Preferably hardworking and not dead

Oo-wakh adj. Live, the quality we all seek for in a maid

Read today's ad section in the Borneo Post (26 Sept 2006). The dead need not apply.

Khong Tao

KHONG TAO n. anything you want it to be, as long as it doesn't involve me

Voodoo apparatus or imaginative design?


MATTA fair? Amazing offer or advertising gimmick? Tell me, how come all the good tickets got sold out the day before they were released? Khong tao man!

Chi-lei MATTA erm-si liak jzat, chi-lei MATTA si MALAYSIAN ASSOCIATION OF TOUR AND TRAVEL AGENTS, a.k.a. pian lang kongsi. Sian ah!

HENG Married Adults?

HENG adj. lucky
SOY adj. unlucky
EXPLICIT COMMENTS (R-18)

The moment you ka-when (get married), you are immediately considered an adult with all the nagging rights. You could also talk openly about enjoying blue films without embarrassment and without the need for silly coded language. For pre-puberty kiddies, you automatically inherit the super-title of aunty and uncle. How nice.

How nice? You must be kidding.

Let me spell out the downside of being a married adult...

For reasons completely unknown to me, sex becomes a duty and not an exciting scandalous pursuit (they say it is only pleasurable up to the 3rd anniversary if you're heng, I seriously hope this is just bad stats). Bills multiply, in amount and variety. Working is part of your body physiology, and leisure is the time during the car journey after work and before reaching home.

You also begin to worry about your health. You are obsessed about the values on the blood pressure machine, comparing them with friends like your golf handicap.

You begin to ask questions without real answers like "what is happiness" and "what is success", and debate furiously about them usually with family members like you have cracked them.

And don't you start with the ang-pow situation during Chinese New Year...

Sigh.

I know we should really PAUSE, RELAX AND BREATHE SLOWLY. We shouldn't worry too much... life is short. Most of us are lucky to be with a loving spouse, but our spouse, ASTRO channels and beer cannot entertain us for 24 continuous hours, so if you have any tips on how to cheer a married adult up, please share.

Health screening? More like business opportunity for doctors!

LHENG n. breast

This is the best time to be a private doctor. The most lucrative doctoring work in Kuching is not helping the poor to rid off their diabetic complications or to combat infectious diseases, but to offer health screening programmes to the (affluent) population of Kuching. I am talking about colonoscopies for everyone (I mean those who can afford it), HIV screening for everyone, mammogram for everyone, liver function tests for everyone, Helicobacter pylori testing (why not just call it Helicopter pylori since everyone is calling it that... this is how much they know about the purpose and use of this test!), PSA testing... you name it, they've got it!

This is definitely the way forward IF ONLY... people are properly informed about the utility and limitations of these tests by their doctors. I am not only appalled by this lack of knowledge, I am also embarrassed to say that the only criterion for eligibility seems to be the ability to pay.

For those of us who cannot afford those screening programmes, let me show you a cheaper way to buy health... I can reassure you it's 100% free, with minimal (social) complications, and it's proven, unlike liver function tests, H. pylori testing, and PSA testing which mean very little if tested on the wrong group of people.

I won't charge you for the this...

For each unvetted screening colonoscopy that a doctor in a developing country DID NOT DO, more lives could have been saved if that time is spent on fighting infectious diseases and nutrition-related deaths.

Driving You Crazy

SIAW BEI adj.,n. crazy horse (no, this isn't a Sioux Native American leader, but a Hokkien expression for a wayward person, yup... just like a wild crazy horse)

Kuching drivers are famous for their unnecessary use of horns, parking coupons "recycling treatment" and innovative parking strategies. But today, I have just witnessed the most extraordinary use of a traffic space. This male driver definitely wins SISUAHLAI'S MOST AMAZING PLACE TO PARK A CAR award:

Think of the most unlikely place to park your car... think hard.

That's right. Right by a very busy mid-day traffic intersection, next to the traffic lights. I don't know where and how this guy found such bravado. This was utter defiance of law and civic consideration... Let's hope he did that for a good cause, such as rushing out of the car to save a kitten on a tree.

Most distasteful exclusive

This?

Or this?

How to lock your bike Sisuahlai-style

Sisuahlai will prowl the streets of Kuching for smart people and smart ideas. So look out.

Personal note to HijackQueen: No, I haven't sold my site to anyone... hmm, but that's a tasty suggestion.