Hubby's gadgets

Within 2 months, hubby got himself three gadgets.

First, the LCD TV that he has been drooling for a while, after doing many researches and reading reviews on the internet.

Then, he got himself a witfit set.

It goes well with the TV, since then he has been training almost everyday, and managed to lose about 5kg (plus eating healthier food). I like Wiifit too, it has a variety of exercises, I love doing Step and some yoga exercises.

Then, his cellphone contract almost ended and he has been itching for a Googlephone. Now, he calls me and my Facebook profile photo shows up.

The phone has internet connection plus many applications like Facebook, googlechat and also GSP, now we can go anywhere and just use the googlemap for directions. He has also created a Facebook account (he resisted it for a while) and posted photos from the car.


I love this Googlephone, probably get myself one in the future.

Shit happens - one bottle down

We woke up this morning to discover this:

One of the wine bottle broke! 4 days after the making.

Since we had to rush to work I only clean up the floor tonight. All the alcohol were leaked out. We suspect that the fermentation was too strong so the bottle couldn't take it. I don't know how to clean the bamboo floor, it doesn't smell at this point.


Talking about hard work goes into drain. Pray hard this won't happen to my second bottle.

No Malaysian citizenship for my children

I expected this, but still had that tiny little hope that Malaysia has changed it's constitution about the citizenship for children born overseas.

I sent an email to the Embassy of Paris a while back and got the reply:
2. The Embassy wish to inform you that according the Malaysian Constitution, a child born in Malaysia is Malaysian if one of the parents is Malaysian. However, the citizenship of the child that born overseas is being determined by the citizenship of the father.

3. In this regard, it is advisable for you to give birth in Malaysia if you wish to obtain an automatic Malaysian citizen for the new born child.

So, my child wouldn't be a Malaysian because I'm a Malaysian female. If I was a man, she could have qualified.

France recognizes double citizenship so it would be nice that my daughter could have the Malaysian citizenship. Who knows in the future, we would move back there for several years, then she can enroll in the public school. Besides, Asian countries might form some Economic zone like the European Union, with this citizenship she would have the choice to work in Asian and venture into Asian cultures.

France is a lot lenient on this. According to hubby, children born to a French would be French no matter what. I don't know why Malaysia practices strict rules like this. If you follow the recent news, even people born in Malaysia (mostly before independence) and have been living in Malaysia their whole life have difficulties getting their citizenship. Some of the reasons being they do not speak Malays, they have lost their birth certificate, or their parents were not married.

I hope it won't take long for Malaysia to grant citizenship to those who are born in Malaysia and to children born overseas, without discriminating its own female citizens.

Homemade Chinese red wine 自制红酒

Ok I need to clarify that this is not a wine only for consumption during confinement. In fact red wine chicken 红酒鸡 or red wine meesua 红酒面线 are two of the famous dishes that use red wine as the soup base.

Ingredients:
600g yellow raisins (dried grapes)
600g ice sugar 冰糖 or brown sugar (from sugar cane)
2.52L water
5 wine biscuit 酒饼 (dry them for two days before using)
1 glass jar (can fill about 4L liquids)


I got these two glass containers from my in laws. The above ingredients will produce about 3L wine but it needs some space to raise during fermentation. Make sure it covers well.


Step one: Boil water with all the sugars. Once boiling, pour in raisins and let them boil for one more minute then turn off the fire. Put them aside and let them chill for at least 12 hours or overnight.


Step 2: Use a mortar and pestle to crush the dried wine biscuit. Pour the crushed powder into the glass container.


Step 3: Pour the chilled cooked combination into the glass container. Stir it so that the wine biscuit mixed well with the others. Make sure you leave some space in the glass container as the wine slowly raise during fermentation.


Seal the glass jar finely. Each of my glass jar has an elastic, if not try seal with a piece of cloth. Store it somewhere (not directly expose to heat) for 3 months.


Now fingers crossed for the result!

Package from Malaysia

In the Chinese culture, after deliver a baby, a woman would be on one month confinement, where you hire or have someone to take care after you so that you can have full rest. During this month you will have special diet (ginger, wine, Chinese herbs and medicine) plus some rigid practices.

I don't think I would follow all those rigid practices like not taking shower for a month, but I would like to more or less follow the confinement diet. My mother recommended Chinese red wine as one of the cooking ingredients. I don't think I could find it in France so we think about making it myself. Unfortunately, I couldn't find one of the ingredients which is called "wine biscuit" or "酒饼" in the nearby Chinese grocery store. So, my mother expedited some to me.

These wine biscuits are actually one kind of yeast, serve to turn raisin into wine.

