Why Would I Write

Category: Random

  • How’s it going?

    When white people say “How’s it going?” they don’t really care about your day. It’s just a greeting.

    This was a note that I saved on my phone in June last year. I realized that when I was traveling a lot for work and everybody would say that to me. Initially, I’d respond by telling them how it was going. “Oh, I’ve been very busy.” “Oh, life’s alright.” and so on. It took me to realize that it was just a greeting and people didn’t care about how my life was going. I thought that was pretty funny because nobody does that here in Malaysia. In my experience, if people ask you how’s it going, they want to know how things are going with you.

    Not many people in the remainder book industry that I met were smokers. The handful who smoked, I got along with pretty well, sharing cigarettes and conversation out in the cold weather after meals. Not sure if that helped with lowering the prices for the books we purchased, but I’d like to think so! Smoking gave me time alone which was good. It was nice to take a break every now and then, especially when you were traveling with the same people for a month straight. I cherished the breaks I had. It allowed me to recharge. Dr. Pepper in one hand, cigarette in another.

    Driving a car in the UK was also a fun experience. For the first few days, I was worried about my car stalling whenever I had to stop. Eventually, that fear went away and operating a manual car became second nature. Except when it came to roundabouts. Man, I clenched my butt cheeks every time we arrived at one. Fortunately, we did a lot of night driving so traffic wasn’t a big issue. I used Google maps to navigate, so I never got lost getting anywhere. I was definitely a much slower driver than my boss then, but I guess it was expected – I don’t even speed when I’m in KL.

    No idea when I’ll drive again in the UK, but for now I’m content with KL’s roads. Especially for the next week, when all the immigrants go back to their hometowns for Chinese New Year. Kek. I’m probably going to lose money gambling, but sitting around a table with friends is worth the entrance fee.

    Isn’t it great living in Malaysia? We get way more public holidays than we deserve – but I’m not complaining about it.

  • Kill The House Lights

    So, for the past few days I’ve been busy with the death of a family member and I’ve learned a few things from the experience.

    Crying is contagious. Holding back tears could be a sport, like tickling competitions.

    Wakes and funeral services aren’t cheap. I’m not kidding when I say that it can cost as much as a car to have one of these events (probably due to the provider our family used, I’m sure there are cheaper alternatives out there). It might just be me, but I can’t begin to fathom why people would spend so much on someone who will have no idea what goes on after they have departed from this world. Sure, it’s a sign of respect and all that jazz, but honestly, I still believe in not having a funeral. All the money spent could have been put towards many other things that people can actually appreciate, but hey – it’s not my money so I don’t get a say. I mean for goodness sake, you buy a nice box to put a body in – just to incinerate it a few days later. And people chide me for smoking cigarettes. At least I get some enjoyment out of it.

    Did you know that the only difference between a casket and a coffin is in the design of the box? I thought they were interchangeable words. I had to google it to find out.

    I thought it was pretty morbid showing my grandpa where grandma’s urn would be stored. Hers took up half of the storage area and his urn is supposed to be placed in the other half. I wonder if he even understood what had happened and what was going on. He didn’t say anything about it. He also tried to shift gears and pull the hand brake while I was driving him home. I stopped him from doing it, of course. Would have been a messy sight if anything happened.

    Trying to recruit people to join your religion during a wake is a dick move. I don’t care if that’s your mission in life as a pastor, but there’s a time and place for everything and hijacking a mourning ceremony for brownie points is not the way to go. I’m glad nobody came forward that night. Nobody comes to these events to be converted, it’s not some MLM free training bullshit event. Idiot.

    And while we’re on the topic of conversions, how are deathbed conversions acceptable? I honestly don’t understand. People who are desperate to survive will say and agree to anything if they think it gives them a chance to live. It’s like telling a criminal to confess to a crime so he will be given a lighter sentence – and then sentencing him to a lifetime in prison anyway because he confessed. Why do religions even accept conversions under such circumstances? Isn’t it as valid as information given under duress? It may or may not be honest, there’s no way to tell. Just let people be. Is it so hard to let someone live their remaining days out without trying to get them to believe in your higher power?

    Rest in peace, grandma.

  • Supreme Master of Loving Huts

    In today’s episode about technology, we’ll talk about going down the never-ending rabbit hole that is the internet. Have you ever found yourself on a site or a video where you read a comment or you think to yourself, “How the hell did I end up here?” The depths of YouTube, some call it. It also happens when you’re browsing Wikipedia or TVTropes. It’s not something new. I’m sure everybody has been down that road at least once in their lives. I think it’s been prevalent ever since the dawn of the internet. Just that these days, our internet speeds are so fast that it becomes trivial clicking on a link because you don’t have to wait for anything to load. My trip today took me to some interesting places.

    I was doing some research on Indonesia for work today, and found out that the country was known for having birds of paradise. I decided to then look up if there were any cartoons featuring birds of paradise. I entered it into Google and a few links to the same animation pops up. Oh cool, there’s one cartoon about the topic. I decided to check it out. While watching the intro to the animation, I started reading the description of the video. Nothing out of the ordinary, except that it was attributed to a story by “Supreme Master Ching Hai”. That piqued my interest. I mean, come on – who wouldn’t want to look up information about someone called the Supreme Master?

    And that’s where the rabbit hole begin. It started from me reading a Wikipedia entry about this person, putting their name in Google, looking up some Reddit threads and watching some YouTube videos. So, today I learned about the Supreme Master Ching Hai, her story, her mission, and her chain of restaurants around the world. I’d do a write-up about her, but Phoenix New Times already has a well-written piece on her that covers everything you need to know and how I feel about it, and there’s nothing else I can add with my limited knowledge on the subject. I quote from the article:

    “In one such setting, Hai informed her supporters that crop circles are a kind of alien road sign through which extraterrestrials leave messages for each other. In another, she contended that the pyramids are meant to act as lighthouses for UFOs, showing them where to land safely.”

    However, I learned something from today’s little adventure: while I (and a lot of other people) may find it easy to make fun of or laugh at an outrageous religion, it’s only because I know so little about it. Not that I’m an expert on other religions, but the fact that it is new compared to other religions, it hasn’t had enough time to settle in the world as something that’s accepted worldwide. Just like Scientology, except that the Quan Yin followers don’t seem intent on doing horrible things to its members or other people in society. They’re just vegans who are fanatic about their Supreme Master. Maybe one day they’ll turn violent and start terrorizing people, but for now they seem like a pretty chill bunch. Maybe in the year 5000, those religions will still be around and they’ll be as accepted as Christianity or Islam, who knows?

    Start a religion so you can sell merchandise and stay exempt from taxes (the Supreme Master has her own line of jewelry and artwork available). Seems like a pretty good business model. Anyway, if you spend your money on such things, you probably deserve to have that money taken from you.

    Other interesting things I discovered going down the rabbit hole today: she actually has a sizable following here in Malaysia. There’s a Loving Hut outlet in Malaysia (which I’m keen on checking out, even if it means supporting her), and last year there was a screening of one of her musicals in KL. Today I experienced the same feeling I did when I discovered that there were Mormons and Scientologists here in our country. I don’t even know why I was surprised. Anyway, like my favorite saying goes: you learn something new everyday.

    If you’re keen on learning more about the Supreme Master and her teachings – there’s the Supreme Master TV channel streaming her content 24 hours a day: