isabel Allende. Also one by the former chef for Mick Jagger. I don’t remember the chef’s name, but the book is called The Taste of Honey, and it’s fiction about a restaurant on the island of Crete.
The most valued purchase from the sale yesterday is Gene Wilder’s autobiography, Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art. He doesn’t write it like an autobiography; instead, he presents only the events in his life that mean something to him (life-changing?), and he presents them through sessions with his therapist.
I love Gene Wilder’s film work. I love, too, that the late Gilda Radner was married to him. She was the funny woman from Saturday Night Live who succumbed to cancer in the late 1980s. There was one sketch she did about an old lady who said she didn’t understand how there could be too much “violins” on air. Go figure.
I’ve started reading Kiss Me Like a Stranger. I’m also reading When Red Is Black, a Chinese mystery about the murder of the author of a book banned in China. The book’s in English but set in China, with Chinese characters, and written by a Chinese, Qiu Xiaolong. That’s why it’s a Chinese mystery.
And I just finished reading Oracle Night by Paul Auster. Probably the best book read all year. But then, there was no competition - all my other 2006 reads were either work-related or light fiction. No, wait. Those two books by J A Jance that I read cannot be considered light reads, but made subtle statements - Exit Wounds about domestic abuse leading to certain obsessions later on (in the case of the book, it was about animal hoarding), and Edge of Evil about a television presenter sacked for no longer being young who fought back.
Oh, I’ve digressed … But so much good reading waiting for me in 2007!
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Posted on 12 October 2006 @ 22:06 in Reading, Writing
I discovered this book through either the Moleskinerie or Notebookism site, and immediately set about looking for a copy. It’s one of those rare, out-of-print books so I headed straight to my favourite rare book site, Alibris, found what I wanted and ordered a copy. That was more than a month ago. I almost thought it got lost on its way to me, but this evening, arriving at my sister’s, I found a brown envelope waiting for me. Yay! My copy of Howard Junker’s The Writer’s Notebook is here.
What drew me to the book is not just the opportunity to read about how writers work, but also to see pictures of actual pages from their journals. The book was mentioned in a discussion about contemporary obsession with how we write, or rather what we write with. This is one of many discussions at the NaNoWriMo site’s NaNo Technology discussion forum - participants discussing what they plan to write their NaNovels with. I, of course, am an active participant, telling the others about my wonderful AlphaSmart Dana. But I digress …
A total of 16 writers are featured in Junker’s book. I am only familiar with five of them - Kathy Acker, Dorothy Allison, Maxine Hong Kingston, Martin Cruz Smith and Gary Snyder. I read the Dorothy Allison article while waiting for dinner at my sister’s, and then started reading Maxine Hong Kingston’s on the way home - literally reading it while waiting for the lift at my apartment block and even in it, too.
I love seeing pictures of how writers work. A while back, I found and bought a copy of The Writer’s Desk - also from good old Alibris.
I only wish reading about how and where writers work, I am inspired to write better, or at least to write more.
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