ABC letter F for flood.

Borrowing my aunty Francisca Leong's photo. I have often written about the annual floods in Sibu. The flood water usually comes at night, and Mum and Dad would get us all up to push the car to a higher place. We would wade in the water back to the house.

The next few days, the flood water would come to our knees. That's a fun time for us, swimming and paddling in a man made raft that Dad made for us.

When the water recedes, it is not nice, vegetables, papaya trees die, and worst still, dead animals float away

Did I ever tell you I have a phobia of rats and mice? During the flood, the rodents come up to the raised edges of the vegetable beds. I associate the rats with the plague of London.



http://abcwednesday.com

Freesias 2017

Freesia is a genus of about 14 species. Freesia bulbs are usually grown for use asCut Flowers. All the 14 species of Freesia are African in origin. Of The 14 Freesia species, 12 are native to Cape Province, South Africa, the remaining two to tropical Africa, with one these species extending north of the equator to Sudan. Freesia flowers are very fragrant, typically white or yellow, and are borne in spikelike racemes. This blooming beauty captures your heart and is a springtime favorite.

http://floralfridayfoto.blogspot.co.nz/

Freesia plants stem from bulbs, so they should be planted in at least groups of three in high-quality composted soil. Grow freesias directly in the ground or in containers.

Freesias grow in my garden and bloom in winter. The winter cold

Chinese surnames

陳 Chén 陈 Chén

Chan Cantonese, Ting/Ding Foochow, Tan Hokkien Chin Hakka

Chen ([ʈʂʰə̌n]) (simplified Chinese: 陈; traditional Chinese: 陳; pinyin: Chén; Wade–Giles: Ch'en) is one of the most common East Asian surnames of Chinese origin. It ranks as the 5th most common surname in China as of 2007 and the most common surname in Singapore (2000) and Taiwan (2010).

This is me holding a book written by a Chen's group in New Zealand. I had to borrow this. China is very big with over 1 billion people and people speaking different dialects. The writing however is the same. I grew up where there are different dialects, and my Quang Ning Chen is written as Chan. There are others, Ting/Ding Foochow, Tan Hokkien Chin Hakka.

Recently, some one thought I was a Chang/Zhang which is another 张?

To make it more complicated, I married a Hakka whose Chen is Chin, hence my professional name is Chin-Chan.

conflicting beliefs.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/buddhist-ceremonial-release-captive-birds-may-harm-wildlife/

A young Vietnamese woman’s husband fell ill. Desperate for a cure, she later recounted, she visited the local Buddhist temple. A monk there instructed her to “release 40 birds, one for every year of your husband’s life.” So she did, purchasing and releasing 40 birds at the temple grounds. The woman soon rejoiced; her husband made a full recovery.

I grew up in a Christian family in Sibu where many people were Christians. I did not know about Fong San, "release a life" until I went to Singapore. An Indian friend's husband, a colleague of my husband, Prof in NTU found a tortoise with red paint written on the underbelly of the tortoise. She did not know what it meant. A friend explained Fong San. She said this is a bad custom, Fong San in this case meant getting the tortoise to carry away the bad luck/sickness to the person who picks it up.
I have found out since other reasons, and in my latest book, I wrote about it.
Thanks Ritchie for writing about it. He uses the term 放生 (Fàngshēng) which is in Mandarin.
Religion aside, some people during weddings and funerals, release doves etc. Environmentally this is frown on.
 A reader commented:

The truth meaning of fangsheng is not releasing bad luck or sickness. It's releasing of a capture animal's life to harvest good karma.

 May be some people in Singapore have other thoughts.

that's their own interpretation. That's loads of bullshit.

There is another bullshit thing they practise. If for no reasons they treat/chia you for a free meal/makan, it is usually a person in that family is very sick. By treating people to dinner/makan, the makan people who help spread the bad luck away. Conversely, a rich properous person has a birthday, people come to eat and even DAPAU/takeaway. The idea is to take the good luck home.

As a writer of both fiction and non fiction. For ficttion,  I write for entertainment. Recently, a man bought a tortoise for his pet. His wife asked him if he had checked for any paint. He retorted, of course I had, you think I am stupid.

Buddhists across Asia release wildlife as a show of compassion, but conservationists find that the practice tortures the animals and may impact threatened species.

 

New Zealand Chinese in Historical images by Phoebe Li

 Helen Wong, NZ Historian and researcher with Phoebe Li.

Recollections of a Distant Shore: New Zealand Chinese in Historical Images 域外拾珍： 历史影像中的新西兰华人 By Phoebe Li and John Turner.

Had the privilege to meet Phoebe Li , Post Doc of Tsinghua University during the Auckland Family Expo. The New Zealand Chinese Association was promoting the above book.

She is currently working on the history of the Chinese in Australia through a media studies approach.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201831464/the-chinese-who-made-nz-home

 http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201831464/the-chinese-who-made-nz-home

The Chan family came to NZ, we have two lawyers, a forester, 2 PhDs and a writer married to a PhD.

Huckleberry Finn

https://www.facebook.com/ruth.sibat/videos/vb.1449381876/10213318728469926/?type=2&theater&notif_t=comment_mention&notif_id=1502433077018786

Do you believe in Vibes? My friend from Methodist school talked about Mark Twain. I thought of Tom Sawyer painting the fence. My Friend Ruth posts a video of a raft. Ruth's bro Joseph was my classmate. The raft reminds me of Huckleberry Finn. I had to borrow the video.

Then we traced back to 1967, and found our teacher who taught us English.