Chet’s Chatter

Generous DeGeneres

Posted on 27 April 2007 @ 07:39 in Women

At the special 2-hour “Idol Gives Back” charity show yesterday evening, comedian and talk show host, Ellen DeGeneres, announced on air that she was personally giving US$100,000/-.

Now the cynical part of me immediately thought “Yeah, yeah, I bet it’s tax exempted.” But does it matter? It’s still US$100,000/-. And it didn’t sound staged; she was babbling on and suddenly it came out. Plus she was looking visibly touched by the various video clips that were being shown as part of the show.

Way to go, DeGeneres.

The women in my life

Posted on 8 March 2007 @ 13:21 in Women

Happy International Women’s Day!

Thanks to the reminder from Dina, here’s my tribute to the three most important women in my life.

My mother who left her hometown of Sandakan, Sabah after the second World War (after burying both her adopted parents during the war), sailed to Singapore in search of an uncle, travelled up north when she could not find him, and eventually settled in Kuala Lumpur where, helped by women friends she’d met along the way, she found a place to stay and a job, too, and later met my father, married him, had three children, but continued working till the 1970s when she stopped working outside but came back inside to help my father in the Chinese medicine shop started by my grandfather in the 1930s. Despite an active life, she succumbed to Alzheimer’s a few years ago and now lives in a nursing home where she is well cared for by a team of care givers.

My sister who, when my mother told her I wanted to go to university after being retrenched in the mid-1980s, asked why didn’t I think of it earlier, and went on to support me through my three years at the University of East Anglia in England. If not for her, I would still be a katak di bawah tempurung.

And then there was our nanny who had to come out to work after her husband squandered the family fortune and ran away, leaving her to look after three small children (he returned later), was introduced to my mother who was looking for someone to care for her first-born while she went to work, and went on to look after the two who came later. Nanny was more “mother” to us than our real mother was, but in the process, neglected her own children when they needed her most. She lived with us until the mid-1970s before moving in with her eldest daughter and family (her reasoning was that she better spend time with her own family while she was still able-bodied to help them in any way, instead of waiting till she got too frail to be anything but a burden to them). We kept in touch with Nanny; she would visit and stay a few days now and then. She was with us when I flew off to England for my studies and had told me she might never see me again (she was in her 70s by then), but was one of the first persons I saw when I stepped into the shop on my two visits home. She passed away in 1996.

And then there are all the wonderful women I’ve met along the way. Some have exited my life, others have stayed, and a few have left more than an impression. No names, except maybe for one …

Beth Chin in Turners Falls, MA!

Love ya, Beth.

Vietnam Women’s Memorial

Posted on 3 December 2006 @ 15:14 in Travels, Women

“On the grounds of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is the first memorial placed in the nation’s capital honoring women’s military service. This emotional sculpture depicts three women, one caring for a soldier. The monument was designed by Glenna Goodacre, and was unveiled on Veterans Day, November 11, 1993. This monument is the culmination of a ten year grass roots effort honoring the 265.500 American women who served around the world during the Vietnam war.”
Monuments & Memorials: Vietnam Women’s Memorial

I’d first heard of this memorial in the leaflet I’d taken from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial when I visited in 1990. Somewhere along the way after that, I remember reading that it’d gone from idea to reality. And so on Friday, 17 November 2006, after visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and walking in the direction of the Smithsonian Metro stop, I came upon the memorial.

For more information:
Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation

Chasing Amy

Posted on 9 March 2005 @ 22:04 in Women

Chasing Amy is a 1997 movie by Kevin Smith. But that’s not what I’m referring to in the title of my post.

The “Amy” in the post title is the character Amy Gray in the TV series Judging Amy. I stumbled onto the series one evening while waiting for dinner at my sister’s.

I won’t say I was hooked from the beginning. It was a nice show to watch, and especially with my niece who’s Chinese educated and would ask me now and then what something meant. I was glad to return the favour as there’ve been times when I had to ask her, when watching a Chinese TV series, what something meant. But I’m digressing …

This week, however, I found myself looking forward to watching the show. In fact, I’ve actually timed my dinner, going to eat during a commercial break and trying to finish quickly so as to return to the show without missing too much. This evening, I even brought the bowl of soup into the TV room to drink up after dinner. (Us Chinese drink our soup after dinner, not before.)

I think what caused the change is the episode in which Vincent was injured, and in the next episode, he’s recovering and his mother says something about how she hates having her life interwoven with others, cuz it can be so painful to love and care so much.