She also would like me to have some Chinese medicine. The local Chinese store sells some of them but according to my mother, after knowing the price, the medicine they are selling are the normal type, not those high quality one for confinement. Therefore, my family also sent me some medicine herbs.


My sister also gave me some maternity clothes. They came on time as even though I bought some here as well, due to lack of experience, some of the clothes I bought are too small to last until the last day. I also didn't find those T-shirts that are getting loose only at the waist line.

Anyway, now the challenge is to make the wine myself, from the recipe it seems to be easy, I hope the taste will turn out good.

An unfinished knitting project

I mentioned in my earlier post that hubby's godmother is having a knitting project for our little one. Unfortunately, she won't be able to finish it.

She passed away on Friday, after fighting for different illness and going through many surgeries for over 15 years, leaving behind her only son (hubby's cousin), her aging mother (hubby's grandmother) and her life partner.

We rushed to B town as soon as we received the call from my in laws. Once we arrived in the emergency ward, my MIL and the grandma were accompanying her, lifeless. I hugged the grandma, who was in deep sadness, and kept saying that life is so unfair. It is so unfair that her daugther left before her. All I can tell her was that her daughter is in Paradis with God.

My MIL didn't want me to stay too long in the emergency room, so we went back to the Godmother's house. It was sadden to see that all her belongingness were untouched, but she will never step foot in this house anymore. While my parents in laws were comforting the grandma and the uncle, me and hubby took care of the cousin, who just finished highschool and just started his first year of a tertiary studies.

The funeral is scheduled to be on Monday. The hospital is equipped with rooms with special temperature as transition rooms. We saw her again in one of these rooms, dressed in her favorite clothes. I have never been so close to a dead body, but I was not scared. She had always been nice to me, there was no point to be afraid, alive or dead.

The cousin proposed me to sleep in his room. Since he is very close to hubby, it would be nice that they could sleep together so hubby could be around him whenever he needs someone to talk to. At dawn, about 24 hours after she left, I woke up and suddenly thought of a question: how if she comes back to see her son and couldn't find him? In the Taoism believes, someone who just passed away would come back to see their love ones before they reincarnate. Then, knowing how she loves her son, I know she would find him if she wants to. In the morning after talking to my FIL, I realized that the Christians believe that the dead one will be with God forever and will not decend again to earth. So, it was nonesense to even think that she would come back.

On Saturday, grandma insisted to go to see her again. We sent her to the transition room, but suddenly I lost the courage to enter the room. In the afternoon we sent grandma again after lunch, and there were many friends and relatives came visiting, after reading the orbituary in newspaper. I was so curious, are they so many people reading through orbituary everyday to know who passed away everyday? And the answer is yes, some people do especially those working in churches and old people. Also, one person tells another and soon the news are spread.

During lunch, we learnt about all those paperworks that need to be taken care of after the funeral. Get an appointment with a lawyer for all the heritage issues, visit a banker for all the financial issues, inform the different governmental and business agencies of her death... Already, the uncle and my FIL were spending long hours choosing the funeral packages...it is just so exhausted to even think of all things that have yet to be done.

Our regret, is that she won't be able to see her Godgranddaugther, whom she was so eager to meet.

09/09/09

09/09/09 is another popular day to get married for Chinese couples. 9 in Chinese has the similar phonetic to the word "forever", so imagine being married on a day which wish the marriage last "forever forever forever". I heard that in Malaysia, most of the wedding registration agencies have been fully booked for this day one year in advance.

I didn't realize it is 9 Sept today until some of my coworkers pointed out. I need them to sign something and most of the them have the same reaction : "oh it is 9 9 9 today, such an easy day to remember." So it seems that it doesn't mean anything special in France. Ah should have told them what it means in Chinese.

Baby cloth

We got a parcel from our grandma today. She knitted a set of baby sweater. So cute with the little gloves. I know hubby's mother and godmother are knitting as well for our baby. I think we don't have to buy much for this winter.

The Erdre river and all that jazz

It was a sunny weekend. We had a date with the Erdre river and jazz. The Conseil General was organizing the annual jazz festival along the Erdre river. Boats were parading on river while we were listening to the musics.

People waiting for boats passing by.

Boats parading, some were so old I thought I was at the Pirate of the Caribbean era.

Some musicians just set up a booth and started playing. They even brought wine to share with the audiences.

A classical jazz band. Where were the audiences?

It was so hot so they were hidden under the shade. :-)

Some musicians played on the boat.

And they have got audiences came by boat and stayed on board while listening.

Some people playing, some people drinking, some people cruising

Overall, it was a nice event, money well spent. The Conseil General used the tax money to sponsors these bands which foster the jazz culture, people came for free musics and songs but they paid for restaurants, hotels and shopping. It boosted the local economy plus made the music lovers happy. Win win situation.

Thanks to the electricity breakdown

This morning when I arrived at work, my coworkers informed me that there was an electricity breakdown in several floors including ours. We headed to the office kitchen and I started taking my breakfast there. By talking to my coworkers, I realize that as a pregnant woman, I'm entitled to half an hour more resting time, which I could use to have a nap, take doctor appointments or just leave work earlier. I can also go for doctor appointments and come in later to work.

The breakdown went for more than a hour and I managed to use the chance to get all the doctor appointments I needed to take. Since most of the medical secretaries start accepting appointment calls after 9am, I always find it hard to use the office hour for personal calls. Today, I got appointments with:
- my doctor who does the pregnancy follow up (her secretary didn't give me a hard time today, usually she doesn't like when I take Saturday appointment, she said Saturdays are reserved for emergency cases)

- a gynecologist for the follow up from 7th month to the due date (we were worried as during the second ultrasound last week, we were told that it was too late to take an appointment with their gynecologist, which is necessary if we want to do the registration for the delivery with this hospital)

- a midwife for the delivery preparation classes (I'm so glad she works on Saturday, most of the gynecologist don't work on Saturday except one that are on duty for emergency cases)

Wow I'm so relief now that I have taken these appointments. Everything seems to get back on track. I was worried that non of the gynecologists would have a spot for me.

The 88th birthday

I have never expected that while I'm assimilating to the French culture, my French family is learning and practicing some of my Malaysian culture too. The day after I got my 10 years resident card, my FIL emailed me saying that:" Do you realize that you got the card on 8.8.09, a very lucky date?" I was like, wow no I didn't realize, and didn't know they would even remember that.

(For your information, 8 is considered as an auspicious number in the Chinese culture, that was why the China Olympics' inauguration ceremony last year was held at 8.08pm on 08.08.08)

Then, my in laws decided to celebrate hubby's grandma's 88th birthday since it is supposed to be a lucky age for her. So off we went to a small touristic town in the west of the Brittany. As usual, she greeted us with her delicious home cook meals.


She lives alone since grandpa passed away several years ago. Whenever we come visit, she would cook us our favorite dishes and desserts. She purposely prepared the Lemon Tart as dessert as she knows it is one of my favorite desserts here. During the preparation, she accidentally burnt the tart and was upset for a while. She quickly prepared a second one, but I liked the burnt tart as well and everyone finished it before starting the second tart.


I'm just lucky to have a loving and caring grandma like this. On the other hand, I don't know if I can bear to live alone in such a big house, passing my days reminiscing on everything happens here.

My 140 euros Renault Laguna keycard

We have finally bought a new Laguna keycard, which costed us 140 euros for both the new key and the reprogramming.

Three years after we bought the car (used), the keys started to have problems. One couldn't unlock and one couldn't lock. We tried to put the battery from one card to another but it didn't work. For a while, we locked the car manually, which involved getting out of car, leaving the back door open and leaning in and hitting the central locking button. Unlocking the car involved taking out a part on the handle and take out the key from the keycard. We were bearing with these for a while until one day, one of the keys couldn't start the car anymore. When push on the start button, a red round light flashes on the car screen.

We were afraid that the other key will follow suit and one day we would not be able to start the car entirely. We decided to pay the price: 140 euros just to get a new car key!

I would like to have another key as a backup but paying another 140 euros is just too much to bear. I decided to check on the internet, and here I found this site teaching people how to repair a Laguna key themselves:
http://west-penwith.org.uk/blog/archives/203

I haven't tried it yet as it involves mending one of the components. We don't have the tool to do it.

Another solution, a garage in UK repairs the key for 25 pounds plus postal cost:
http://www.keyrepair.co.uk/

I would like to find a garage that would repair it just for 25 euros, anyone knows any garage like this in France?

One month pregnant & we already had to do all these...

We went for a doctor visit to confirm my pregnancy.

Doctor: "You are one month pregnant, expecting a Christmas baby. Now, let me tell you things you have do.
- First, register with a hospital/clinic that you would like to have the labor.
- Second, take appointment for your first ultrasound.
- Third, register with your local government run daycare center.
- Fourth, prepare documents to inform the government agencies about your pregnancy."

We were overwhelmed. I thought she was over worried so I didn't pay much attention. Hubby went online, browsed through forums to compare the 4 hospital/clinics in Nantes. About two weeks later he chose the Clinique Jules Verne. He called the clinic and was informed that they are fulled for the whole month of December! How did those people managed to reserve a bed then? They called when they were one week pregnant?

I got awaken by this news. Ok maybe In Nantes we just need to act fast. So I quickly called the second clinic in our list. Luckily the secretary informed us that they have plenty of rooms and I do not have to worry too much. However, for the first ultrasound, they were fully book on the Saturdays I wanted. Since the doctor said I have to do this between 11 to 13 weeks of pregnancy, we had no choice but both me and hubby had to take a day off.

As for the daycare center, there are three in our community with about 70 spots. The one closest to us closes on Wednesday, so it doesn't really suit our need. We were immediately discouraged by these information. They are so many babies in our areas, how can we fit into these 70 spots? We should we put the baby on Wednesday? We concluded that we should instead get a baby sitter. Friends told us that even for a baby sitter, we need to book early as in some cities the demand is higher than supply.

Gosh, so much work to do at 1.5 months, we are not even having the baby yet.

Got my 10 years carte de resident (resident card)

Cool I got my 10 years permanent resident card (carte de resident)! No more renewal every year.

Yesterday morning we walked in to the Town Hall, surprised that they are open during a holiday season, and we were the first to be served. The officer handed me a card similar to this one:


Some differences between this 10 years card and my previous one are:
- The title of the card has changed to "Carte de resident" instead of "Carte de sejour temporaire".
- The motif of stay is "Toute profession en France Metropolitane dans le cadre de la legistration en vigueur" instead of "vie privee et familiale"
With this new motif of stay, I can work in any part of France except her overseas territories.

It was a hassle free process ever since I moved to Orvault and renew my card in the local Town Hall instead of the Nantes Prefecture. This Town Hall opens every Saturday morning so I don't even need to take a day off. No appointment needed and no long queue like in the Nantes Prefecture.

2 months before my card expires, I went to the local Town Hall with a list of documents:
a. 4 recent passport size photos
b. my passport + photocopies of the first page, the entry stamp to France and the visa and it's validation date
c. hubby's ID card
d. le livret de famille (family book you got from the Town Hall during your civil wedding)
e. document that can justify your home address : electricity bill (EDF) or others
f. both me and hubby have to be present and provide at least 2 documents which can prove that we are still living together, example our tax return form (with both our names on it), our bank statement...)

Five weeks later I received a letter from the Town Hall, asking me to pick up my temporarily card (recipissee).

Another five weeks later I received the convocation to pick up the resident card. In the convocation it states that I need to bring along my expired carte de sejour, the temporarily card recipissee and an OMI stamp with 70 euros face value.

Now that I have my ten years card, I'm thinking about getting the French nationality. However, since Malaysia doesn't recognize double citizenship, it means that I would lose the Malaysian citizenship, something that is still precious in my eyes. I just hope that one day Malaysia will change the laws and allow her citizens living overseas permanently to keep their nationality.

No pressure on boy or girl

In several weeks we should be able to find out the gender of our baby. Some of our French friends here have chosen to not know the gender so that they could have surprise when their child is born. Luckily, me and hubby have the consensus to know whether it is a she or he as soon as we can.

The Chinese community in Malaysia has pretty much evolved and less emphasis on the ancient tradition of having a son. However, the influence of the Confucius thinking of continuing the family name and tree still exist in some families, especially when the person involves is the eldest son in the family. One of my neighbors tried 6 times and have 7 daughters (once she got twin), but she never gave up. Finally, she got a son at the 7th time. In my generation, people who have son at the first try usually feel relief. Those who have daughter wish they could have a son at the second or third try. The younger generation cares less about continuing the family name but most of the time it is their parents who feel guilty if they don't get any grandson as it means the family name ends on their hand. Some people believe they will meet their ancestors eventually one day, so not continuing the family name is a big shame that they could not afford to bear.

I will say that I'm very fortunate to be married into a family that welcome both boy and girl. There is no pressure from anyone around me that I have to have a son or a daughter. From my observation, in general, French families like to have at least a son plus a daughter, but they will not force it by having more kids than they wish. Hubby's paternal grandmother has more than 10 grand grand kids but non of them bear the family name. They are either grand-kids from her daughters or kids from her granddaughters. Our kid will be the first to bear the family name. If he was from a Chinese family, I think I would have all the pressure from the grandmother and even from his parents. But no, the grandmother loves all her grand grand-kids, it doesn't matter which side they are from. Lucky us!

As for me, I wanted a girl but now I'm not sure anymore. During a conversation with my carpooler, he told me that he wished to have a daughter but he is now happy to have two sons. If he were to have a daughter, he would have worried to death about many things: if she will get cheated by other men, pregnant at early age...but now he just need to tell his sons to practice safe sex. I think his logic kind of got into me. As for hubby, he is happy to have either son or daughter, nonetheless he is worried that he has to fight with his daughter to use the bathroom. "Just ask her to put the makeup kit and mirror in the her room", I told him. :-)

It has been 3 years

It has been 3 years we are civilly married. Since we had another one wedding in Malaysia (Feb) and one in France (Sept), we have not decided which date we would use as our wedding anniversary. So, last two years we didn't do anything for this civil anniversary, but this year we decided to go for a nice restaurant. The food were yummy.

After years of sweet couple's life we decided that it is time to add a family member to our life. After many attempts, we are happy to announce that we are impatiently waiting for our little one to join us at the beginning of next year. We are very excited but at the same time are overwhelmed with all the things to do at the moment: medical check up each month, paper works, child care, and me morning sickness every day. We had a very special moment during the first ultrasound, when we visually see a new life growing and waving and kicking in my stomach, we were overjoyed!

Help or no help

Recently I discovered that one of my coworkers actually takes train to work from Nantes to Rennes. She told me that she doesn't drive. In the morning she would leave home 15 minutes before 7am to catch the train at 7.25am. She arrives in the office at around 9.15am. In the evening, she leaves the office at around 5.30pm and only arrives home at 9pm!

Gosh, I can't believe she has been doing this for over three months now. She told me that it is ok in the morning as there is a direct train, but during the evening, the latest direct train leaves at 5.30pm and the one she takes has connections here and there causing her to arrive home late.

Knowing her situation, I immediately try to think of ways to help her. I contacted another coworker who is doing carpooling with me during the summer, and turned out he is living like 5 minutes walking distance away from her! So, he picked her up in the second morning and we gave her a ride home and it had saved her a lot of times.

Unfortunately, we are 4 this week so we won't be able to continue helping her. When I told hubby about this, he said that he would firstly ask why is she not driving. In her case, the company would for sure provides her a rental car if she doesn't have her own. Sincerely, it has never crossed my mind to ask this question. I think this is too private, if she holds herself from driving and suffers from so much trouble, there must be a pretty good reason, like for example she used to have accident or she is panic when driving. Hubby has a different point of view. He thinks that no matter what, it is time for her to start driving. He would only help if she could give a reasonable reason.

Well, I agree with hubby but I still think that if it doesn't cause me much trouble to give her a hand, I don't mind doing so. Now I'm just glad that I drive and have a valid driver license, I don't think I can stand spending 5 hours just on traveling to/from work everyday!

The morning ritual II

A while back I was posting about the morning ritual in the office and how I was glad that no one actually air kisses me. Well, not anymore as one coworker (a man) decided to kiss my cheeks every morning when he passes by. At the beginning I was taken aback and almost told him no (hey I was not very close to him you know), but I held myself and now I have gotten used to it. I notice that female coworkers don't kiss or shake hands among themselves (except with a higher ranking manager), but one decided to shake my hand every morning. Another female coworker saw it and asked why I was given a special "treatment" like this. She replied:"She is from overseas so I want to give her some international touch."

Today, I discovered that people who handle well the morning ritual win the heart of others and could be considered having the right social skills. It was not the first time I heard comment like this :" This manager is so cool, he says morning to everyone everyday". The contrary is true as well. Managers who don't go greet others from office to office are considered rude and bad in communication.

Thinking about it, the morning ritual could be an ice breaking process if one greets you every morning. It could strike into small talks and this is how a relationship starts to build. I notice that when I have an issue, I prefer to discuss openly with managers who shake my hand every morning than managers with whom I rarely see or talk to.

At this point, I haven't built up the courage to purposely go from office to office to greet everyone, but I finally managed to remember whom I have said good morning. However, when this coworker comes to air kiss me, systematically I just hand out my right hand then immediately realize ops I should raise my face instead. I blame it to the Confucius's notion of "Guys and girls shouldn't have body contact" that has been poisoning my little Chinese mind. :-)

Note: Not every company is having the same morning ritual. In hubby's company, he kisses very female coworkers (lucky him!) and the females kiss among themselves.

National Day / Bastile day

We got a day off since today is France's national day or Bastille day. I remember studying on the form 4 world history text book that 14 July 1789 marks the Renaissance area of France which led to the collapse of the monarchy system and the beginning of the Republic system.

I don't know how much the Bastille day still means to the younger generation as it was happened over 200 years ago. Hubby complained that all the TV channels were featuring the national day parade in Paris and he couldn't watch the Tour de France (annual bicycle tour). When finally he managed to watch the sport in the afternoon, some teams were on strike so it was not really a competing day.

Bastille day, it is a day I do some housework and a day for hubby to play non stop his new Wii games :-)

Working in a complaining environment

My coworkers with whom I share the same office room are all on their summer vacation. I will be all by myself for around two weeks, and since from 14 July to 15 August are the most popular summer vacation period, there won't be much people around in the office.

On one hand it will be quite, on the other hand I really appreciate this break away from the complaining /cursing work environment. I'm not sure if it is the nature of this industry, I'm constantly hearing complains, unsatisfactory comments, curses, long sighs... and a lot of profanity. Since I'm learning French I always try to notice how people express themselves in a certain way but when I hear words like these my ears automatically closed:
He is balls breaking (Il est casse couilles) = He is annoying
I made a conclusion, everything that involves balls (couilles) must be something bad so I shouldn't pick them up.

Besides profanity (which is really not a big deal as long as I don't use them myself), I was not really getting used to complains whenever we start using a new system / project / method. People would say "oh this is never going to work" or "I don't know why they made this stupid decision". Once I told my coworkers that "if you know you can't change it, just accept it and move on", they all looked at me. Eventually, either I complain with them together or I just say nothing.

Once I jokingly told a French friend my observation about this complaining culture, he told me that it is better than the American or the Japanese one. The American, they just say "Gorgeous, perfect, you did a good job" for anything you have done and the Japanese just make a fake smile and will never tell you what they really think. So, at least these French are sincere, and since complaining is just so common, they are actually not complaining or whining, but just making a normal statement / comment on a situation. Basically, according to him, when a French is complaining, he just treat him as saying something.

His comment really impressed me. I hope after a while, I can start accepting that certain complains are just simply a way of expression.

Those Pedros, Sitis and François

I was having a heated conversation with a French about purchasing power. I told him that I enjoyed a higher purchasing power when I was living in Austin with an example that hubby and me were going out for restaurant 3-4 times a week. Here in France, except for lunch with co-workers (with restaurant ticket), we hardly go to restaurant since they are expensive. He immediately replied that restaurants in the USA are cheaper because they exploit those Pedros from Mexico and pay them peanuts. Ok, personally, I didn’t go to the kitchen to check whether there was any immigrant each time I dine in a restaurant. His comment just made me think of some examples I read in the newspaper and a story written by a professor from Taiwan.

Story from a Taiwanese professor:
I was a kid whose daily activity is to wander around the street. My parents had no job so they couldn't afford to send me and my sibling to school. One day, there came a bunch of people with fancy cars and clothes. They built a factory here and hired my parents and other villages as workers. With our parents' salary, we were able to go to the school. I enjoyed learning and playing with my classmates. However, this didn't last long. One day, a bunch of people came to our village. They said they are humanist. They said the factory exploited our parents. Eventually the factory was closed and our parents were once again out of job. I was back to the street. I want to ask:"Why? Why do these humanist made our parents out of job and made me and my siblings withdrew from the school? Who are they?"

A real story from Siti, one of our Indonesian maid:
Siti is from Indonesia and she is currently working as a house maid in Malaysia. She works 15 hours a day, 7 days a week for a peanut salary. She is married and has two kids. I asked her why she wanted to work so far away from her country. She told me that she would never earn this kind of salary in her country as a maid. With her sacrifice, she can now send her kids to school, she will be able to buy a house after several years of work. She just need to continue working for some times and she will be able to change the future, if not hers, the one of her children.

Stories from French newspaper:
François was working in a factory which was a supplier for a car maker. He was laid off recently due to the recent crisis in the car industry. The unemployment agency ANPE suggested him to apply to three job, to which he refused. According to him, two of the jobs are located 100km from his house and this is just too much for him. He doesn't want to sacrifice his family time on traveling to work. The other job was not in his current line and he was not motivated for it.

Françoise was participating in a demonstration in front of her factory. She worked only during the weekend but recently the factory didn't call them to work during the weekend. Her and her coworkers discovered that the management was actually asking the weekly shift (Monday - Friday) workers to work during the weekend to compensate those who only work 3 days a week due to the slow down in demand. The management offered those weekend shift workers to change to weekly shift workers but she refused. She said:"I don't want to do this as I live 50km away from here. I can do it for two days but 5 days is simply too much. Those weekly shifts people shouldn't steal our job!"

Ok, I do not personally know any Mexican in Austin. One of my classmates was from Argentina and he told me that he worked part time delivering pizza and he was earning USD40k a year. "People pay me generous tips, a very big part of my pay". With this part time, he was able to pay off his school fees. He is now an accountant.

Now back to the comment of my French friend who talked about worker exploitation. For him, any job that is not paying minimum wage and has no holiday is considered exploitation. So, why, knowing that being exploited, these Sitis and Pedros are still willing to travel thousand kilometers away from home? For me, yes they are being exploited, but at the same time they are fighting for a better future. Without being exploited, these Pedros, Sitis might still live in poverty and will stay poor for the next couple of generations. They are not as lucky as those French who can simply refuse to travel to work and still receive government help. I just think that French shouldn't use their standard to judge other countries (just like the humanist who closed the factory with a good reason but eventually didn't change the life of the villagers there).

France new cabinet

I didn't know this could happen: France got a new government cabinet, 8 ministers were out and 8 new one joined in. The remaining were holding different position than the previous one. All these are done without even dissolving the old cabinet for a new election.

Well, I have only partially understood the political system here. Unlike in Malaysia, France really implement the separation of the 3 powers: judiciary, executive and legislative. The president and the representatives are directly elected by the people. These representatives do not hold any position in the cabinet.

So people like Samy Vellu who was elected to represent a department would not be a minister in the cabinet in France. Unfortunately, under the Malaysian system, he was holding work minister of Malaysia for over 20 years, known as the longest serving ministry ever in the history of Malaysia. He was in the executive and legislative branch at the same time. In fact, the Malaysian constitution requires that the Prime Ministry must be a member from the parliament and cabinet members are chosen from among the lower house (elected by the people) and the upper house (assigned by the Prime Minister).

I'm just a bit surprised that there exist countries that actually have different people in the legislative and executive power. And they can just change the cabinet before the 5 years term. It would be nice to different people leading the government every once in a while.

Where to find Marmite in Nantes

I have been running out of Marmite for a while and just couldn't find it in any French supermarket here. I purposely went to Chinatown last weekend as some people told me some Chinese grocery stores might be selling it, but I didn't see any. I need Marmite every time I eat porridge and recently I have been craving for porridge. So where I can find Marmite in Nantes? Posted this question on Facebook and two minutes later someone gave me a link to a forum and someone in the forum mentioned about Comptoir Irlandais, an Irish shop that sells Irish football clubs products plus some grocery.

I have never thought of finding it in an Irish shop. I forgot this product is originated from England. 6.50 euro for 250g, very expensive, but no choice, better than sending it from Malaysia.

The address of this Irish shop (hubby said it is a chain and the owner is from Brittany):
12, rue de Verdun
Angle rue de Strasbourg, between la Cathédrale and les Nouvelles Galeries

http://www.comptoir-irlandais.com/

Now I can enjoy my porridge with Marmite!

Class duty

I'm very surprised that in France students do not have to perform class duty.



Basically, they do not directly participate in cleaning the classroom: sweep the floor, clean the white board, align and tidy the chairs and desks, wipe the windows, empty the dustbin and decorate the white board at the back of the class with articles, photos, students art work...


My MIL told me that during her time, she had to go collect woods for the school. But Hubby and FIL had never involved in anything like this during their school life. My MIL explained that ever since the 1968 student demonstration, French education system has evolved in a way that students are protected against labor type of works. Their only duty is to study. And, no extra curriculum activities.


Personally I think class duty is necessary to help build the sense of responsibility, teamwork and sense of belonging to the class. During my time, class duty started as ever as standard 1 (primary school). Usually, every student has to perform the duty once a week, either before class started or during the recess time. During the duty, two students sweep the floor, two students align the desks and chairs, one wipe the windows, one clean the white board and empty and dustbin. A class committee would be nominated to handle the cleaning schedule and make sure everyone does their job. A prefect would be given the responsibility to grade the cleanliness of the class everyday. Every class competes for the Cleanliness Award which is given out once a month and class who won would hung the Award (a flame with a certificate) in the classroom. I had been a class committee. For a very long time we never won the Award. I didn't understand it as it was a boy school and only form 6 classes had girl students and usually girls clean better than guys. So, I led a group of students to decorate the classroom with Chinese NY red envelope and the Malay ketupat wrapping plus made sure everyone cleans well everyday. Eventually, we got the Award, but it was immediately broken by our class monitor while trying to hung it on the wall. Well, at least it was something to be nostalgic about.

French mother's day

Today France celebrates Mother's day. In France it falls on the last Sunday of May, and since this year the Pentecost fell on that day, the Mother's day is thus postponed to the first Sunday of Jun.


In the conjunction of Estuary 2009 arts festival in Nantes, we invited our parents in laws over to unveil the latest creation of the Royale de Luxe, a French mechanical marionette street theater company founded in Nantes. The theme this year is about the waking of a giant who was buried under the Loire River who has a mission to find his niece.

The parents in laws were impressed by the street theater show and we had a nice evening which ended with this yummy cake.

Missing the rice dumpling

Today is the Dragon boat festival, during which the Chinese community prays with bak zhang (rice dumpling in Hokkien) and organizes dragon boat competition. Some people believe that this festival is aimed to remember a famous Chinese poet, who killed himself during the Zhou Dynasty when his country fell into the enemy's hand. People who love him prepared rice dumplings and throw them into the river so that fishes won't eat his dead body. Some people were riding on boats to look for his body thus come the Dragon boat festival.

It has been years I haven't tasted a real bak zhang. Last time I ate some homemade one was back in 2002. Hubby was with me in Malaysia and he immediately fell in love with these mouthwatering dumplings. It requires long hours of preparation and usually we will eat them as breakfast, lunch and dinner. Neighbors exchange bak zhang as every family may have different fillings inside the bak zhang. My favorite remains the one with salty egg yolk with lots of chestnut and dried shrimps.


Austin has a huge Chinese community so during my days there I managed to find some bakzhang (with very different tastes) to ease my craving. Me and hubby even volunteered for the Dragon boat festival by transporting the boats through the Travis lake during the training seasons. Beside the Dragon boat competition, some groups were playing traditional Chinese musics, presenting Chinese art crafts and of course some festive foods.

I have asked the Chinese shop in my area whether they sell rice dumpling during the festival and the answer is no. They said I have to order from Paris. I have not heard of any community organizing anything about this festival. Probably one day when the Chinese community is growing, we are going to have Dragon boat festival on the Erdre river. Let's just hope. :-)

Cute animal

Saw this rabbit beside a parking. I was wondering why we can see so easily these rabbits whenever there is a park nearby in France, but seldom in Malaysia.

Squirrels, they are everywhere in Austin, but you don't see them often in Malaysia.

So what do we have in Malaysia? An animal that wander around? Monkey! But they are absolutely not cute as they steal stuffs from houses and play tricks with you. Once a monkey stole a banana from our old house and he was eating it on the tree while looking down at us. His attitude pissed us off but we can do nothing.

The slanted eyed Chinese

Since there are not many Asians in my community, I sometimes get stared at especially from kids. I didn't know this applies in Spain as well.

When I was in Estartit, I was walking towards a Spanish boy who was around 5 years old. He was looking at me from far and when I was almost passing him, he slanted his eyes at me.


I was not offended at all but it is just something to ponder upon: Why does he know to do this eyes gesture when he sees an Asian? Do they teach this now in the school?

A dive in the Mediterranean sea

Despite the shining sun and the blue sea, I was bored to death in Estartit. After two days, I have wandered in most of the streets and even climbed up the mountain to have a panoramic view of the stunning Mediterranean sea. The rest of the week I had nothing else to do so I decided to go on the boat with hubby one day just to see how a dive goes.

We departed from this harbour

Passing by these two rock islands

Briefing of the diving areas before jumping into the water

Every first level diver is accompanied by an instructor

Well waiting for hubby I was accompanied by this cute little dog who seemed to enjoy herself with the view.

Everyone is underwater now but the bubbles on the surface show their positions

Everyone is back after around 45 minutes of dive

Some divers have underwater camera so I managed to see the undersea view. They saw a fish with only one tooth, it just cracked me down. :-)

We are back, but have to go again

We are finally back from the 11 hours road trip from Spain. It was a very painful journey as due to the heavy restaurant food for the whole week, both me and hubby are not feeling well, bad digestion I guess.

We have a wedding to attend tomorrow, so have to repack the luggage and go on road trip again tomorrow. I'm really not looking forward for it as I know it is going to be a long long long dinner again, not really in the mood for that. :-(

Estartit - Apéro everyday

We are having apéro everyday on the apartment balcony facing the Mediterranean sea before going to the restaurant for dinner. I don't know how those French handle their stomach but I certainly can no longer take all those ham and nuts and drinks before going for the fatty Spanish food. I skipped some of the apéro and I know it is impolite but at one point I just don't care anymore.


Last night in Spain and I guess we are going to have a long apéro again.

Estartit

Ok. Some updates from Estartit but my laptop battery could die any time and the bar owner just told me that I can't use their plug to recharge. Well, the wireless hot spot is in front of the harbour and there is no plug available anywhere except if you are in a building. The tourism office refused to let me use their plug so I don't know where else I can use one.

Here is just a photo I took from a walk to the mountain while hubby was diving. He is having two dives per day so I have plenty of time to wander around.


More update if I manage to find a bar that allows me to use their plug.

Vacationing in Estartit, Spain

We are having a diving trip in Estartit Spain and I will not be able to update the blog until 8 May.